By Samuel Hardiman – Daily Memphian
September 30, 2026
Loren Roberts’ hands shook slightly as he took the podium on Tuesday, Sept. 29.
The former PGA Tour player and adopted Memphian acknowledged he was more nervous standing in front of a few backhoes and about a hundred people than he had been on the first tee at Augusta National Golf Club, home of the Masters Tournament.
Roberts grew emotional as he talked about what he hoped the dirt behind him could one day be: the Loren Roberts Family Golf and Learning Center at The Links at Audubon.
He said the new clubhouse, which will house First Tee of Tennessee’s Memphis programming, could become a national template for introducing youth to the game through public golf.
“I want to give my thanks to God for giving me the ability to play this game to the level I was able to play at, and what an honor it is to be associated with the game of golf, this clubhouse, this golf course, and the city of Memphis,” Roberts said of the clubhouse that will bear his name.
A few minutes later, with much steadier hands, Roberts and a dozen other assembled dignitaries staged the ceremonial groundbreaking for the clubhouse.
The $17.5 million clubhouse is a partnership between the Tennessee Golf Foundation and the City of Memphis. It will give The Links at Audubon, which reopened after a $9.5 million city-funded renovation in 2024, a clubhouse with a restaurant and a separate First Tee teaching area.
The groundbreaking also brought news of significant philanthropic contributions to the clubhouse and the course. Brad Martin, executive chairman and chairman of the board for FedEx Corporation, and his family endowed the six-hole short course; Bill Rhodes, executive chairman and former president and chief executive officer of AutoZone, Inc., and his family endowed the lobby that will function as a hall of champions; and First Horizon donated $1 million and will provide financial literacy courses for First Tee participants.
City talks strategy of investing in parks
For Memphis Mayor Paul Young, the groundbreaking offered a chance to push something he often talks about: civic investments. Young and Justice Bolden, director of Memphis Parks, noted that the groundbreaking was happening a few fairways away from the new Leftwich Tennis Center, another public-private partnership that is part of the tens of millions of dollars the city has spent on parks.
Young, who has been vocal about keeping young Memphians in the city as adults, said the clubhouse and the broader investment in facilities across the city provide young Memphians a chance to make memories.
“What you see right now is a strategic investment, a connected network of amenities all across our city that are intended to enhance the quality of life, enrich experiences and provide places to create moments that our young people are going to remember for the rest of their lives,” Young said. “That’s what we’re doing here.”
Milestone for Canale
The groundbreaking — and the far more important dirt-moving and construction work — marks a milestone for Ford Canale, the longest-tenured member of the Memphis City Council and the body’s biggest supporter of the city’s Memphis Public Links golf courses.
The former council chairman, appointed in 2018 before winning election in 2019 and 2023, also previously served as the Christian Brothers High School golf coach.
He noted that, as a public official in a city as large as Memphis, he had been to many groundbreakings, all of them worthy events, but few as special to him as this one.
“This new home will allow us to introduce even more young people to the game. But what happens here will depend on all of us,” Canale said. “We need Memphians willing to mentor, teach, volunteer, and forge our young people, because golf can teach much more than how to play the game. It can teach patience, discipline and doing the right thing even when no one is looking.
“A child may walk through these doors for the first time and find a coach, a mentor, a place to belong or a pathway they never knew existed.”
