As of October 7, 2026, six executive golf courses in The Villages are closed for complete renovation. They are El Diablo, El Santiago, Hill Top, Redfish Run, Roosevelt and Turtle Mound. Loblolly is also closed for bunker work. Over the past year, five other courses came back after the same kind of rebuild, and three of them are now rated in excellent condition on the District's own maintenance page. This fall's closures are the second half of one renovation program, with the same contractor and largely the same scope. The courses that already reopened show what the closed ones should look like when they return.
The first wave is finished
In February 2025, Villages-News reported on a $5.2 million bid from Landirr Inc. to rebuild five executive courses. The bid went to the Project Wide Advisory Committee for review. The scope covered new greens, tees and fairways with new turf varieties, new bunker sand and underdrain systems. The money was divided as follows:
- Bogart and Bacall together: $2.22 million
- Heron: $1.081 million
- Truman: $1.008 million
- Bonita Pass: $974,917
All five are open again. The completion dates come from the District's Project Wide Advisory Committee page. The condition ratings come from the District golf maintenance page as of October 7, 2026.
| Course | Rebuild completed | Condition rating, Oct. 7, 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Bacall | September 2025 | Good |
| Bogart | February 2026 | Excellent |
| Bonita Pass | June 2026 | Excellent |
| Truman | July 2026 | Excellent |
| Heron | September 2026 | Good |
For comparison, Escambia is open but rated in fair condition on the same page. Courses that were finished in the last twelve months make up three of the five rated excellent above, so the new turf has had time to settle in. Bacall, the first to finish, is rated good after a year of play. Heron is also rated good, only weeks after its ribbon-cutting.
Heron shows how long one rebuild really takes
Heron's timeline gives a realistic sense of what "closed for renovation" means. The package with Heron in it went to committee in February 2025. The course had its ribbon-cutting at 9 a.m. on Wednesday, September 16, 2026, and tee times began at 10 a.m. the same morning. Booking opened a week earlier, on September 9. That is about a year and a half from bid to first tee shot. The five courses in the package also reopened one after another, spread over a full year, instead of all at once.
Heron's renovation also came after a long stretch of drainage trouble. Villages-News recounted that in 2022 the committee agreed to spend $100,000 to fix a drainage problem there, and that the work was not finished until 2024. The full rebuild that followed included new greens, tees and fairways with new turf varieties and new bunker sand. Golfers who played Heron before its rebuild are now playing a different surface from tee to green.
Six courses closed at the same time
The second wave began on paper in early 2026. A February 1 bid notice listed El Diablo, El Santiago, Redfish Run, Roosevelt and Turtle Mound, with a pre-bid conference on January 22 and bids due February 17. In March, Villages-News reported that the committee would consider a $4.9 million Landirr bid to fully renovate Roosevelt, Turtle Mound and Redfish Run. That work includes rebuilding greens, tees and fairways, re-grassing each full course with Certified TifEagle Bermuda, earthwork and regrading, updated irrigation, and drainage work.
The closures came over the summer and early fall. Here is where things stand on the District maintenance page as of October 7:
| Course | Address | Closed since | Work listed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Redfish Run | 2376 Nobleton Lane | Monday, June 22 | Full renovation of greens, tees, fairway and bunkers |
| Turtle Mound | 2605 Turtle Mound Path | Friday, July 24 | Full course renovation |
| Hill Top | 1432 Water Tower Circle | September 8 | New greens, drainage and a putting green |
| Roosevelt | 2735 Canal Street | Saturday, September 26 | Full course renovation |
| El Diablo | 2381 Enrique Drive | No date posted | New green and tee complexes, new irrigation, bunker refresh |
| El Santiago | 2381 Enrique Drive | No date posted | Tees, greens, bunker refresh and course enhancements |
El Diablo and El Santiago share the 2381 Enrique Drive address, so both courses at that location are out right now. Hill Top was not in the February bid notice, but the District's weekly bulletin for September 24 lists it with the other five under "complete course renovation."
Loblolly's closure is shorter. The maintenance page lists bunker renovations starting Monday, September 14 and running to October 15. On October 7 the page still showed Loblolly as closed and under renovation.
Reopening dates depend on which District page you read
For the three courses in the $4.9 million package, two District sources give different finish dates. The Project Wide Advisory Committee page lists Spring 2027 for Roosevelt and Turtle Mound and Summer 2027 for Redfish Run. A capital-projects table in an October 2026 District meeting packet budgets $1.2 million for each course and lists earlier target months:
- Roosevelt: December 2026, marked "Scheduled," with a note that the board approved a September 26, 2026 closing date
- Redfish Run: January 2027, marked "In Progress"
- Turtle Mound, listed as "DBL Palm (Turtle)": March 2027, marked "In Progress"
The packet also gives the current task at Turtle Mound: strip the disturbance area, begin building green complexes and laser-level the tee tops. At that stage, the greens are still being built from scratch.
The later dates fit what happened at Heron. A full rebuild with new grass takes time to grow in, and the first five courses came back over about a year instead of all together. Spring and summer 2027 are the safer dates to plan around for Roosevelt, Turtle Mound and Redfish Run. The packet's months are possible, but they are internal targets and may change.
No published source gives a reopening estimate, cost or contractor for El Diablo, El Santiago or Hill Top. The District lists all three as closed until further notice.
Planning your fall rounds around the closures
With six courses closed long-term, the courses that are open this fall carry more of the load. The five rebuilt courses in the table above are open, and three are rated excellent. A few habits will help you avoid driving the cart to a locked gate:
- Check the maintenance page the morning you play. The District golf maintenance page shows open or closed status, a condition rating and closure notes for each executive course.
- Read the weekly bulletin for short closures. Open courses also close for a day or two at a time. Churchill, for example, was closed all day on September 24 and 25, 2026 for extra turf maintenance.
- Call with questions. The District's Executive Golf Maintenance office is listed at 352-674-1885 and [email protected].
- Recheck Loblolly after mid-October. Its listed bunker work ends October 15, so check the maintenance page before planning a round there.
If one of the closed courses is your home course, Heron is the newest reopened option. It has new greens, tees and fairways, new turf varieties and new bunker sand, and it had been open for three weeks as of today.
If you live near Roosevelt, Redfish Run, Turtle Mound or the Enrique Drive courses and you're wondering how a closed course, or a newly rebuilt one, affects the homes around it, I'm happy to talk it through. I follow these District projects closely because they're part of daily life for the people I work with. Nathan Piotrowski is always glad to hear from neighbors, so Let's Connect.
