Jake Gaither Golf Course in Tallahassee, Florida

Jake Gaither Golf Course is the City of Tallahassee's nine-hole, par 36 municipal course at 801 Bragg Drive, opened in 1956 and listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2022.

The Florida Department of State describes it as a 120-acre, 9-hole municipal golf course located in Tallahassee's Lee Manor neighborhood, named in honor of Florida A&M University head football coach Alonzo Smith Jake Gaither. The City of Tallahassee course page gives a course and slope rating of 69.8/127 and lists a pro shop with golf merchandise and snack items, a practice putting green and rental clubs. The entire course was renovated in 1998, the city says, and its additional tee areas suit golfers of every level. The pro shop phone is 850-891-3942, and rental space at the Jake Gaither Community Center next to the course is booked through 850-891-3940.

The City of Tallahassee's history of the course, compiled for the National Register listing, lists three sets of tees playing to 2,475, 2,849 and 3,109 yards on a sloping site with wetlands in the central and southwestern portions.

Last verified: October 18, 2026, by rereading the City of Tallahassee pages for the Gaither course, its rates, lessons and history, the city's Gaither history book, the Hilaman course page and the Florida Department of State's 2022 National Register release.

A round at Jake Gaither costs $20 with a cart or $10 walking, and the course is open from 7:30 a.m. to sunset every day except Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day.

The rates below are copied from the City of Tallahassee rate sheet and the hours from the course page as posted on October 18, 2026. All rates include tax, weekday rates are for 9 or 18 holes, and no rainchecks are given on discounted rates after 9 holes. Every member of a group must have a set of golf clubs on the course, and rentals are available at the pro shop.

Private lessons come from the course's teaching professional, who, according to the city's lessons page, was the first person of color to receive a scholarship to play for Florida State University's men's golf team. The posted adult prices are $90 for a one-hour lesson, $260 for a series of three and $375 for a series of five; a half-hour lesson is $40, with half-hour series listed at $185 for three and $220 for five. Juniors 17 and under pay $40 for a half-hour lesson.

The city's other course is Hilaman Golf Course at 2737 Blair Stone Road, an 18-hole, par 72 layout whose course play hours run from 7 a.m. to sunset. The state's release notes that Jake Gaither is the oldest of the two municipally owned and operated golf courses in Tallahassee.

Tallahassee built Jake Gaither under segregation because Black golfers could play the city's existing course only at very limited times, if at all.

Before the course opened, the Department of State says, African American golfers in Tallahassee were limited to working as caddies at segregated golf courses. The city's history book says the country club allowed caddies to play one day a week, and that they held their own tournaments. Starting in 1953, according to the state, African Americans advocated for the City of Tallahassee to establish a park and golf course for the Black community.

The land came first. The city book records that in January 1952 the City of Tallahassee purchased two tracts totaling 190 acres from the defunct Southern Packing Company for $23,471, and that the park beside the future course was dedicated on May 20, 1953. The City Commission agreed to build a golf course for Blacks in the new park in compliance with the policy of racial segregation, and the park and course were named for Gaither, then FAMU's athletic director and head football coach.

While the course was being built, the city gave up direct control of its older course. On February 14, 1956, the city book says, the City Commission voted to approve the lease of the 18-hole municipal golf course to a private corporation at $1 a year for 99 years. The nine-hole, par 36 Gaither course opened in December 1956 with a length of 3,118 yards. The book also notes that the Tallahassee bus boycott of 1956 to 1957 coincided with the opening of the course and the conversion of the Capital City Country Club into a private entity. The state's release calls Jake Gaither the only public venue for Tallahassee's African American golfers in the 1950s and 1960s.

Flooding forced the city to redesign Jake Gaither around its wetlands in the early 1960s, and the nine holes still follow that routing today.

The city's history book traces the problem to an inadequate canal from the Indian Head Acres development that flowed along Orange Avenue and southwest through the course into Lake Henrietta, where water was backed up from Lake Munson. In October 1960, the book says, the city authorized an estimated $2,500 to redesign the course, with City Engineer Miller Walston in charge, and the routing created then is still used. The county also helped; the book records that it had put $2,500 into the project and contributed $2,000 a year to course maintenance.

The two official accounts date the Jake Gaither redesign differently. The Department of State says that in October 1960 the city thoroughly redesigned the golf course, eliminating holes subject to flooding and rerouting several others to wrap around wetlands, while the opening summary of the city book says that due to constant flooding the course was redesigned in 1961. Both agree the current layout follows the routing set in that redesign.

Use kept growing as the course settled. In 1963, the city book says, the City Recreation Department introduced a monthly golf membership program, with family memberships at $9, individuals at $5 and juniors at $2.50, and work began that year on the Jake Gaither Park Community Center. A record 9,000 people played the course in 1970, up from 3,000 in 1966, but flooding prompted the city to close it for improvements in November 1972, and it reopened four months later in February 1973.

Jake Gaither has been rebuilt twice in recent decades, in a 19-month renovation that ended in 1998 and in a 2021 round of cart path and irrigation work.

The city's history book says the nine-hole course remained the only municipal golf course in town until the city purchased the Winewood Country Club on Blair Stone Road, which reopened in 1982 as the Hilaman Park Municipal Golf Course. In January 1985 the city proposed a new 1,700 square foot golf shop for Jake Gaither and completed it later that year.

In the summer of 1996, the book says, the city selected Frank Burandt of Burandt Golf Course Planning and Design of Salt Lake City, Utah, to update the Jake Gaither course. On Saturday, August 1, 1998, after 19 months, the renovated course opened to the public, and it was officially rededicated on August 25, 1998. In 2021 the city funded new cart paths and two new irrigation pump stations to completely cover the greens, and the restroom facility was completely rebuilt in June 2021.

Florida A&M University's golf team used Jake Gaither as its home course until the early 1970s.

The City of Tallahassee history page says the course quickly became a community hub, serving as the site of Guinness World Record attempts and home base for the Florida A&M University Golf Team until the early 1970s. The Department of State adds that from its beginning the course offered lessons and instruction to interested youth, hosted tournaments for Black players and served as the primary golf course for the Florida A&M golf team for many years, and that it diversified in membership following the passage of national civil rights legislation in the mid-1960s.

The record attempts are part of the city's own account. Its history book says that on October 23, 1995, the president of the Jake Gaither Golf Association played 1,363 holes over a five-day period, beating the previous record of 1,319 holes. The same book notes that by 1953 Gaither's FAMU football team had won 39 games and lost only three, and that FAMU was selected as the 1950, 1952 and 1954 National Negro college football champions.

The National Park Service added Jake Gaither Golf Course to the National Register of Historic Places on August 9, 2022.

The City of Tallahassee says the designation took years of research and documentation, an effort spearheaded by Scott Edwards, a historic preservationist and the Florida Historic Golf Trail Coordinator at the Florida Department of State. Secretary of State Cord Byrd announced the listing in a September 23, 2022 release, which quoted Mayor John E. Dailey calling the course a pillar of the community for decades and the first local course to give African Americans an opportunity to play the sport. The department said it looked forward to the course becoming a partner on the Florida Historic Golf Trail.

The historical marker followed. On May 1, 2023, the city says, the Jake Gaither marker was unveiled during a special community celebration, and the city created a book of the research behind the designation, running from the arrival of golf in Florida circa 1886 to the city's 1952 land purchase and the course renovations in 2021.