Herons Glen

Situated in North Fort Myers, Florida, on the northern edge of Lee County sits Herons Glen, a gated golf and country club community with 1,300 homes. The 18-hole championship course was redesigned by Ron Garl in 2021.

With such a relatively recent renovation, one wouldn’t think a USGA consulting visit would be in the cards for Herons Glen. But Tim Kortanek, Director of Golf and Grounds wasn’t going to let their course rest on its laurels.

“We have a lot of golf here: 720 members, with 55,000 rounds going through here last year,” says Kortanek. “The course itself is not that long at 6,500 yards, which is great for the membership we have. Everyone can get around very quick.”

To keep Herons Glen at its very best, Kortanek relies on another set of eyes. Namely those of Chris Neff, USGA Southeast Agronomist. “I feel like I see more golf courses than anybody in the Southeast,” says Neff. “It really gives me an edge on knowing the things that are working, and the things that are not working.”

In his most recent report, Neff was particularly impressed by the attention to detail throughout the course. He wrote “Every area, including the landscape beds, was meticulously maintained, enhancing the course's overall aesthetic appeal. This level of care and professionalism is evident not only in daily maintenance but also in course setup and ongoing management practices.”

Neff has also brought more than just advice to Herons Glen: he also introduced the agronomy team to the USGA performance tools. “The GS3 ball is all incorporated into the DEACON app,” says Kortanek. “It’s seamless and integration with the iPhone is fantastic. I get the number exactly on my phone and I can take a screen shot and send it to the pro shop immediately.”

Having the GS3 has benefitted Herons Glen in ways Kortanek could not have predicted. “We’ve discovered that our smoothness increases after we verticut,” he says. “So having those numbers allowed us to be able to verticut more for the first time. We started to heavily veritcut more greens. And that was something that we worked with Chris on.”

JP Belknap, General Manager at Herons Glen, agrees with Kortanek. “The USGA has cutting edge technology that has benefitted the golf course, and by extension, the members with a better maintained golf course,” he says.

The combination of USGA visits and performance tools has proved to be a winning combination for Herons Glen, according to Kortanek. “It’s allowed us to do more of the practices that can improve the golf course,” he says. “It always helps us superintendents to have another guy in our corner. We always have been very grateful for the relationship we have with the USGA.”