Temple Terrace Golf & Country Club

Temple Terrace Golf & Country Club is a genuine piece of Florida golf history. Tom Bendelow designed and built the course in 1921 and it opened in 1922 in Temple Terrace, just 2 miles east of Tampa. On October 13, 2012 the National Park Service listed the golf course in the National Register of Historic Places, and the club says it is the only 18-hole course in Florida with that distinction.

The 18 holes play to par 72 on a layout that was unusual for its day: a figure-eight routing with no parallel fairways, and roads along both sides of most holes so that spectators could follow play by car. The course winds across land beside the Hillsborough River that was once a winter hunting preserve of Chicago's Potter Palmer family.

The current clubhouse, built in 1998, covers 20,300 square feet, with a ballroom, fine dining and the Grille lounge, whose patio looks over the first tee. A second phase added the outdoor grill and the Terrace Pool Pavilion, with a heated pool, jacuzzi, kiddie pool and tiki bar, in February 2001. The clubhouse is also a busy venue for weddings, luncheons and business events.

For golfers working on their game there is a hitting net, putting greens and chipping greens, and the instruction team, led by head golf professional James Fredericks, runs private and group lessons, clinics, a junior academy, summer camps, a Ladies Leisure League and PGA Junior League. The pro shop carries apparel, equipment and logo gifts.

Bendelow built more than four hundred courses in the early 1900s, including Palma Ceia and Medinah. At Temple Terrace he laid out holes through orange groves and new housing lots during the Florida land boom. Each hole was given a Scottish-style name after a landmark, from Tower on the first, named for a water tower, to Devil's Delight on the 16th and Hillside on the 18th.

In the Roaring Twenties the club and its casino, near the bend of the ninth, were the social heart of the area, and Al Jolson was among the stars who performed there. The club's first head professional was "Long" Jim Barnes, winner of the first two PGA Championships and the British Open. A real estate office across from the parking lot had a dome painted orange to look like a piece of fruit, and the original clubhouse behind the 18th green is now a Florida College dormitory.

In 1939 the evangelist Billy Graham, then a student at the Florida Bible Institute, settled on his life's calling while meditating one night on the 18th green. In that era the course measured 6,538 yards, with a par-five opening hole. The course record of 60 belongs to Daniel Debra, and the club's honorary members include Gary Koch, Eddie Pearce, Roberta Albers-Speer and Jim Dent.