Pete Dye's work on Oak Marsh, at Omni Amelia Island Resort & Spa in Florida, was recently restored.
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Blake Rowling took up golf at such an early age that he can’t recall when he first swung a club. But he knows who got him started.
“My dad,” he says.
The game did more than strengthen their father-son connection. It became a vital stitch in their social fabric, building community, fostering friendships. Today, it’s also central to their working lives.
The Rowlings — Bob and Blake — are the driving forces behind one of the most prominent brand names in the game, built on a portfolio of 28 courses stretched across 12 destinations in the U.S., including the headquarters of the PGA of America and the home of the NCAA Division I golf championships — all operating under the umbrella of Omni Hotels & Resorts.
Given the company’s high profile in the game, it’s easy to forget that the two words — golf and Omni — did not always go hand in hand. How they became synonymous is a family story that begins in 1996, when Bob Rowling, a Texas-born entrepreneur with a background in gas and oil, purchased Omni Hotels, an international collection of modern hotels. Golf wasn’t part of that package. But Bob loved the game, as did his son, and in 2010, the company acquired Omni Amelia Island, in Florida, followed three years later by six other golf properties: Omni Barton Creek Resort & Spa in Austin, Texas; Omni La Costa Resort & Spa in Carlsbad, Calif., Omni Rancho Las Palmas Resort & Spa in Rancho Mirage, Calif.; Omni Grove Park Inn in Asheville, N.C.; Omni Homestead Resort in Hot Springs, Va.; and Omni Amelia Island Resort & Spa in Fernandina Beach, Fla.
“Those acquisitions were the beginning of a shift in our thinking,” Blake Rowling says. “Realizing the uniqueness of our golf assets, we decided that golf should be a differentiator for Omni.”
That required robust investment. Since 2016, Omni has poured more than $170 million into its existing golf operations, funding everything from course renovations to upgrades in maintenance and infrastructure. Spencer Cody, the former director of golf operations at Omni Barton Creek, saw the benefits first hand at a property where all four courses have now gone through major redos.
“You could tell that this ownership group was very passionate about golf and its ability to drive the business,” says Cody, who now serves as Omni’s corporate director of club and golf operations.
While some of Omni’s moves were quiet improvements, others counted as headline news, none splashier than Omni PGA Frisco, in Frisco, Texas, a readily accessible modern resort that doubles as the new home of the PGA of America. Omni devoted more than half a billion dollars toward the expansive project, which features two championship 18-hole courses, a lighted 10-hole short course called the Swing, a lighted two-acre putting course and a state-of-the-art coaching center.
Even as that juggernaut was taking shape, other ambitious projects were in the works. In late 2023, extensive upgrades were completed on Sam Snead’s former home club, Omni Homestead, a 250-year-old property whose lavish Great Hall and iconic hot springs complement a pair of highly regarded championship courses. The following spring, the architects Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner wrapped up renovations of the North Course at Omni La Costa, which hosted the NCAA Division I women’s and men’s championships that year and will continue to do so through 2028.
An aerial view of Omni Homestead in Hot Springs, Va.lynn swann
The golf-related news from Omni hasn’t ceased. The latest big announcement comes from Omni Amelia Island, a sun-kissed destination that has long appealed to golfers with its Oak Marsh, a 1972 Pete Dye design that shut down last year and reopened last month following a $7.4 million overhaul by Beau Welling Design. Welling’s work stayed true to Dye’s intent while enhancing the aesthetics and playability of the layout by hiding cart paths, reviving native vegetation and defining corridors that blend seamlessly into their natural surrounds. In its refreshed form, Oak Marsh gives Omni Amelia Island a trifecta of top-notch, new-look layouts, rounded out by Little Sandy, a 10-hole, Welling-designed short course that opened in 2022, and the exclusive Club at Long Point, a recently renovated Tom Fazio design that sets aside tee times for resort guests.
Even as its presence in golf has grown, Omni has focused on giving back. As the official hotel partner of the PGA Tour, the company helps sustain the Birdies for Better program, which provides four meals for a family for four for every birdie or better carded in a Tour event. In addition, since founding Say Goodnight to Hunger, in 2016, Omni has donated more than 20 million meals for food banks to feed children, families and seniors in communities across the U.S.
For all the impact that Omni has made through the game, there is more to come.
“Golf,” Blake Rowling says, “will continue to be our focus moving forward.”
Those happenings include a year-long tournament called the Generation Cup, held on 12 Omni properties around the country. The 2025 iteration culminated late last month at Omni PGA Frisco. True to its name, the Generation Cup is a family affair, made up of teams of grandparents and grandkids, uncles, aunts, mothers, fathers, sons and daughters. It is at once an expression of the Rowlings’ interests and a celebration of what the game is all about.
A golf, food and travel writer, Josh Sens has been a GOLF Magazine contributor since 2004 and now contributes across all of GOLF’s platforms. His work has been anthologized in The Best American Sportswriting. He is also the co-author, with Sammy Hagar, of Are We Having Any Fun Yet: the Cooking and Partying Handbook.
