Tampa's City Golf Courses — Tampa, Florida

The City of Tampa owns three public golf courses: Rocky Point Golf Course, Babe Zaharias Golf Course in the Forest Hills neighborhood of North Tampa, and Rogers Park Golf Course on the Hillsborough River. None of the three was built by the city. Each began as a club, a neighborhood amenity or a volunteer project, and each came into city hands after a closing, a sale or a federal transfer between 1953 and 1974.

Day-to-day operation belongs to the Tampa Sports Authority. A City of Tampa news release from September 27, 2024 describes the authority as a special district that was created in 1965 by Governor Haydon Burns to plan and maintain sports and recreational facilities for the Tampa Bay area, and states that the Tampa Sports Authority still manages Babe Zaharias Golf Course today along with Rocky Point Golf Course, Rogers Park Golf Course and Raymond James Stadium. All three courses appear on the Florida Department of State's Florida Historic Golf Trail.

Rocky Point is the oldest of the three. According to its Florida Historic Golf Trail history, the Tampa Automobile Club accepted the offer of John H. Drew in 1910 to buy one and a half acres for a clubhouse and 100 acres for golf links at Rocky Point, and hired F.G. Byrd, the 1910 Southern Golf Champion, to plan the layout. Nine holes were opened for play in 1912, and the 18-hole, 5,303 yard layout was completed in 1913. In December 1915 the course hosted the first statewide amateur tournament of the newly formed Florida State Golf Association, and in 1917 the club renamed itself the Rocky Point Golf Club.

The course carries two notable golf stories from the 1920s and 1930s. On April 24, 1926, architect A.W. Tillinghast, in Tampa to build the Davis Islands Country Club course, played Rocky Point with a single mid iron and shot 90. In 1931 Ed Dudley, a former Rocky Point caddy and head professional, won the Western Open by four strokes over Walter Hagen.

World War II ended the private club. The Golf Trail records that in 1941 the federal government took over the course and closed it for use as part of Drew Army Airfield, reopening it two years later to officers, enlisted men and the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps at Drew Field. In 1953 the government turned the property over to the City of Tampa for $1. A private lessee reopened it in 1954 and expanded it to 27 holes in the early 1960s; when the 25-year lease ran out in 1978, the city gave operations to the Tampa Sports Authority, and the course was redesigned back to 18 holes five years later.

The course began as part of a 1920s land development in North Tampa. The Hillsborough County historical marker states that the course, first called Northside Country Club and soon renamed Forest Hills, was designed in 1925 by J. Franklin Meehan as part of the higher-end community developed by Burks L. Hammer, and that the Grand Tudor Revival clubhouse, built in 1926, was the community anchor amid golf, tennis, and stables. The Florida Historic Golf Trail describes a 2,000-acre development that planned two courses, of which only Forest Hills was built.

Its namesake is Mildred Babe Didrikson Zaharias (1911 to 1956). The county marker records that in the 1932 Olympics she set the world record in the javelin, won gold in the 80-meter hurdles and took silver in the high jump; that she and Patty Berg co-founded the LPGA in 1949; and that she set a 72-hole record in the 1951 Tampa Open. The sources differ on the purchase date: the marker says George Zaharias bought Forest Hills in 1949, while the Golf Trail says the couple bought it in 1950, the year Babe became the winter golf professional, and renamed it the Tampa Golf and Country Club.

After her death in 1956 the course was abandoned for years. The Golf Trail states that in 1974 the City of Tampa reopened the golf course and named it in her honor. Today it is an 18-hole, par-70 course with four sets of tees from 4,800 to 6,000 yards, and its front nine is called the Babe and its back nine the George. The City of Tampa reported in September 2024 that the course had completed a $1,000,000 renovation of all 18 greens and the practice putting green, installing new TifEagle greens and greenside bunkers at 11412 Forest Hills Drive.

Rogers Park was built by Black golfers and caddies who were barred from Tampa's other courses under segregation. The Florida Historic Golf Trail states that the park, named for businessman and philanthropist Garfield Devoe Rogers, who donated the land, was dedicated in 1951, and that Tampa Mayor Curtis Hixon gave permission to a group of Black caddies, who worked at Palma Ceia Country Club to build a 9-hole golf course at Rogers Park. The work was led by Willie Black of Albany, Georgia, who became the first head golf professional when the nine holes were completed in 1952.

The USGA describes the course as cleared by hand: Black drafted 65 volunteers to help build his dream, and caddies from across Tampa joined after work with picks, shovels and hoes. The USGA adds that Rogers Park would be only the second course in Florida to permit Black golfers to play, the other being in Miami Springs, and that it later hosted the Mid-Winter Classic, a stop on the United Golf Association circuit for Black professionals.

Accounts of the early dates differ. The Florida Department of State in 2015 said Black built the first nine holes in 1947 and that the course opened in 1952 and reached 18 holes two years later; the Golf Trail says nine more holes were added on an adjacent parcel to the west in 1961. Both agree that after desegregation in 1963 the Tampa course drew amateur and professional golfers from around the country. The Tampa Sports Authority took over management in 1976 and began a $400,000 redesign by Ron Garl, followed by a $4 million renovation from 2000 and a new clubhouse in 2002. In November 2014 the original Rogers Park Golf Course site became the fourth golf course in Florida listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Golf Trail's course descriptions give each Tampa course a distinct profile. Rocky Point is an 18-hole, par-71 course with four sets of tees playing from 4,900 to 6,300 yards, with parts of the property reserved for wildlife habitat and bird sanctuaries, plus a driving range and restaurant. Babe Zaharias, the shortest, plays tight through the tree-lined Forest Hills neighborhood. Rogers Park is an 18-hole, par-71 layout with five sets of tees from 5,000 to 6,800 yards, a Toptracer practice range and the First Tee of Tampa Bay youth program.

Rogers Park also has the largest footprint. A Department of State release from September 9, 2019, when Rogers Park was the Florida Historic Golf Trail course of the month, describes a 160-acre golf facility surrounded on three sides by the Hillsborough River, away from homes and busy streets. The road into the course is Willie Black Drive, named for its builder, according to the USGA.

Two of the three Tampa courses now carry Hillsborough County historical markers. Hillsborough County reports that the Babe Zaharias Golf Course marker was erected in 2023 by the Hillsborough County Historical Advisory Council and the Forest Hills Neighborhood Association at 11412 N. Forest Hills Drive. Its two sides cover her Olympic and LPGA career and the history of Forest Hills, including the city's rehabilitation of the course before its 1974 reopening.

Rogers Park followed in 2024. The City of Tampa issued a proclamation naming Friday, October 4, 2024 as Rogers Park Golf Course Historical Marker Dedication Day. The marker adds a county recognition to the course's 2014 National Register listing, while Rocky Point's history, from the Tampa Automobile Club to Drew Army Airfield, is documented through the state's Florida Historic Golf Trail.