The Club At Pelican Preserve, Fort Myers, FL

Heritage Golf Group has come a long way since new owners took over the company a couple of years ago. Mark Burnett, Jim Oliver, and Andy Miller have more than 90 years of combined experience in the golf industry, primarily in club acquisition, operations, membership, and redevelopment. Since purchasing Heritage Golf in 2020, they have grown the number of clubs in their portfolio from 6 to 23 with plans to add several more in 2022. Burnett and Miller came over from ClubCorp, Oliver from Arcis Golf, and along the way, they have cherry-picked top personnel from their previous companies to form a “supergroup” of club management and staff. Many of the people I met and spoke with in my tour of their three southwest Florida clubs were from one of the two companies.

Head south along the I-75 corridor in Florida and you’ll encounter three of Heritage’s top-notch private golf clubs: TPC Prestancia in Sarasota, home to an 18-hole Ron Garl championship golf course and an 18-hole Robert Von Hagge layout, the Chip Powell-designed Venetian Golf Club in Venice with its generous fairways framed with natural-looking mounds and strategically placed bunkers and another 27-hole Chip Powell layout in Fort Myers at the Club at Pelican Preserve.

The Club at Pelican Preserve is a private, gated community that features indoor and outdoor dining areas, a fitness center, and private event spaces. The centerpiece of the community is 27 holes of championship golf designed by Chip Powell. As you play your way around any of the three 9-hole layouts, you’ll notice that everything is natural. Whether it’s a nature preserve or one of the many water hazards you play around, or one of the many sand and grass hollows you’ll see, everything seems like it was meant to be there. Meticulously maintained fairways with generous landing areas lead to TifEagle "Ultradwarf" greens with gentle undulations and contours. Each of the nines will challenge you but not beat you up!

The practice facilities at The Club consist of a full-length aqua range and practice greens with bunkers so that you can work on all facets of your short game. As a Member, you’ll enjoy the convenience of golf club storage, club cleaning, and repair.

Of course, membership does have its privileges. Heritage Golf Group’s portfolio of courses and private clubs extends well beyond Florida and into North and South Carolina, Virginia, Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri, New York, and New Jersey. Heritage takes the club experience to the highest level by offering golf members, experiences at all of their private, resort, and daily fee facilities by upgrading to the Heritage Plus membership, which is currently in pilot at three clubs with plans to roll out to all participating Heritage clubs later this fall. There is an upper-tier category available at the TPC facility in Sarasota or Tampa, where you can also be part of the TPC Passport program with benefits that reach far beyond your home club to such places as TPC Sawgrass and TPC Scottsdale.