Cleveland Heights Golf & Country Club

Detailed description of Cleveland Heights Golf & Country Club

Cleveland Heights Golf & Country Club is a Public, 27 hole golf course located in Lakeland, Florida.

Cleveland Heights Golf & Country Club golf course first opened for play in 1925. The course was designed by William S. Flynn & Howard C. Toomey.

There are three nine hole courses that are played in three eighteen hole combinations.

The "A" - Azalea Course has water that comes into play only once. It has the more open fairways of the three nines.

The "B" - Boganvilia Course is a more difficult test of skill, with quite a bit more water to contend with including a drainage canal. This course also has more sand bunkers.

The "C" -Camelia Course has the most length, with water also coming into play. Its seven par 4's are particularly challenging.

All three courses are refuge to wildlife including birds, squirrels, and an occasional alligator. The Azalea 9 plays to a par-36 and maximum distance of 3,218 yards. The Boganvilia 9 plays to a par-36 and maximum distance of 3,102 yards. The Camelia 9 plays to a par-36 and maximum distance of 3,2199 yards.

The question, how does a golf course in Central Florida get the name of Cleveland Heights? For this we need to remember two things, northerner's like to visit Florida, and Lakeland was at one time the Spring Training home of the Cleveland Indians baseball team.

Cleveland, Ohio real estate magnate H. A. Stahl began vacationing in central Florida in the early 1920's. and visiting Lakeland to watch the Cleveland Indians baseball team. Sensing an opportunity to promote their city, the Lakeland Chamber of Commerce invited Stahl to visit the city in late 1923 for the purpose of "studying the possibility of developing a large subdivision in the area."

In October 1924 when Stahl purchased 560 acres on the south side of Lake Hollingsworth for $935,000. He had sent several members of his development staff from Cleveland to oversee the construction of the development, which became known as "Cleveland Heights" after Stahl's home city. Streets were laid out and a sales office built at the corner of Lake Hollingsworth Drive and what is now known as Cleveland Heights Boulevard.

Stahl hired Cleveland golf course architectural firm of Toomey and Flynn to lay out a championship eighteen hole golf course. The golf course and the clubhouse, the latter built on the shore of Lake Hollingsworth, opened in the spring of 1925.

With the golf course and clubhouse amenities in place, the Cleveland Heights grew rapidly in 1925 and 1926. By 1927, however, the Florida land boom had gone bust. Stahl, was forced to put the golf course and clubhouse up for sale for delinquent taxes. The city took over both properties by the end of the decade. The city continues to own and operate the golf course and added nine holes to the original eighteen-hole layout in the early 1980's.