Best Golf Courses in Florida: A Region-by-Region Guide

Florida's best golf comes in three kinds, and the difference matters more than the region. Some courses will give a tee time to anyone. Some come with a hotel room, because play is limited to resort guests and members. And some, the best course in the state among them, need a member to sign you in. Build the trip on the first two. Know the third, and say yes if the invitation ever comes.

What follows is a priority list by region, with access stated plainly. For the lay of the land, start with Florida golf by region; for how booking works, how to play golf in Florida.

If you only play five

1. TPC Sawgrass, Players Stadium Course. The course that made tournament golf something designed to be watched.
2. Streamsong. Two rounds in a day, ideally the Black and one of the originals. Nothing else in Florida plays like it.
3. The Blue Monster at Doral. Long and watery, and the course the PGA Tour chose for its 2026 return to Doral.
4. Tiburón's Gold Course. Greg Norman's Naples course and the stage for the LPGA's season finale.
5. Hammock Beach's Ocean Course. The best stretch of Atlantic golf a visitor can book.

All five take outside play. Bay Hill, Innisbrook's Copperhead and PGA National's Champion would push onto the list, but each needs a resort stay.

Northeast Florida: Jacksonville and Ponte Vedra

The Stadium Course opened in 1980 as the first true stadium course and has been home to The Players since 1982. Pete and Alice Dye built it, and she is credited with the island green at the 17th. From The Players tees it runs 7,352 yards with a 155 slope. Outside visitors can book it, and a forecaddie comes with the standard rate.

The round to pair with it is the 1928 Ocean Course at Ponte Vedra Inn & Club, whose ninth is credited as the first island green ever built. There is no public tee sheet: play is for Inn & Club members and resort guests. Without that room, the public option is the King & Bear at World Golf Village in St. Augustine, the only course Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus designed together. Best golf courses in Jacksonville covers the rest of the First Coast.

Palm Coast and Daytona Beach

The most overlooked stretch of golf on the Atlantic side. Jack Nicklaus's Ocean Course at Hammock Beach opened in 2000 with several holes running directly along the ocean, rare on a coastline with so little oceanfront golf, and outside visitors can book it as well as resort guests. Tom Watson's Conservatory, the resort's inland course, is the opposite proposition: deep bunkering and 7,776 yards. Farther south, LPGA International has public courses by Rees Jones and Arthur Hills on the Daytona Beach campus where the LPGA keeps its headquarters. The Space Coast page lists the courses there.

Orlando

Bay Hill is the round Orlando is built around. Dick Wilson laid it out in 1961, Arnold Palmer bought the club in 1975, and it has been a PGA Tour stop since 1979, home of the Arnold Palmer Invitational. Its 18th, with water down the right and a pond before the green, is the hole people know. Play is reserved for members and lodge guests, so the round comes with a room.

Without one, go to Orange County National's Panther Lake. It is public, the 900 acres carry no housing at all, and up to sixty feet of elevation change is a lot for central Florida. The Orlando guide ranks the rest.

Tampa Bay and Streamsong

If one place in this guide justifies the flight, it is Streamsong, in Polk County on sand the phosphate mines left behind. Tom Doak's Blue and Coore and Crenshaw's Red opened together in 2012 and wind through each other across the same dunes. Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner added the Black in 2017 on open ground apart from the originals, par 73 at 7,320 yards, with greens unlike anything on the other two. The tee sheet is open to visitors, which makes this the best golf in Florida you can simply book.

Closer to the Gulf, Innisbrook's Copperhead in Palm Harbor is Larry Packard's 1972 course through rolling pine, home of the Valspar Championship and the three-hole finish called the Snake Pit. It is for resort guests and members only. Plan both with best golf courses in Tampa Bay.

Naples and the Gulf Coast

Tiburón is Spanish for shark, a nod to Greg Norman, and his 1998 Gold Course carries the résumé: the CME Group Tour Championship that closes the LPGA season, and the Grant Thornton Invitational, the mixed PGA Tour and LPGA team event played in December. Stacked sod-wall bunkers sit beside coquina waste areas. The Black, from 2001, is the harder of the two. Both take outside play.

The Gulf Coast's most admired golf is private. Michael Hurdzan and Dana Fry built elevation and pine into Calusa Pines in 2001, on ground that naturally has neither. The Concession in Bradenton, named for Jack Nicklaus conceding Tony Jacklin's putt at the 1969 Ryder Cup, carries a 155 slope and hosted a World Golf Championships event in 2021. Both are for members and their guests. The Naples guide has the public alternatives.

Palm Beach

Seminole is the best course in Florida, and the one you are least likely to play. Donald Ross set half a dozen holes hard against the Atlantic in Juno Beach, Ben Hogan used it to sharpen his game before the Masters, and in 2021 it hosted the first Walker Cup played in Florida. Members and their guests only, with no public tee times.

PGA National's Champion is the round you can plan for. The Fazios built it in 1981, Jack Nicklaus's 1990 redesign created the Bear Trap at holes 15 through 17, and it has hosted the PGA Tour every year since 2007, in the event that became the Cognizant Classic in 2024. Play is for resort guests and members, as it is at The Breakers' Ocean Course, laid out in 1897 and the oldest in Florida. For a round anyone can book, The Park is Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner's 2023 course on West Palm Beach's old municipal site. The Palm Beach guide has the rest.

Fort Lauderdale and Broward

Most golfers drive straight through Broward. Stop for Jacaranda's East Course: 80 bunkers, water on fifteen holes, and a Bobby Weed renovation that kept Mark Mahannah's routing intact. Plantation Preserve is city-owned and 7,148 yards long. The Fort Lauderdale guide has the rest.

Miami

The Blue Monster is Dick Wilson's 1961 course, re-sculpted hole by hole by Gil Hanse in 2014, and it runs 7,590 yards from the Black tees. It was on the PGA Tour schedule from 1962 to 2016, the tour came back in 2026 for the Cadillac Championship, and visitors can book it. Crandon on Key Biscayne, built in 1972 around saltwater lakes and mangrove, and the Biltmore, Donald Ross's 1925 course in Coral Gables, round out the Miami short list, and both take outside play. The Miami guide ranks the county, and the Miami golf bachelor party weekend offers all three as its Saturday round.

The Keys

Key West Golf Club on Stock Island is the round in the Keys you can book: William Langford's 1924 course, rebuilt by Rees Jones in 1983, with a par 3 played entirely over a field of mangrove. Ocean Reef in Key Largo has two eighteens, and both are private.

Tallahassee, Gainesville and Ocala

North Florida has the rolling ground the coasts lack. In Tallahassee, SouthWood is Fred Couples and Gene Bates's 2002 course and takes outside tee times; Tom Fazio's Golden Eagle is private. Gainesville has Mark Bostick, a 1921 Donald Ross course on the University of Florida campus that Bobby Weed restored in 2001, open to students, faculty, staff, alumni and their guests. In Ocala, Golden Ocala is Ron Garl's 1987 tribute course, with eight holes modeled on originals at St. Andrews, Augusta National, Royal Troon and elsewhere. It is private.

Planning around the list

Florida is too long to play end to end, so pick a region and go deep. Florida golf trip planning has the routing, the season guide covers when to go, and the best public golf courses in Florida goes further into the tier anyone can book.