Facelift underway at Tara's Preserve Golf Club in Bradenton

General Manager Tim McGonegal said he wants The Preserve Golf Club to become a place where the community residents can be proud to gather.

To become that place, The Preserve had to change.

From a golf course “mini-renovation” to the addition of weekly happy hours, many changes are underway, and more are on the horizon.

McGonegal was hired as general manager in December, but he had worked with the club in a variety of roles for about six years prior. He said the golf course’s condition had been deteriorating slowly but steadily for more than a decade. Then, Krishna Persuad bought the public golf club from Fore Golf Partners, a golf course ownership group, in May 2020 for $1.68 million.

The first order of business for Persuad was fixing up the golf course. Persuad did not return a request for comment. McGonegal said ownership and management know the course has to spend money in the short term so it can make money down the road.

That process started last summer through a process McGonegal called “nuking” the course. Basically, chemicals were applied to every square inch to kill the weeds that were running rampant. For a while after the treatment, some fairways didn’t have any grass.

Most the weeds were killed through last year’s treatment, which means the club only has to spot treat a few bad patches this year. The club also applied pre-emergent weed killer to prevent them from cropping up again in the future.

In July, McGonegal said the club is going to redo seven tee boxes, which means stripping them, sodding them and fertilizing them. The club is also killing weeds on its greens.

McGonegal said this is the time of year to do maintenance because less people are playing on the course. He said it's going to look better each month, especially as fall approaches, adding that the "mini-renovation" will be complete by Nov. 1.

“The members and the community want to see a nice, pretty golf course,” McGonegal said. “Their home value depends on this course being successful. It's a lot of pressure for us to be a good neighbor and hold up our end of the deal. I want this place to look good and I want people to go, ‘Wow, this is a great golf course.’ We're never going to be like a private course or like Azario, but we can certainly have grass in the fairways and have tees we're proud of.”

The club also added targets to its driving range so that practicing golfers know about how far they’re hitting the ball. The club had to add floating targets because golfers at the range hit balls into a pond owned by the club.

The club has also added happy hour to its rotation as a social event aimed largely, but not exclusively, at Preserve residents. It typically brings in about 25 to 30 people, with a record of 51. McGonegal said the club has solicited feedback from happy hour attendees and added items to the menu, such as Cuban sandwiches, french fries and coconut shrimp.

The club is planning to introduce a weekly karaoke night, something McGonegal said has been requested by the community. The club is also holding free events — from Zumba to painting and yoga to sewing — to get people in the building.

Under previous management, there were no extra social events, meaning the Preserve’s clubhouse and dining spaces were used almost exclusively by golfers before or after their rounds. Going forward, McGonegal said it can be more of a meeting place for the community.

“We want to get the community going,” McGonegal said. “We support them, and they support us. … We're neighbors. We really want to entertain them. We want to provide them a good time.”