JACKSONVILLE BEACH, Fla. -- — Generations of golfers have played Jacksonville Beach Golf Club since it opened in 1960.
So naturally, there is a great deal of attachment to the course, which became city-owned in 1984.
"I'm getting calls every other day, people walking up every day wondering what is going on and when we're going to be playing out here again," said head pro Sandy Suckling.
Sandy has been the pro at Jax Beach for 15 years and says there have been a ton of changes in his time.
But what's happening out there now, is by far the biggest since the course was first opened to golfers 58 years ago.
"Basically we're getting a new golf course, a new look to it," he said.
Suckling says it became a matter of starting fresh. Players wouldn't know what conditions they'd see from month to month if there'd be actual grass on the greens or brown patches in the fairways.
And what started as a pitch to city council to simply re-do some greens and tee boxes, became a bigger master plan.
"That plan was way over budget for what it was, and it's a good thing it was shot down," said golf architect Harrison Minchew.
Minchew has built dozens of golf courses, and worked along with Arnold Palmer in some of his designs.
He now lives in Ponte Vedra, and says the fixes needed to be on a much bigger scale.
"We are here to make the course economically viable, improve play and improve turf conditions," he said.
That'll mean new irrigation, new turf and new greens being built.
They closed the course to play, leaving the driving range open to the public for now, to make the improvements.
He says it's actually much more economically and environmentally friendly to get the course up to more modern standards, as opposed to the way things were in 1960.
It's a roughly $1.5 million project that falls under the park and recreation budget.
"This is a golf park, just like the baseball park," Minchew said.
According to Suckling, the course had 40,000 rounds played last year. The newly formed non profit Jacksonville Beach Golf Association, who is handling these renovations, says they could get even more play and more interest because of these changes.
Along with the 18 hole renovation of the actual course, they're rebuilding and improving the driving range.
It will be much bigger, lit and wired for music according to Shaun Murphy with the Jacksonville Beach Golf Association.
"This is a place that everyone will be able to enjoy," Murphy said.
Adding to that idea is a concept borrowed from iconic golf courses like St. Andrews and Pine Hurst, an 18 hole putting course.
And for the golfers who've been playing the course for years, Minchew says the biggest changes they'll notice will come in the finished stretch of holes.
"We've redone 16," Minchew said. "It's going to play into the wind and be a long par 4."
They've also done away with some of the forced carries over water, to make it a more links style of play.
Minchew says that'll increase playability for everyone, considering how windy it is at the beach and at this course all the time.
"So 16 will be a pretty difficult hole, playing over par generally, but 17 will be a scoring hole," Minchew said of the technical changes coming.
"17 is now a drivable par four and should be playing under par or at it," he said.
And then 18 will be a relatively short par 5, adjustable to a par 4 depending on the event that is being played at the course.
They hope to have grass planted and growing by the summer and be finished and reopen for play by September.
"This is a diamond in the rough, you've just got to get it shined up," Minchew said.