"Please let these good people turn this desert into an oasis."

Reality has set in for many who are nostalgic about a piece of the Fort Lauderdale's golf past: American Golfers Club is not coming back.

Many longtime residents and their children learned to golf at the executive course on the east side of Federal Highway, south of Commercial Boulevard. The course, which opened in 1958, has been closed since late 2005, when its irrigation system was damaged and landscaping destroyed by Hurricane Wilma.

The cost of repairing and reopening the course wasn't an option for the investment group that bought it and the adjacent Coral Ridge Country Club in 2004, especially given the tough financial conditions in the golf industry nationally. The city never seriously considered buying the course to run as a public operation.

Read more at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.