Country club changes course

They know each other’s best and worst scores, they have nicknames for each other and they pick on each other. They compete, but when one putts, the others respectfully fall silent.

On Wednesday, Bonita Golf and Country Club golfers shared their last game on the course.

After years of rumors about the golf course being for sale or developed, it is shutting down for good today. It will eventually reopen as a much shorter “executive” golf course, with the saved space slated to become multi-family homes.

The course, arguably among the oldest in the area, is one of but a few public golf courses left in south Lee County.

Since the front nine holes had already shut down — a day earlier than owner Mike Miceli had originally promised the golfers — everybody doubled up on the back nine. It was there on the 12th hole that Judy Savin hit the second of two holes-in-one in a month and a half.

“It was the first year that we moved down here,” she recalled of her first hole-in-one. “I had never done it before and never since — twice in such a short period like that.”

With only nine holes available for play and most regulars not willing to miss their last chance to play on the course, the greens were busy. Each time a threesome or foursome stopped to talk, other carts would start to line up behind them. But nobody minded. Everyone shared stories and memories. Most have shared years of play on the course.

The players on the course Wednesday said they’re sad about the loss of their common playing ground. Over the years they have shared good times, created memories and had parties in the cart barn.

As the end to all that loomed, most members don’t know what they’ll do.

Margaret Grant has been playing on the course for 25 years. She remembers when the course belonged to snakes and cows as much as it did to the golfers.

“You couldn’t play without snakes going by,” she said. “We used to run over them with the cart and then the men would chop their heads off with the club.”

Cows would break the fence and eat people’s shrubs, she said. The first few years, they didn’t even have neighbors. Now they have plenty. There are also condominiums under construction at the entrance of the community. And if Miceli has his way, there soon will be more condos where the front nine holes are today.

Players on the course Wednesday planned to get together afterward to commiserate.

“We will meet in the clubhouse, have some pizza and cry into our beer,” Lundberg said. “It’s a crying shame is what it is. I hate to say it but I hope he goes flat on his venture.”