Public golf courses swing for revenue as upgrades continue

The city has spent more than $750,000 on changes in recent years at Winter Park Pines and the Winter Park Nine

June 4, 2025

By Charles Maxwell

The nine-hole Winter Park Golf Course and the 18-hole Winter Park Pines Golf Club are undergoing upgrades this year, part of more than $750,000 Winter Park has spent in recent years on the city-owned courses. 

The goal, said Parks and Recreation Director Jason Seeley, is to keep the courses profitable, as other courses across the region have closed or fallen into disrepair. 

The Winter Park Nine saw an increase in rounds played last year to 52,000 as well as a jump in revenue from membership and greens fees, according to city records. But the Pines saw a decrease in rounds played in 2024 to 33,000 as well as a drop in greens fees, though membership revenue increased compared to 2023. 

Improving the Pines course, which the city purchased in 2022 for $8 million after the private owner pushed to redevelop the land or else allow the manicured fairways to grow wild, remains a top priority, said Jason Seely, director of parks and recreation. 

He said the city is exploring the idea of adding tracking technology to the driving range that could draw more people to the sport. Options like Trackman Range could turn the Pines into a Topgolf-like hang-out in Winter Park with virtual golf games and realistic course simulations. 

“It would bring a whole different vibe to the facility,” Seeley said. “It goes from being just a golf course, which is great for golfers, to also being a place where anybody in the community might use it.” 

Seeley recently traveled to Clermont National Golf Course to learn more about their inrange system, similar to Trackman. 

He said Clermont National’s driving range now “does better than the actual golf course… Not only does the range create its own revenue, it also completely changed the dynamics as far as their food and beverage. They’re no longer selling food and beverages a little bit in the morning and a little bit at lunch… they’re are selling all night long.” 

While the Pines has shown an operating profit since the city bought it, Winter Park has also invested heavily in upgrades. 

The city has spent about $600,000 on improvements so far, using money from the bonds issued to purchase the 18-hole course visible from Semoran Boulevard near Hanging Moss Road. 

Changes include lengthening the course and increasing the par from 69 to 72, renovations to the clubhouse and restrooms, an outdoor patio and beer garden, a new driving range surface and automated ball dispenser, planting new pine trees and other landscaping and replacing or repairing three bridges on the course. 

While the number of rounds played at the Pines dropped in 2024, which included two weeks of rain closures, the course still showed an operating profit. Revenue decreased by about $90,000 to $1.7 million from 2023 to 2024, according to city records, and operating expenses totaled about $1.6 million. 

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A recent photo shows a patchy green at Winter Park Pines, the 18-hole golf course purchased by the city in 2022. (Photos by Charles Maxwell)

Although the course’s revenues have not covered the interest on the debt from the purchase, the city defends the decision to rescue the course. 

In a recent email to residents, Mayor Sheila DeCiccio said the Pines “is not just a golf course. It is permanently protected parkland.” 

Winter Park is not the only local government to buy a course after owners threatened to build more homes or condos over the green spaces. 

Oviedo bought the Twin Rivers Golf Club in 2017 for more than $5 million to prevent the land from being redeveloped. In 2021, Seminole County purchased Deer Run Golf Club in Casselberry and Wekiva Golf Club in Longwood for nearly $14 million. The county is turning Deer Run into a passive park, but Wekiva is still being operated as a course. 

The Winter Park Nine, which is nestled between the commercial district centered on Park Avenue and the neighborhood along the shores of Lake Osceola, is also showing a smaller profit despite nearly 52,000 rounds played last year compared to 42,000 in 2022.

Profit fell from about $205,000 to $106,000 over the same two-year period as improvements continued on the course that dates back to 1914. 

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The city has operated the nine-hole Winter Park Golf Course for more than three decades.

The city purchased the course in the mid-1990s after operating it for years. In 2016 it underwent a major renovation. 

Since then, the city has spent about $150,000 on recent additional upgrades such as the patio space outside the clubhouse and expansion of the first tee box, along with a new rain shelter near hole four and an updated Thor Guard lightning prediction system.

Players at the nine-hole course will begin to notice this fall a new maintenance facility, along with new bunker liners to keep the sandtraps structurally sound during storm season and minimize future maintenance costs. 

WinterParkVoiceEditor@gmail.com

Charles Maxwell graduated from Winter Park High School and Florida Atlantic University with a BA in Multimedia Studies. His work has appeared in the South Florida Sun Sentinel and The Boca Raton Tribune, and he is a contributing writer for Keeping it Heel on the FanSided network.