- June 21, 2025
-
-
Loading
Loading
Nearly eight months after Hurricane Milton slammed into the west coast of Florida, a golf club in Tampa heralded that it had completed what it called a “remarkable comeback” following the storm.
The club’s owner, Orlando-based Concert Golf Partners, announced in a news release May 29 that following extensive damage to the course it had bounced back and returned “to fully operational excellence.”
But in a world where hyperbolic news releases are the norm, the announcement was a bit of an understatement.
The reality is, the Carrollwood Country Club had made a remarkable comeback months earlier and what was being announced was the completion of work — which cost some $2 million — that began in the hours and days immediately following Milton Oct. 9.
“I've never been through this,” says Brian Thornbury, the club’s general manager. “I'm a Florida native. I've been through hurricanes. But the back to back weather events? I knew we were going to have some damage, but not that extensive.”
Thornbury, like millions across the region, woke up the morning after Milton to see the devastation the storm, which came just about two weeks after Hurricane Helene, had caused. Areas that had never flooded before saw water creep into homes and businesses. Neighborhoods were destroyed. Shops were washed away.
The initial clean up began immediately, though in some places it hasn’t been completed.
At the Carrollwood Country Club, the entire fleet of golf carts was lost because of flooding. The sand in bunkers was completely washed out and contaminated dirt had taken its place. And more than 100 trees fell while broken branches hung 50-feet over the course.
Despite the scale of the damage, the course opened in time for a scheduled member’s tournament seven days after Milton.
In the months since, the club owners and employees have joined many others along Florida’s west coast rebuilding, improving properties and, with hurricane season underway, getting ready for the next storm to come.
Carrollwood Country Club is in the heart of Carrollwood Village, a neighborhood in Tampa’s northern suburban hub.
The 27-hole course is actually three 9-hole courses.
According to Concert Golf, this configuration allows players to play “varying course rotations” with different challenges.
The longest — and most difficult — is the Cypress course. Meadow, the shortest, has small undulating greens (uneven putting surfaces) and bunkers surround each green. And Pine has water, the scourge of most golfers, on seven of its nine holes and finishes on an island green.
A host of top golfers have played Carrollwood since it was founded in 1972, including Arnold Palmer and Sam Snead, according to Concert.
In addition to the golf courses, the club has a double-sided practice facility with multiple tees and practice greens; seven Har Tru tennis courts with stadium lighting; a fitness center; and a Junior Olympic-sized swimming pool. Four pickleball courts are coming soon.
Concert Golf was founded in 2011. It currently owns 38 golf clubs nationwide, including nine in Florida. That includes the Plantation Golf & Country Club in Venice; The Club at Renaissance in Fort Myers; and the Golf Club of the Everglades in Naples, which it bought in October.
The company’s CEO, Peter Nanula, last year was ranked No. 9 in Golf Inc. magazine’s list of the most powerful people in golf. He was No. 10 the year before.
Along with the work in Carrollwood, the company announced in November it was undertaking a multimillion-dollar upgrade to the clubhouse at The Club at Renaissance.
Back at Carrollwood, Thornbury recalls trying to get to the club the morning after the hurricane — which was difficult because the streets were closed. A member who lived in the neighborhood walked over, took some pictures and sent them to him.
“So, I kind of was tipped off,” he says.
What he saw in the photos — and not long after in person — was three feet of water in the cart barn where the golf carts were stored. The water itself hadn’t reached the barn, but there are drains that connect to a pond. What appears to have happened, he says, is when water in the pond reached a certain height it flowed back into the building.
The water was seat high, meaning each lithium battery was submerged and destroyed. In addition to the golf carts, the barn was used as a storage area for the club’s maintenance equipment.
Just how bad was the flooding?
During the clean-up process he found a catfish in the barn. It wasn’t a big catfish, but a catfish nevertheless.
“I knew in that moment that this wasn't storm water. This wasn't rainwater. This was just straight up pond water that back-flowed into the building,” says Thornbury.
“The cleanup effort, obviously, was pretty extreme. Everything that was submerged, there was no salvaging it.”
On the golf course itself, there were uprooted trees laying on the turf or leaning precariously, and the bunkers, well, there was no salvaging the bunkers at that moment.
Within a couple of days, Concert had diverted emergency tree crews working at its West Lake Country Club in Augusta, Georgia, cleaning up after Hurricane Helene, to Tampa.
The crews were able to clean up the hazardous debris and over the next few weeks clear storm-damaged mature oaks, cypress trees and towering palms on the courses.
The company also shipped a temporary fleet of carts before it bought a fleet of 90 new E-Z-GO carts. It also remade the bunkers by lifting, shaping and re-contouring them to improve play.
For the cleanup of the bunkers, trees and replacing a 10-month-old fleet of golf carts, the cost exceeded $2 million, Concert says. Insurance is not covering all of the expenses and only a fraction of the actual cost of the bunkers.
Michael Abramowitz, the company’s vice president of public relations and communications, says “we fix it first and then we figure it out with the insurance company later.”
“We don't wait for them to write us a check to get going. We try to get going first, he says.
“That's why, you know, we're willing to do whatever it takes to get the course back playable for the members.”
