District Swings With Golf

At first glance a Beach and Park District wouldn't be expected to have much of a relationship with golf.

Looks can be deceiving – especially when it comes to the Greater Boca Raton Beach and Park District.

The connection with golf goes all the way back to the District's creation and weaves throughout the District's 50 years of existence.

Created in 1974 to help the City of Boca Raton retire the debt incurred from the purchase of what would become Red Reef Park, the District came to existence at a time when many – especially northern tourists – identified South Florida as a golfing paradise. Almost immediately golf earned a spot on the District's scorecard.

The area of land from that purchase, known as the the Schine Tract, included the Sun and Surf Golf Course. The executive course nestled between the beach and Intracoastal waterway north of Palmetto Park Rd. needed an upgrade.

Upon completion of the sale, the course officially became the Boca Raton Municipal Golf Course. The name didn't change to the Red Reef Executive Golf Course until the early 1980s, a name change prompted the by City of Boca Raton creating a new municipal golf course off of Glades Rd., west of the Florida Turnpike.

Red Reef Park opened to the public in 1981. The course underwent renovations in the 1980s and again in 2001, ensuring that the Boca Raton community had a public vista for seaside golf.

As Red Reef Park opened, District Commissioners had eyes on opening another Park. In the early 1980s, when Arvida was considering selling a large plot of land west of Military Trail and south of Yamato Rd., many within the city pushed for the District to purchase all of the available land south of Yamato to Potomac Rd. with the idea of creating a new public golf course.

District Commissioners eventually elected to purchase a smaller footprint. Patch Reef Park now offers the community some of the finest athletic fields, tennis courts, pickleball courts and fitness trails within South Florida.

With Patch Reef complete but ball fields still scarce, District Commissioners made another purchase. The land east of Military and south of Palmetto Park Rd. would become Sugar Sand Park. A golf component never truly entered Sugar Sand Park's development plans, but a history of golf did exist.

In the 1920s the land served as what was then the Boca Raton Resort's golf course. Abandoned after only six months following a hurricane and the subsequent economic depression that followed, a faint outline of the course could still be seen in aerial views before the District began Sugar Sand development.

The District continued to subsidize the operations and maintenance of Red Reef Executive Golf Course throughout the 1990s and most of the 2000s without much consideration of expanding golf resources within other District owned venues. 

That changed when, having decided to sell the municipal golf course it built in the early 1980s, the City of Boca Raton requested the District purchase the land that was previously Ocean Breeze Golf Course within Boca Raton's Boca Teeca neighborhood.

The District finalized that purchase in 2017 and Commissioners immediately set about creating a world-class golfing facility for the Boca Raton community.

As final approval for the golf course design approached, The Boca Raton unexpectedly gifted its golf course on Congress Ave. to the City of Boca Raton.

Building a second public golf course within a couple miles of Boca Raton's newest municipal course seemed redundant, so District Commissioners set their sights on developing a park that could be enjoyed by golfers and non-golfers alike.

Now known as North Park, the first phase of that design, which includes an indoor pickleball facility,  walking trails, mountain bike trails, a community garden and a dog park, received approval from the City's Planning and Zoning Commission in early September.

Future phases of North Park, designs of which still require City approval, are expected to include various golf elements that the community can enjoy.