When Deane Beman stood in the scruffy and swampy Florida flatlands more than 40 years ago and looked out at 415 acres on the west side of State Road A1A in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, he saw more than the challenge of building a golf course on real estate that few wanted.
Beman saw a way to create something monumental out of, in effect, nothing.
The Players Championship, another Beman creation during his 20-year term as PGA Tour commissioner, was a singular event in need of roots and relevance. It had bounced around in its early years with sweat-stained summer stops in Atlanta, Fort Worth and south Florida, eventually landing at Sawgrass Country Club on the east side of AIA in Ponte Vedra Beach.
Beman believed the tour’s biggest event needed its own place, its own course, its own identity.
So Beman, whose playing career was marked by his dogged determination, brought it to life even after the PGA Tour’s Board of Directors told him that he would have to do it without the tour’s money.
As another Players Championship unfolds this week, what Beman believed in – the Tournament Players Club at Sawgrass – has become more than a golf course and more than a tournament. The Stadium Course is one of the most recognizable venues in the game, and the Players Championship has created its own unique place in the sport, a standalone event that doesn’t require major-championship status to define its importance.
“The course and the facility have reached all of my expectations, but having the event be considered a major, I would have thought long before now the Players would be included as a major championship,” Beman said recently, still pushing for his event to earn “fifth major” status.
Beman, 84 years old, lives within five miles of the Stadium Course and visits about once a week to practice. It’s so busy that Beman plays most of his golf at a nearby club.
He talks with pride about the practice facility for tour players who are based there and how the Players Championship annually boasts the strongest field in golf every year.
A second course, Dye’s Valley, and neighborhoods surround the property. The tour’s new headquarters opened last year on a site adjacent to the southern boundary of the Stadium Course.
What started as those 415 acres that Beman bought for $1 – more on that in a moment – is now home to what feels like an industry. He made it happen.
“My vision for the tournament that was started the first year I was commissioner was to develop for the players their own major championship. That was the goal, but you can’t do it by just throwing money at it,” Beman said. “You need a plan.”
“The only way that the board would approve going forward was if I could find a way of building the first Tournament Players Club without any money from the tour. It required a little innovation to build a facility like we have without any money.” – Deane Beman
Beman had one, but he needed to find the money to make it happen.
When he approached the tour’s board about his idea, it went nowhere.
“The only way that the board would approve going forward was if I could find a way of building the first Tournament Players Club without any money from the tour. It required a little innovation to build a facility like we have without any money,” Beman said.
Enter brothers Jerome and Paul Fletcher, developers who owned approximately 4,000 acres across the street from Sawgrass Country Club. Beman approached them with the idea of building a course there, offering them the opportunity effectively to keep everything around it.
Beman had been struck by the development around Harbour Town Golf Links on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, and envisioned something similar across the street from Sawgrass.
It wasn’t a good time in the real estate business, which made the challenge more daunting.
The banks had taken over ownership of the property from the original developers. “That’s how bad the real estate business was at the time,” Beman said.
“I had to go to New York and sit down with the bankers who had the loan and convince the banker in New York that if he allowed the deal to go through, his security for the loan would be more valuable.
“The banker looked at me and said, ‘We have 4,000 acres as security and if I allow you to take 400 acres, I will have 3,600 but I have more security …’
“‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘but if the 3,600 is worth more, then you have a lot more security.’”
With his land purchased through a savings and loan with the PGA Tour having no liability, Beman sold 50 memberships for $20,000 apiece. That came with no dues and free carts for 20 years.
“It was a helluva deal if we were successful in building it,” Beman said.
To make sure the new course would have enough play, Beman sold 3,000 local memberships at $50 apiece, giving the buyers one round of golf annually.
Fast forward to 2022, and what is the TPC network had an annual income of approximately $140 million, according to Beman.
“Not bad for a $1 investment,” he said.
Leaning again on the Hilton Head model, Beman persuaded the husband-and-wife design team of Pete and Alice Dye to create the golf course on land approximately one mile inland from the Atlantic Ocean.
When the Players Championship moved to its new home in 1982, it created plenty of conversation, much of it from players spewing their frustration about the layout. Even though Jerry Pate took Beman and Dye for an impromptu swim after his victory in the inaugural event on the site, there wasn’t necessarily an air of celebration about the place.
He didn’t want just any course. Beman, who was struck by how difficult it was to watch golf the first time he attended a tournament outside the ropes, wanted to build it so that fans could see the action. The concept of stadium golf was born.
So was the famous par-3 17th hole, which originally was intended to be a 165-yard hole to a peninsula green. When Alice Dye suggested building a moat around the green, arguably the most famous hole in golf was created.
When the Players Championship moved to its new home in 1982, it created plenty of conversation, much of it from players spewing their frustration about the layout. Even though Jerry Pate took Beman and Dye for an impromptu swim after his victory in the inaugural event on the site, there wasn’t necessarily an air of celebration about the place.
The course had sharp edges and small greens with too much undulation.
“I agreed with them,” Beman said. “The greens were small and probably beyond the edge of fairness from the standpoint of the undulations. That was modified, some right away, some before they actually played it.”
While some of the edges have been softened over the years, the golf course itself has had few major changes.
“I don’t think anybody ever fully appreciates anything on the front end of it, but it has evolved into the place it is,” said Hal Sutton, a two-time Players Champion.
It’s a place that has its own place in the game.
Because of Deane Beman.