I haven't done a blog post in a while because I haven't taken any trips so far this year. I knew this would happen when I moved to Florida for my job last October. I have taken advantage of living in the state with the most golf courses in the United States and felt I should do a post to highlight some of the 68 courses in Florida that I played from January to June of 2025.
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| Soleta Golf Club has been the biggest surprise of 2025 |
WEST COAST
I kicked off the year 2025 with rounds at the newly developed Cabot Citrus Farms, formerly World Woods, about an hour north of Tampa.
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| Cabot Citrus Farms(Karoo) |
The two main courses, Karoo and Roost, were renovated by Kyle Franz with help from others on the Roost. Both courses were incredibly fun and very different from each other.
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| Cabot Citrus Farms(Roost) |
Cabot's great strength though, is that they have two excellent short courses designed by Mike Nuzzo.
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| Cabot Citrus Farms(Squeeze) |
The 11 hole par three wedge course and the 10 hole Squeeze course provide a great break from the big courses and have wonderful forward tee options for people like my wife.
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| Cabot Citrus Farms(Wedge) |
The biggest surprise so far of 2025 happened on the West Coast of Florida at Soleta Golf Club in Myakka City near Bradenton. This brand new course was designed by Nick Price, who also contributed to the design of the original course at McArthur.
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| Soleta Golf Club |
You can see some similarities between the designs, but at Soleta, Price used more exposed sand and created something thoroughly original for the state of Florida.
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| Soleta Golf Club |
Another very high profile new course in Naples opened in late 2024 and I had the great pleasure of playing it in early 2025. Kinsale Golf Club was designed by Gil Hanse on a very small piece of property in the heart of Naples. Hanse used many Raynor template holes and a ton of creativity to engineer an amazing course. I particularly loved the punchbowl short par three right near the clubhouse. I predict lots of witnesses to the many hole in ones that will happen on the hole.
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| Kinsale Golf Club |
I was excited to return to Boca Grande in 2025 for a round at Gasparilla Golf Club which was damaged during Hurricane Milton in October of 2024. Architect Tripp Davis came in to rebuild the course. The club said he restored the original Pete Dye design, but frankly I didn't see that. It is still a tremendous course, but I felt it lacked the hard edge I love to see in Pete Dye designs, which existed in the old course.
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| Gasparilla Golf Club |
While I was in the Boca Grande area, I stopped in at Lemon Bay Golf Club in Englewood which was recently renovated by Drew Rogers. I was pleasantly surprised by this design and Rogers bold modern bunkering.
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| Lemon Bay Golf Club |
The Club at Twineagles in Naples recently renovated both of their golf courses with Steve Smyers renovating the Gary Player designed Eagle course, and Jack Nicklaus returning to renovate his own work on the Talon course.
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| Twineagles Club(Eagle) |
I played both courses on a hot day in June was impressed with how the renovations provided two very different courses at one facility.
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| Twineagles Club(Talon) |
EAST COAST
One of the themes of the early part of 2025 was Gil Hanse. I played three new to me Hanse courses within the span of three weeks. The aforementioned Kinsale on the west coast of Florida along with the West course at Apogee in Hobe Sound, and the Match course at Jonathan's Landing in Jupiter. The West course at Apogee is the first of three planned courses. The South designed by Tommy Fazio recently opened. The North designed by Kyle Phillips will open in the fall of 2025. Unfortunately I caught Apogee on a very rainy day, but it was still fun flying around the course by myself in the rain.
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| Apogee Club(West) |
I was really surprised by how much I liked the Match course at Jonathan's Landing. Hanse re-did one of the two courses at the Old Trail facility at Jonathan's Landing. He blew up the old Arthur Hills course, and created something thoroughly original and fun. It had a tremendous variety of holes and was so well designed for high handicap players I am desperate to get my wife out there to experience it.
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| Jonathan's Landing Club(Match) |
Addison Reserve Golf Club in Boynton Beach recently completed a full scale renovation of their twenty-seven hole Arthur Hills course. Rees Jones handled the renovation and the results are a very strong course, with bold bunkering and picture perfect par threes.
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| Addison Reserve Country Club |
Atlantic Fields in Hobe Sound is a very high profile Discovery Land property that will have an 18 hole Tom Fazio course opening in the fall of 2025. I was fortunate to get to play the ten hole short course in the Spring. The course utilizes multiple tees and angles to give members and guests the opportunity to choose their own adventure. We ended up sticking to the traditional routing on both of our tours around the course.
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| Atlantic Fields(Short) |
Now for a slight detour in this blog post to talk about little moments in life that can have a big impact on your overall life. I played both of the courses at The Country Club of Mirasol for the first time in 2025, but I knew CC of Mirasol well because it indirectly changed my life. I was working at a club in the Philadelphia area and my boss suddenly decided to take his "retirement" job at The CC of Mirasol in Florida.
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| CC of Mirasol(Sunrise) |
The pro that the course in Philadelphia hired was local and wanted to bring in his own people. Because I was the last one hired, I was let go and less than a year later, I ended up taking a job at DuPont Country Club in Delaware where I met the love of my life that I have now been married to for 15 years. She played Mirasol with me and we had a great time marveling at how the little changes in life can have such a big impact.
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| CC of Mirasol(Sunset) |
On the last day of May I headed down to Admiral's Cove Golf Club in Jupiter to play the Village course, which along with the East course was designed by Robert Von Hagge. The course is like a time warp to the 1980's when everybody thought a course had to be hard in order to be good. The bunkering is also very 1980's.
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| Admiral's Cove(Village) |
NOTABLE PUBLIC COURSES
I'm not sure if you know this, but golf is expensive. Golf is especially expensive in Florida in the winter. Imagine that! With this knowledge, I went searching for bargains during the height of the winter and found some very good courses that provided solid design and conditioning at a fair price.
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| The newly public Boca Raton Golf Club |
The Links at Boynton Beach has an eighteen hole Championship course and a nine hole Challenge course. All holes were designed by Styles & Vankleek. We played the Challenge course at sunrise one morning and I was pleasantly surprised how well preserved the golden age design was.
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| Links at Boynton Beach(Challenge) |
Jupiter Dunes in Jupiter is a wonderful par three course that is a delightful walk.
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| Jupiter Dunes Golf Club |
Fairwinds Golf Club in Fort Pierce is a very good Jim Fazio design with some of the best forward tees I have ever seen. My wife thoroughly enjoyed being able to hit drive and 9 iron or wedge to a par four like the rest of us do.
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| Fairwinds Golf Club |
The Florida Club in Stuart was designed by a gentleman who used to work for Pete Dye and you can see the Dye influence in this very busy upscale public course right off I-95.
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| The Florida Club |
