Miakka Golf Club, a Private Club on 1,100 Acres in Myakka City, Florida, Is Set to Open in November
Miakka Golf Club, built by founder Steve Herrig on a former Cracker cattle ranch in Myakka City, Florida, is expected to open in November. The Still will serve as the temporary clubhouse until the main clubhouse is completed.
Miakka Golf Club, an invitation-only private club on 1,100 acres along the Myakka River in Myakka City, Florida, is expected to open in November. Myakka City sits in Manatee County, east of Sarasota and Bradenton. The property has about two miles of river frontage, and the club describes itself as a private club with a single membership.
Steve Herrig, an entrepreneur and the CEO of SUNZ Insurance, founded the club. He built it with Dana Fry and Jason Straka of Fry/Straka Global Golf Course Design and Paul Azinger, the 1993 PGA champion and a Sarasota native, as design consultant. The Tampa Bay Business Journal toured the club this week, with reporter Madalyn Blair describing an 18-hole, par-72 championship course on a former Cracker cattle ranch with more than 100 estates planned alongside.
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The course plays 7,700 yards from the back tees and takes cues from the Australian Sandbelt, specifically Royal Melbourne and Kingston Heath. It features wide fairways, little rough, vertical-edged bunkers, and waste areas planted with native grasses and plants. Tees and fairways are Stadium Zoysia and greens are Lazer Zoysia, grown by Miakka Turf, which Herrig opened on 1,600 acres across MJ Road, Your Observer reported in April. By July, the club said the last sod had been laid and all 18 greens seeded, with work moving to practice areas and a 12-hole, 1,685-yard par-3 course. A 360-degree driving range and seven-acre short-game area complete the practice grounds.
Mark Myers designed the main clubhouse. The club’s Experiences page describes it as elevated and overlooking the course, visible from nearly every hole, with covered porches and expansive patios. A tunnel runs the length of the building beneath it so golfers and maintenance vehicles can move through without being seen on holes 9 and 18. The main clubhouse is not yet finished, and the club says The Still “will act as a temporary clubhouse until the main clubhouse is completed.”
The Still, modeled on an old moonshiner’s distillery, is an informal gathering spot overlooking the lake with billiards, golf simulators, a fire pit, bocce, fishing, and horseshoes. Spike on Golf & Travel reported in June that The Still and one eight-bedroom cottage, which will serve as the golf operations center, were expected to open in November. Myers also designed the cottages in the Florida Cracker style based on early settlers’ homes. They come in four- and eight-bedroom plans with private baths, screened porches, wet bars, hot tubs, and fire pits for members and guests on long weekends and extended stays.
Membership requires an introduction by a current member or club management, and Your Observer reported in 2024 that every prospective member must meet with Herrig first. Next door, The Estates at TerraNova covers 920 acres with 123 estate lots of 5 to 20 acres beside Herrig’s TerraNova Equestrian Center, according to The Myakka Initiative, the Herrig family’s public information site. The club has earmarked 300 acres of nature trails for a conservation easement.
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“I wanted this course to be like going back in time,” Herrig told Your Observer, adding that the club uses indigenous plants, has made wetland areas, and plans to keep Cracker cattle. In Sarasota, Sara Bay Country Club has started a nearly $9.6 million clubhouse renovation as its Donald Ross course turns 100. Near Oklahoma City, Bridgesong, the 1,000-acre private golf community that Ernie Els put his name on, is another private golf community planned on a similar scale. Miakka places one owner’s Old Florida idea across 1,100 acres of river land, with a distillery-inspired gathering spot opening first and an elevated clubhouse, tunnel included, still to come.
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