On November 11, 1926, Lake Worth Mayor A.D. Clark handed the keys of a new clubhouse to golf professional Cameron Trent. Next came an amateur tournament, and in the afternoon local pros played an exhibition match. The nine holes had cost $400,000. Playing them cost $1 a day or $15 a month, according to the Florida Historic Golf Trail's history of the course.
That anniversary falls on Wednesday, November 11, 2026. For most of 2026 the city also looked ready to mark the centennial by changing who runs the clubhouse dining room. In April, commissioners set out to find a new restaurant operator. By July they had reversed course and voted to keep The Beach Club. The 1920s-themed Centennial Gala on November 14 will begin in the restaurant Lake Worth Beach nearly re-leased.
A course pumped out of the lagoon
The golf club looks like it has always been there, which makes its origin easy to forget. Most of it is built on fill dredged from the bottom of Lake Worth. In 1923 the city approved a municipal course along its lakefront and hired the design firm Langford and Moreau. Their 18-hole plan put 13 holes north of Lake Avenue and the rest to the south. A year later the U.S. War Department issued a permit to fill part of the lakefront for construction. A January 1926 piece in Golf Illustrated, archived on the Trail's page, was titled "Literally Pumping a Golf Course out of the Lake."
Only nine holes opened in 1926. The full 18 came 22 years later.
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1923 | City approves a lakefront municipal course and hires Langford and Moreau |
| Early 1925 | Capt. H.H.C. Tippett, a Miami golf architect, is contracted to supervise construction |
| Nov. 11, 1926 | Nine holes officially open at a cost of $400,000 |
| Nov. 6, 1948 | Dick Wilson's redesign opens as a full 18 holes, 5,808 yards, par 68 |
| Today | 18 holes, par 71, five sets of tees from 4,100 to 6,000 yards along 1.2 miles of the Intracoastal |
For the 1948 expansion, Wilson completely redesigned the original nine and then added nine new holes. Mayor J.T. Barton hit the first tee shot on the finished course. So the layout people play today dates mostly from the postwar redesign. The site, the waterfront, and the city's ownership all date from 1926.
The city's own description calls it an 82-acre, par 71 course set in a natural preserve and wetlands, and one of very few full-length daily-fee par 71 courses on the water with views of the Palm Beach skyline.
The year the clubhouse almost changed hands
The Beach Club has run the clubhouse restaurant since October 2013. Its operator is E.R. Bradley's Lagoon Saloon. In April, the Lake Worth Beach Independent reported that the city planned to seek proposals for a new restaurant at the course that could open the following spring or summer. Commissioners encouraged the current operator to bid. They also extended its lease, which had been set to expire August 3, to April 30, 2027.
Staff then drafted an Invitation to Negotiate for a long-term lease of the Golf Clubhouse Restaurant at One 7th Avenue North. It called for an operator to run the restaurant and the on-course food and beverage cart starting May 1, 2027. The draft also made restaurant redesign and improvements the responsibility of whoever won.
The solicitation never went out. At the June 16 meeting, commissioners voted to postpone the item to July 7 and told staff to keep working with the current tenant in the meantime. When July 7 came, the meeting agenda no longer listed a search for a new operator. Under unfinished business it listed a Second Amendment to the Food and Beverage Services Agreement with E.R. Bradley's Lagoon Saloon.
One commissioner summed up the dais in the city's recording of the July 7 meeting:
"There is not one person sitting up here that wants a different restaurant there. We all want the Beach Club to stay."
The motion that followed asked for more than another extension. Staff were told to survey the property and get an actual square footage for a future lease. The operator was asked to follow the reporting clause in its current agreement. Staff were directed to work with the tenant on "an actual lease, not a food services agreement." The tenant would also pay the electric bill once a separate meter is installed. After some back and forth on timing, the discussion ended on a one-year extension, with the future agreement to be signed within nine months. It drew a second and a third.
That vote is the latest public word on the restaurant. As of July, the city is negotiating a standard lease with the operator it has, and it is no longer looking for a replacement.
Why the restaurant matters to the birthday party
The centennial events depend on the clubhouse. The city's Centennial Gala page bills the night as a 1920s-themed "transitional dinner" across two waterfront locations. Cocktails are at the Beach Club Restaurant, then dinner and the program move to the Casino Ballroom.
- When: Saturday, November 14, 2026, 5 to 11 p.m.
- Tickets: $100 per person, through the city's WebTrac registration system
- Dress: 1920s attire encouraged
- Proceeds: City of Lake Worth Beach Junior Golf League
The two venues tie the evening together. The gala starts at the lagoon-side restaurant the city chose to keep. It ends upstairs at the Casino on the beach, where the city spent the spring soliciting proposals for that same second floor. The procurement covered the roughly 3,000-square-foot ballroom, a separate 5,000-square-foot unfinished space, or both. Its listing shows it closed June 25, 2026, with no award posted.
The centennial will also leave something behind. The city sold commemorative bricks for the club through September 2, 2026, and plans to install them this winter.
A city keeping its waterfront tenants
The golf club vote fits a pattern. Both of Lake Worth Beach's long-running city-owned waterfront restaurants got longer runways in 2026. In June, the Palm Beach Post reported that Benny's on the Beach won City Commission approval for a 10-year lease extension that would keep it on the William O. Lockhart Municipal Pier through 2043, with final details still to be negotiated. Under the approved terms, rent increases change after 2033 from 3.5% a year to 5% every other year.
The pier on the ocean side and the clubhouse on the lagoon side are the two city-owned dining rooms with water on three sides of the view. This year the commission chose continuity for both, with tighter lease terms attached.
The lagoon and the beach between now and the gala
The centennial sits in a busy stretch on the city's east side. Counting from Thursday, October 29:
- Friday, October 30: Little Scream Trunk-or-Treat at Bryant Park, 6 to 9 p.m., the opening event on the city's 2026–27 schedule.
- Every Saturday: the Lake Worth Beach Waterside Farmers Market, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., on the Intracoastal near the northeast base of the Lake Worth Beach bridge. Its season runs October through April.
- Friday, November 6: the first free Bonfires & Night Market of the season at the Casino & Beach Complex, 6 to 9 p.m., with Hot Gritz, local vendors and DJ Chico561.
- Wednesday, November 11: the course's 100th anniversary, and also the city's Veterans' Day event at Bryant Park, 5 to 6 p.m.
- Saturday, November 14: the Centennial Gala, from the Beach Club to the Casino Ballroom.
- Friday, November 20: the second bonfire night, with Sekond Nature.
The bonfire series runs through February. The Beach Club's agreement, as amended in July, carries into 2027 while the city and operator work out a full lease. Course details, tee times and current rates are on the Lake Worth Beach Golf Club site.
Lake Worth Beach spent much of 2026 deciding who runs the dining rooms on its city-owned waterfront land, and those decisions affect the homes nearby too. If you're weighing a purchase or a sale near the lagoon or the beach, Varsha Chandra can go over how this year's lease decisions and the city's waterfront plans bear on your move. Schedule a free consultation with Varsha to discuss your Palm Beach County move or listing.
