Among the iconic photographs that captured the punishing force of Hurricane Ian on Sept. 28, 2022, one of the most memorable was taken at The Dunes Golf & Tennis Club on Sanibel Island.
It is one of those images that can make you laugh, or cry.
During the ferocious storm, the surge of water and the strong winds washed away stretches of beach, left cars and boats in unthinkable places and cut off the barrier island from the rest of the world for a brief time when the only road connecting it to the mainland was damaged.
And it left a hot tub on the 18th green at The Dunes.
“We actually had two others floating around in our lakes,” said Brian Kautz, The Dunes general manager for the past seven and a half years. “Funny, no one ever called us and said they were missing a hot tub.”
Removing that hot tub was likely the easiest part of the post-Ian recovery for Kautz and the rest of the team at the club, which opened 50 years ago, sits on 63 acres and is semi-private. The Dunes is owned by the Dahlmann family, which also owns four hotels on the island, Periwinkle Place and Sanibel Outlet Mall.
Sanibel resident Gerry Severynse tees off the 7th hole of the Dunes Golf and Tennis Club Tuesday, December 19, 2023. A section of the golf course re-opened to the public on Monday, December 18, 2023. The course was hit hard by Hurricane Ian last year.
On Monday (Dec. 18) they and the club’s membership celebrated the reopening of the front nine of the golf course. The Dunes is the last golf course in Southwest Florida to reopen after Ian.
“I think it is not only important for our ownership, as we will be the first of their Florida properties to open. But it is important to our members, the community and our repeat guests that frequent us,” Kautz said. “This has been an extraordinary 14 months for so many and so many ways. Were grateful for ownership support, and hope and look forward to guests returning and enjoying the club.”
Why did it take so long (15 months) to have golfers hitting tee shots and sinking putts again? Many factors including the destruction of the golf course’s pump station − “the heart of the irrigation system,” Kautz said −and the loss of the sprinkler heads and the wiring. Kautz said the 15 control boxes for the sprinklers and all of the heads and wiring throughout the course had to be replaced.
“That is not only costly, but time consuming,” Kautz said.
We spoke to Kautz about the recovery process and the challenges of…
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