Once the home layout to the University of South Florida, The Claw golf course soon will become another in a long line of shuttered golf courses.
Built in 1967, The Claw was designed by architect William F. Mitchell, and it served as USF's home course for several years. Once a popular daily fee in the Tampa area, the course has struggled financially in recent years and was abandoned by the school's golf teams long ago.
USF has not practiced there for years, and according to the university's athletics department website, USF's men's team has played exactly one tournament at The Claw in the past dozen years, and the school's women's team has not played there since before 2005. Instead, tournaments have been played at layouts like historic Belleair Country Club, Lake Jovita G&CC, Innisbrook, Black Diamond and Southern Hills Plantation.
Set in an environmentally sensitive area on Tampa's north side, The Claw will close Sept. 5, raising concerns from both disgruntled golfers and environmental advocates.
An email to USF alumni from university president Rhea Law read: "In recent years, the course has lost nearly $200,000 annually, as operating costs have far exceeded revenues. The course operations have required USF to inject cash each year to keep it open, and those financial resources could be used elsewhere to better support our students."
The university has not yet said what it plans to do with the property.
Known for tight fairways, The Claw covers 120 rustic acres that looks as much like a wildlife refuge as it does a golf course. It also adjoins the USF Forest Preserve, a 500-acre research and teaching facility that also is home to various species of wildlife, many of which are threatened or endangered, according to the university, so it is understandable that there is some concern about what will become of the golf course that has been a buffer between the preserve and Tampa's sprawling suburbia for more than a half-century.
The university explored plans to close and build on the site two years ago, but the email announcing the closure said the decision to shutter the course does not change the school's commitment to maintaining the preserve.
USF has plans to build a football stadium, but Law said another site on that side of campus already has been selected for that project.
More than 2,200 courses have closed in the U.S. in the past two decades.