- April 26, 2024
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Dear Editor:
One-hundred-and-forty-seven acres of rolling gentle hills covered in grass and beautiful moss waving Oaks. Thousands of memories of the old club house, 18 holes of happiness and misery. Weddings, birthdays and hundreds of other events playing out during spectacular sunsets. Red shouldered hawks shrieking over tortoise, deer, rabbit and fox.
This was Tomoka Oaks Country Club. And now a developer wants to build 272 houses, driveways and roads. Public golf courses can serve as an important recreational resource for a community, providing a space for residents and visitors to enjoy outdoor activities and engage in physical exercise. They can also serve as a venue for community events and activities, such as tournaments and fundraisers, which can help bring people together and build a sense of community.
In addition to their recreational and social benefits, public golf courses also have economic benefits for a community. They attract visitors from outside the area, who stay in local hotels and eat at local restaurants, which helps support the local economy. They also provide jobs for local residents, including groundskeepers, pro shop attendants, and other staff.
Ormond Beach has no public golf course (we had two courses that welcomed the public — both are closed) even while golf has made a massive comeback in popularity. Ormond Beach should have a golf course as an amenity for all the people in the community. Young people should get outside and learn golf as an important skill that focuses their talents and minds.
Please write your Ormond Beach City Commissioners, the Volusia County Council and Florida state representatives and tell them you want the Tomoka Oaks Golf Course preserved as open space for a golf course or some other open space use. Once houses are built, the open space is gone forever and traffic and taxes increase.
Tom Fitzgibbon
Ormond Beach
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