Featured Golf Course

The Dunedin Golf Club is located in the City of Dunedin in Pinellas County. In 1925, the Michigan firm of Frischkorn-Florida, headed by Ephraim S. Frischkorn, purchased 1,500 acres for the development of the Dunedin Isles Subdivision. In February of 1926, Frischkorn-Florida announced it would construct an 18-hole golf course designed by the legendary golf course architect Donald Ross. Work on the course started in 1926 when Ross and his staff visited Dunedin to look over the site. The golf course was finished ten months later, although some details remained to be completed. On New Year ’s Day, 1927, Frischkorn officially opened the golf course with a drive from the 1^st tee.

Fred Rigden served as the first golf professional at Dunedin and also worked at the Country Club of Detroit during the summers. Rigden was a noted club maker who made golf clubs under the name “Rigden Perfect”. The course was very popular with golfers including Gene Sarazen, who played the course regularly and set the course record in 1929 with a 65.

In 1945, the PGA of America signed a lease with the City of Dunedin to turn the course into the PGA National Golf Club. With that distinction, the golf course hosted 18 Senior Tour Championships, leading to the beginning of the Senior PGA Tour.

In February 1946, the biggest names in golf at that time, Sam Snead, Ben Hogan, Byron Nelson and Harold “Jug” McSpaden, known as the big four, played in an exhibition match to benefit the rehabilitation fund for PGA war veterans. Both Snead and Hogan were military veterans, Snead having served in the Navy and Hogan in the Army. Prior to the match, each golfer was given a deed to a home site in the Dundedin Isles subdivision. Before a gallery of several thousand fans, Snead and Hogan won 4 and 2 with Snead shooting a course record 66.

In 1954, a handful of golf merchandisers assembled in the parking lot at PGA National Golf Club at Dunedin during a series of winter tournaments. From humble beginnings in Dunedin, the PGA Merchandise Show, has become the world’s largest and most influential golf business event. In a few short years, the Show became so large, with nearly 50 manufacturers’ representatives, that PGA officials leased a tent to house the growing event. Today, the PGA Merchandise Show has become a global gathering. Held annually in Orlando, the marketplace occupies nearly 10 miles of aisles, featuring more than 1,000 companies, and over 40,000 PGA Professionals, buyers, and industry leaders from 81 countries.

Two years later in 1956, the PGA of America moved its national headquarters from Chicago to Dunedin. In 1962, unable to build a second 18-hole golf course due to lack of land, the PGA of America moved to Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.

On June 4, 2014, the Dunedin Isles Golf Club became the third golf course in Florida to be listed in the National Register of Historic Places.