By Vinnie Manginelli, PGA
Delray Dunes Golf & Country Club was designed in 1969, the first Florida layout of famed golf course architect Pete Dye. That nostalgia wasn’t lost on Dye over the years, as he would be quoted as saying, “Both Alice and I have a special feeling for Delray Dunes, the first course I ever designed in Florida. I am always interested in what is going on over there. I guess that is why I’m always stopping by, offering suggestions and making improvements. I want the course to be the best it can be, and it’s a labor of love for me to continue refining it.”
With that glorious history in mind, an extensive course and practice facility renovation took place from March to November of last year.
“We redid the irrigation from wall to wall,” says Eric Shillinger, the PGA of America Director of Golf at Delray Dunes. “It was all state-of-the-art equipment that allows our superintendent, David Tandy, to control the system with an app on his smartphone.”
Additional project work completed includes:
- New tee boxes and the extension of some existing tee boxes that stretch the course length to over 7,000 yards, enabling them to host USGA qualifying events
- New fairway and greenside bunkers, as well as repositioned bunkers to be more “in-play”
- Restoration of the putting greens to their original Dye slope and design. They hired Scott Sherman, an expert on Pete Dye courses who works for Love Golf Design, a firm founded by Davis Love III and his brother Mark.
Shillinger says members have told him that the course is more visually appealing than ever, with wood planks adorning a new island green, supporting various bunkers and defining some fairways.
Before the renovation, they had a long game area, a chipping/pitching green and a putting green with barely one degree of slope. Unfortunately, anyone wanting to practice their greenside chips had to be aware of other members working on their more distant pitch shots.
“Our goal was to make four distinct practice areas – a long game area, a chipping and greenside bunker area, a longer wedge game area and a practice green with at least eight percent slope so members could practice putts they’ll face on the course,” Shillinger explains.
The wedge game area offers targets at 40, 60, 80 and 100 yards to greens that are constructed to reflect stroke gained indicators based on how close shots are hit to each target. Also, the addition of artificial greenside bunkers in the wedge game area helps define these targets.
The chipping green was moved to a dedicated area where members can practice chips from within 15 yards and work on their greenside bunker shots. In fact, they can turn around in those same bunkers and hit longer bunker shots onto the range.
While the body of the driving range features a palm tree-defined fairway that measures up to the PGA Tour average fairway width, they’ve added more defined targets, allowing members to spend hours honing their skills and enjoying the social side of golf, which is more abundant than ever at our practice facilities. Socialization is made easier with the addition of Toptracer Range, which enables members to view their numbers, play courses virtually, compete against other golfers, and practice with a purpose.
“We used Toptracer Range during the stag night of our three-day Member-Guest event, known as “The Murph” after one of our legendary members, Bob Murphy,” Shillinger said. “We lit up the driving range and hosted a long drive contest and closest-to-the-pin contests using large TVs and monitor displays. This was a huge success for sure, and we plan on doing more of these events in the future.”
The Delray Dunes practice range has 30 grass stations, as well as 21 mats that are predominantly used during busy times, when weather warrants or during the winter when the grass is dormant. These renovations will help Shillinger and his staff provide cutting-edge instruction, conduct group clinics and increase engagement with members. “We went from having just a warm-up range to a serious practice facility,” he boasts.
Member feedback has been “phenomenal,” with play up seven percent from 2023 to 2025. Guest rounds are up more than ten percent, leading to increased revenue in several areas – greens fees, carts, F&B and golf shop.
Regarding that retail space, in addition to serving on the Construction Committee and continuing to serve members’ needs, Shillinger had to deal with the loss of sales in his golf shop. He is one of only about 600 PGA of America Members who own their own golf shops. The staff was retained during the renovation, but his golf shop was barely open, as foot traffic in and out of the clubhouse was at a minimum.
After a very quiet summer, sales started picking up last fall as members returned from points north and excitement grew over the pending reopening of the course and practice facilities. Shillinger worked with his vendors to return some product for account credit and restock the golf shop as the reopening date approached. This is a case where the relationships he’s forged with these vendors over his years at Delray Dunes benefited him during this uniquely slow sales period.
