Category Archives: Aqua Greens

By Dave Allen When Matt Gault bought Aqua Greens in 2002, one of his very first calls was to The Ocean Club Course at Hutchinson Island Beach Resort in Stuart, Fla. The 18-hole executive course was one of a few courses in South Florida to have an aqua range at the time, only they had […]

Go behind the scenes with Aqua Greens owner Matt Gault, and learn how he came up with the concept for the Simmons Bank Open floating guitar island green, the challenges they had making the green float, and how they were able to make it playable and receptive to shots.

By Dave Allen For years, Crystal and her husband had been talking about having their own floating island green in their backyard at their rural Virginia home. Crystal’s husband was a golfing FANATIC. It was his biggest passion and he was very good at it, so good that he won several club championships and even […]

By Dave Allen When Matt Gault and his team were think-tanking some promotional concepts for Aqua Greens several years ago, they had this idea of putting a fretboard on the end of their guitar-shaped floating island green. The classical guitar design never made it to the water, but Gault held onto the concept, waiting for […]

By Dave Allen Randy Rockwood didn’t have to wait long to record his first hole-in-one. The plumber from Laconia, New Hampshire, took up golfing in 2014, and less than a year later, on July 4th no less, made an ace. “I should’ve stopped golfing right then,” joked Rockwood, a self-described ‘bogey’ golfer. “It got me […]

 One of the very first installments that Aqua Greens did was back in 1997 at The Club at the Strand in Naples, Fla. But like so many of the aqua ranges in Southwest Florida, the green structures took a battering from Hurricane Irma in September of 2017, with sustained winds from the then-Category 3 major […]

Back in late December 2014, Aqua Greens received a phone call from Jeff Gajewski, VP of Business Development for JHE Production (now CSM Sport & Entertainment). JHE was the event management team in charge of cross-promoting the upcoming 2015 U.S. Open Championship on FOX Sports, which was also broadcasting the Daytona 500 in February.  This […]

Fifteen years ago, aqua ranges were a novelty. Few developers saw the economic advantages and merits to digging these water-filled ranges. Today, the aqua range is as much a part of the Southwest Florida golf course landscape as alligators and sandhill cranes. While still a curiosity for much of the country, aqua ranges are turning […]

Two Januarys ago, Streamsong Resort’s Director of Facilities Ron Thompson was asked by Cobra Puma Golf to build a floating green behind its Lakeside Lodge for a pitching contest between Tour Player Ambassadors Lexi Thompson and Blair O’Neal. It was meant to be a temporary fixture, part of the festivities for the PGA TOUR Superstore […]

One of the advantages to having an aqua range, at least from a developer’s standpoint, is the amount of extra dirt that can be utilized to build up the golf course and surrounding homes in the community. Dirt is gold in the swamplands of Florida, and by excavating several acres to create a water range, […]

One of the hottest travel destinations for wine enthusiasts is Dry Creek Valley, a relatively small, rustic wine region in northern Sonoma County, Calif., featuring more than 9,000 vineyard acres and over 70 wineries. One of the oldest and most popular wineries in the region is the A. Rafanelli Winery, a fourth generation, family-owned winery […]