PONTE VEDRA, FL. State inspectors visiting Tournament Players Club at Sawgrass on May 14 found food contaminated by chemical, physical, or biological hazards, a kitchen where no one was enforcing health policy, and food that had not been cooked to required minimum temperatures. The club, one of the most recognizable golf and dining destinations in Florida, was not closed.

The inspection turned up six high-severity violations and two intermediate ones. That count places the May 14 visit among the more serious inspections in the club's documented history, though not the worst.

What Inspectors Found

1HIGHFood contaminated by chemical, physical, or biological hazardAdulteration risk
2HIGHFood not cooked to required minimum temperaturePathogen survival
3HIGHNo employee health policy or inadequate policyDisease transmission
4HIGHEmployee not reporting symptoms of illnessOutbreak enabler
5HIGHInadequate shell stock identification or recordsShellfish traceability
6HIGHPerson in charge not present or not performing dutiesManagement failure
7INTERMEDIATEMulti-use utensils not properly cleanedBacterial biofilm
8INTERMEDIATEInadequate or improperly maintained toilet facilitiesHygiene infrastructure

The contamination finding is the most direct threat to anyone who ate at the club that day. Food contaminated by chemical, physical, or biological hazards means something foreign, whether a cleaning agent, a fragment of metal or glass, or a biological contaminant, reached food that was served or prepared for service.

Inspectors also cited the kitchen for food not cooked to required minimum temperatures. Undercooked food is one of the most direct vectors for foodborne illness, particularly in poultry, where Salmonella survives below 165 degrees Fahrenheit.

The shell stock violation adds a separate layer of risk. The club was cited for inadequate identification or records on shellfish, meaning oysters, clams, or mussels on the menu could not be traced to a certified harvesting source. If a customer became ill from contaminated shellfish, investigators would have no chain of custody to follow.

Three of the six high-severity violations involve the same root failure: no one was managing food safety at the employee level. Inspectors cited the absence of a person in charge performing duties, the lack of a written employee health policy, and employees not reporting illness symptoms. Those three violations do not exist independently. They tend to produce each other.

What These Violations Mean

The employee illness findings are worth pausing on. Without a written health policy, workers have no formal guidance on when to stay home. Without reporting requirements, a sick employee preparing food has no procedural check stopping them from doing so. Norovirus, the leading cause of foodborne illness outbreaks in the United States, spreads through exactly this pathway: an infected food handler with no policy requiring them to report symptoms or leave the kitchen.

The contamination violation compounds that picture. Food adulterated by chemical hazards, such as sanitizers or cleaning compounds, or by physical hazards like glass or metal, causes harm that has nothing to do with cooking temperatures or holding times. It is a failure of basic kitchen discipline, and it is categorized as high-severity for that reason.

Improperly cleaned multi-use utensils, one of the two intermediate violations cited, connect directly to the contamination concern. Bacterial biofilms form on utensil surfaces within 24 hours of inadequate cleaning. Those biofilms are resistant to standard sanitizers and transfer bacteria to every surface and food item the utensil subsequently contacts.

The toilet facility violation is the kind of citation that tends to get dismissed as minor. It is not. Inadequate restroom infrastructure discourages handwashing by employees, and the failure to wash hands after restroom use is one of the most documented transmission routes for pathogens including E. coli and Norovirus.

The Longer Record

TPC Sawgrass: Recent Inspection History

May 14, 20266 high-severity, 2 intermediate violations. Facility remained open.
Nov 12, 20257 high-severity, 1 intermediate violations.
May 19-20, 20259 high-severity violations across two consecutive inspection days.
Dec 9, 202410 high-severity, 1 intermediate violations.
Jun 4, 20248 high-severity, 3 intermediate violations.
Oct 9, 20235 high-severity, 2 intermediate violations.

The May 14 inspection is not an aberration. Across 22 inspections on record, TPC Sawgrass has accumulated 193 total violations. Every inspection in the past three years except one has produced multiple high-severity citations.

The December 2024 inspection produced 10 high-severity violations. The back-to-back May 2025 inspections produced 9 high-severity violations on the first day and 1 more the following day. The November 2025 inspection produced 7 high-severity violations. The May 2026 inspection produced 6.

The only clean inspection in recent history was February 2025, which recorded zero violations at either severity level. That visit stands alone in a record otherwise defined by repeated high-severity findings in overlapping categories: management control, employee health, food safety fundamentals.

The club has never been emergency-closed. Not after 10 high-severity violations in December 2024. Not after 9 in a single day in May 2025. Not after the contamination and undercooking findings on May 14, 2026.

After the most recent inspection, the doors stayed open.