The concept of a stadium course that caters to the spectator experience where galleries on elevated perches could peer down at the golf action below was conceived by Beman and a D.C.-based course architect named Eddie Ault while working together on drawings for a project on the eastern shore of Maryland back in the early 1960s. While that project never got off the ground, the idea was resuscitated to create something unique and special for the Players Club at Sawgrass. “It turned out good for us because when we pulled all the muck off from where the fairways would be, we had all that material to build the spectator mounds and I wanted to build what I called a stadium golf course,” said Beman. Next on the agenda was to dig down to create lakes for the golf course. Once the die was cast, the first order of business was to build a canal all the way around the property to drain the water into the Intracoastal Waterway. From Chuck Cobb and his associates at Arvida, who bet on the difficulty of the task, not on the capability of the man doing the task.” The inscription on the accompanying plaque reads: “To Deane Beman, the man who did what we said couldn’t be done. Once course construction began, Arvida Corporation smelled success and began buying up the surrounding land.Īs for the spoils of the bet: that $100 is now behind glass in TPC Sawgrass’s clubhouse. The Fletchers owned four thousand acres in total in the area and giving up a small slice of it to the PGA Tour so they could build the permanent home of the Players Championship would make the value of the remaining land greatly appreciate. While raw land at under a penny an acre may sound like the Florida land deal of the century, it was a win-win for both parties. Beman bought the swampy Ponte Vedra Beach land from Jerome and Paul Fletcher for the lofty sum of $1.
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