Where to Play
Best Golf Courses in Fort Lauderdale & Broward
Older and cheaper than Palm Beach, closer to the beach than Miami.
Broward County is the part of South Florida golfers drive through rather than to, which is a mistake. The courses here are older and cheaper than Palm Beach, closer to the beach than Miami's, and several of them are genuinely good.
1. Jacaranda Golf Club
The East is the longer of Jacaranda's two four-star courses and a real tournament venue, having hosted PGA and USGA events and qualifiers. Mark Mahannah laid it out in 1970; Bobby Weed has returned to it twice.
The most recent work resurfaced the tees, fairways and rough in Bimini Bermuda and restored the bunkers with white sand, explicitly preserving Mahannah's routing rather than replacing it. Eighty bunkers and water on fifteen holes, at a public green fee.
2. Grande Oaks
Grande Oaks began in 1959 as Rolling Hills, and Raymond Floyd rebuilt it in 1999 into what members play now. He used the mature oaks the site already carried rather than clearing them, which is why the holes are framed by trees in a way uncommon in South Florida.
Private, and now owned by Nova Southeastern University.
3. Plantation Preserve
Plantation Preserve is a city-owned course ranked 14th in Florida. Von Hagge, Smelek and Baril routed it around preserved wetland and native habitat rather than filling it.
Championship length at 7,049 yards for a municipal green fee is not a combination that comes up often.
4. Orangebrook
Thirty-six holes of Hollywood municipal golf, and the two courses are genuinely different. The East is the original 1930s A.J. Ewing layout, tighter, with smaller greens and fewer water hazards. The West is Red Lawrence's, added in stages between 1955 and 1961, wetter but more forgiving with larger greens and a forward tee set.
Green fees under sixty-five dollars on a course approaching a century old.
5. Deer Creek and Emerald Hills
Deer Creek is a Charles Ankrom layout emerging from a full renovation: greens rebuilt to USGA specification in TifEagle, fairways regrassed in Bimini Bermuda, routing unchanged. The Club at Emerald Hills is one of the longer layouts in the county at just over 7,000 yards.
After the round
Fort Lauderdale to Miami is thirty to forty minutes, and plenty of golfers make the run for dinner. MyRSVP's Miami guide covers that side, and most of our Broward course pages carry a pairing.
Browse every Fort Lauderdale course.