{"id":180820,"date":"2026-03-06T15:03:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T15:03:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/180820\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T15:03:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T15:03:14","slug":"drought-hits-some-tampa-bay-area-golf-courses-hard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/180820\/","title":{"rendered":"Drought hits some Tampa Bay area golf courses hard"},"content":{"rendered":"

ODESSA, Fla. \u2014 Ongoing drought conditions are hurting golf courses all across the Tampa Bay area, including the Eagles Golf Club which is being hit by a one-two punch.<\/a><\/p>\n

Typically, the winter months are the busiest time of year for golf clubs across Florida\u2019s gulf coast and severe drought conditions have complicated this year\u2019s high season.<\/p>\n

Tony Johnson, VP of Regional Operations for Pinnacle Golf Properties, said on a typical night of watering during a drought the Eagles’ dual courses take in over 1.2 million gallons per overnight watering cycle. That can average over 8 million gallons of water per week.<\/p>\n

Around the holidays, the Eagles\u2019 irrigation system went down and the club\u2019s owners invested in a $1.5 million full system replacement. Amid those repairs, they lost the pump house.<\/p>\n

At one point earlier this year, Johnson says the course was completely without irrigation and had to resort to watering by hand.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were really relying on Mother Nature for several weeks,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But nature didn\u2019t cooperate, and the course was subject to severe drought. Johnson says the course superintendent worked hard to keep the greens alive, but the rough, parts of the fairway, and areas around the trap began crisping in the hot sun.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Johnson said in response, they are starting to offer discounted rates in order to keep business coming in and their loyal golfers happy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want our golfers to know that we care and we\u2019re working on it,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a tough hit on the business there\u2019s no doubt about it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The team prioritized the greens and tee boxes in hopes of not getting more significant damage.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, the Southwest Florida Water Management District declared a severe water shortage and limited Tampa Bay residents to only watering their lawn one day per week.<\/a> While golf courses don\u2019t have to follow the exact same guidelines, they must follow the district\u2019s conservation guidelines.<\/p>\n

Johnson says that hasn\u2019t come into play for them yet this drought, because they can\u2019t get enough water out to get anywhere close to their limit.<\/p>\n

\u201cNormally I would not like water restrictions,” Johnson said. “But I\u2019d like to be able to follow a water restriction right now.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ODESSA, Fla. \u2014 Ongoing drought conditions are hurting golf courses all across the Tampa Bay area, including the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":180821,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[1564,274,558,276,115,596,135,137,136,1576,278,835,221],"class_list":{"0":"post-180820","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa","8":"tag-angie-angers","9":"tag-app-top-stories","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-hillsborough-county","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-pinellas-county","14":"tag-tampa","15":"tag-tampa-headlines","16":"tag-tampa-news","17":"tag-technology","18":"tag-top-stories","19":"tag-vod","20":"tag-weather"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180820\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}