The significance of Sawgrass

PGA Tour commissioner Deane Beman had to overcome years of pessimism and resistance before people began to appreciate the magic of Sawgrass. John Garrity explains.

GEOLOGISTS might quibble over the use of the term swamp to describe the 415 acres of Florida scrub that former PGA Tour commissioner Deane Beman bought in 1978 for a dollar.

The property, a few miles south of Jacksonville Beach, had the requisite alligators, opossums and water moccasins, but it was a good two feet above sea level and would have dried out between storms if Highway A1A wasn't built, shutting off natural drainage routes. "It was a man-made bog," says Vernon Kelly, who was the PGA Tour's project manager during the golf course's construction.