LAKELAND, Florida — A longtime Lakeland resident would like to see the city recognize golf’s critical role in its development, as yet another course is plowed over for a housing development.
Gene Owen has looked out from the shore of Lake Parker at the roughly 56-acre field toward East Memorial Boulevard. Passing drivers see a cow pasture that’s been dug up as construction starts on a 199 single-family home development, dubbed Cypress Point at Lake Parker.
To Owen, it’s part of the former home of one of Lakeland’s first public golf courses — Lakeland Country Club. One whose story he says has been lost to time.
“Flying, golf and citrus were all wrapped up in one big ball of wax,” he said. “Golf was huge, especially for Lakeland.”
Owen said his goal is to have a historic monument or marker put up at Cleveland Heights Golf Course to commemorate its 100th anniversary in 2025. He wants to see public acknowledgment that the Heights and other early golf courses put the city on the map.
This image, found in Lakeland Public Library’s collection, was used on a postcard discovered by Lakeland resident Gene Owen dated to 1918 of Lakeland Country Club off Lake Parker. (Image provided by Lakeland Public Library)
It started when Owen found a 1920 pamphlet that described Lakeland as having two golf courses. It didn’t specify which ones. It was dated prior to Cleveland Heights Golf Course and, even later built, Carpenter’s Home golf course.
“I wanted to know: What two golf courses was it talking about?”
In 1910, Willard Fordyce Hallam, a Washington, D.C-based publisher, bought roughly 3,000 acres in Lakeland Highlands and Highland City for $25,000 ($5.25 an acre). Within two years he built a three-story hotel off what is now Clubhouse Road where he invited investors and wealthy families to stay. Hallam’s goal was to sell 10-acre lots of a citrus grove for $960 ($96 an acre) with an additional fee for a home to be built on the property. In exchange, landowners were promised part of the proceeds of the citrus co-op. As part of his effort to attract people to the area, Owen said Hallam began building a golf course on the shores of Scott Lake, in an area now a nature preserve. It opened in January 1917. Not everyone in Lakeland was thrilled about the travel distance from downtown Lakeland to the golf course at Scott Lake, according to Owen.
Lakeland businessman Clinton Todd wrote a 1919 letter to The Lakeland Evening Telegram expressing his frustration with having to travel so far to Hallam’s golf course, according to Owen. By the following year, Todd and a group of investors had acquired land off Lake Parker building a boathouse and pier.
A public golf course opened off the south shore of Lake Parker in 1921. Owen has a postcard of the course titled “18-hole golf course overlooking Lake Parker, Lakeland Country Club.”
It made its mark on early golf history when the Professional Golf Association held a tournament at the Lake Parker course.
“The early legends of golf were here in Lakeland,” Owen said
Among those who played were Bobby Jones, a World Golf Hall of Fame inductee who founded and helped design Augusta National Golf Club and co-founded the Masters Tournament. Others included Sandy Alves, a golf course construction manager for the world-famous Donald Ross; American amateur golfer Eddie Loos; Cyril Walker, a U.S. Open champion; and more.
The course, early maps show the railroad running through it, faced some stiff competition. Cleveland Heights Golf Course opened for private membership in 1925.
The Lakeland Country Club off Lakeshore Drive can be found listed in Lakeland’s 1928 directory, Owen said. However, its name no longer appears in the directory by 1931.
By that time, Carpenter’s Home was now listed in the directory. The home was opened in 1929, with the greens to become known as Wedgewood Golf Course opened in 1931. The land has been purchased and is slated to be developed into 954 homes by Mulberry-Based SJD Development to create Gibson Trails.
Cleveland Heights Golf Course is the only one of Lakeland’s four early golf courses remaining, Owen said.
Bob Donahay, Lakeland’s director of parks, recreation and cultural arts, told The Ledger he would be very supportive of efforts to put a historic plaque or monument at Cleveland Heights Golf Course.
“It’s amazing what he’s found,” Donahay said. “I think it’s a rich part of Lakeland’s history.”
Sara-Megan Walsh can be reached at swalsh@theledger.com or 863-802-7545. Follow on Twitter @SaraWalshFl.
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