Bill Bergin to renovate Florida course that hosted LPGA tournament

The private Golf Club at Crown Colony in Fort Myers, Florida, has announced plans to have architect Bill Bergin renovate its golf course starting in 2026.

Members approved a $12 million masterplan that starts with upgraded irrigation and drainage before moving to a total rethink of the course. Bergin doesn’t plan to reroute the course, but everything else is in play. Bunkers, greens and tees will change, and the course will change to Platinum Paspalum grass wall-to-wall.

The course was originally designed by Ron Garl and opened in 2001.

“Crown Colony is under the radar,” Bergin said in a media release announcing the renovation, “especially as a place to play golf in a beautiful environment. I want to expose all that while creating a course where you’ll have to use your head. We realize people don’t always execute perfectly, but we’ll give them the room to play less than perfect golf and still have fun.”

Crown Colony was host to the 2022 LPGA Drive On Championship, the 2023 Florida Open and 2023 PGA Tour/Korn Ferry Tour Qualifying. It will host U.S. Senior Open and U.S. Open qualifying this spring.

Bergin said he was excited to tackle the bunkers.

“Typical Florida bunkers are flashed sand and that’s all you see,” he said in the media release. “I feel there are three forms of art to a bunker – the crest line, the sand line and the bunker face itself – and how those lines complement one another, their shapes and movement, where there’s grass. These bunkers will stand out.”

All 18 greens will be overhauled.

“We don’t overdo putting surfaces,” Bergin said. “They’ll be challenging and fun without wild contours.”

This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Architect Bill Bergin plans full renovation of Crown Colony in Florida