The second half of 2025 in Florida involved a couple trips to the very northern part of Florida to see some brand new courses and renovations as well as a few trips to the Naples area and a ton of courses in Southeast Florida where I live. We celebrated milestone courses and also had a very memorable round.
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| Club at Quail Ridge (North). Great renovation work by Fry/Straka |
NORTH FLORIDA
One of the major highlights of 2025 was my trip to the Panama City/Tallahassee area to play some new and newly renovated courses. The highlight was the brand new Davis Love III designed Third course at Watersound Club in Panama City
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| Watersound Club (The Third) Par three 10th hole |
One of the biggest surprises of 2025 was the newly renovated Santa Rosa Golf & Beach Club. Originally designed by Roy Albert Anderson, Bill Bergin breathed new life into the course digging into the site to utilize a sandy base that hadn't been previously utilized. |
| Santa Rosa Golf & Beach Club, Par four 10th hole |
Another amazing renovation effort I saw on this trip was at the Killearn Club in Tallahassee. Chris Wilczynski transformed a 1960's housing development course into one of the best courses in north Florida. |
| Killearn Club, Par five 13th hole |
I made a quick trip to the Jacksonville area in August where I enjoyed the wonderful Atlantic Beach Country Club. I had the privilege of playing with architect Erik Larsen a few years ago and he told me I needed to see his work at Atlantic Beach. I was very impressed with what he did. |
| Atlantic Beach Country Club, Par five 6th hole |
On that same trip to Jacksonville, I played the newly renovated Oak Marsh course at Amelia Island Resort. The Pete Dye design was renovated by Beau Welling. |
| Amelia Island (Oak Marsh), Par three 13th hole |
WEST COAST
My wife and I enjoyed a few overnight trips to the Naples area during the summer. I was impressed with the variety of courses I was able to experience in the area. On several trips we got to experience the massive golf complex at Bonita Bay Club.
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| Bonita Bay Club (Bay Island) |
Bonita has three courses in Bonita Springs and two in Naples. Over the course of the summer we played the Bay Island and Marsh courses at the Bonita Springs location and the Sabal course at the Naples location. All three courses at the Springs location were designed by Arthur Hills, while the Naples courses were designed by Tom Fazio.
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| Bonita Bay Club (Marsh) |
All three were very enjoyable and different enough from each other to provide some nice variety.
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| Bonita Bay Naples (Sabel) |
On one of our trips to Naples we were able to play both of the freshly renovated courses at Vineyards Country Club. Both the North and South opened in the 1980's.
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| Vineyards Country Club (North) |
Kipp Schulties renovated the South a few years ago and the North reopened from renovation this year.
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| Vineyards Country Club (South) |
I visited another Tom Fazio designed 36 hole complex in Naples at The Club at Mediterra. I played the South course.
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| Club at Mediterra (South) |
One of the courses we played in Naples was a milestone course for my wife. Olde Florida Golf Club is a Rees Jones design that was the site of my wife's 400th golf course.
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| My wife playing her 400th golf course at Olde Florida Golf Club |
Nearly a year after I played the first course, I was able to play the 2nd course at Tiburon this summer. The Greg Norman designed Black course was more challenging than the Gold course that I played in the fall of 2024.
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| Tiburon Golf Club (Black) |
A course I had been wanting to play for several years that I finally got to see was the Pete Dye/Greg Norman designed Talis Park Golf Club, previously called Tuscany Reserve.
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| Talis Park Golf Club |
I played both courses at Quail West on my multiple trips to Naples. The Lakes course was very enjoyable but what really excited me was the renovated Preserve course. Drew Rogers renovated the original Arthur Hills design a few years ago. He took the approach of installing several Seth Raynor themed design elements like a punchbowl green and Raynor's trademark bunkering. Having spent four years working at a Raynor course, I absolutely loved the look and feel of the course.
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| Quail West Country Club (Preserve) |
EAST COAST
Renovations seemed to be the theme of notable courses I played on the east coast of Florida in 2025. Many courses down here have recently renovated or are planning renovations in an effort to keep up with the competition. Most of these renovations improve the course and those of us that visit and don't have to incur the membership assessments benefit greatly!
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| Orchid Island Country Club |
The renovation that impressed me the most was the work done by Fry/Straka on the North course at The Club at Quail Ridge in Boynton Beach. The newly renovated course has bold bunkering and most importantly is very different from the also recently renovated South course.
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| Club at Quail Ridge (North) |
Coming in a close second of the recently renovated courses I played was Seagate Golf Club in Delray Beach. Drew Rogers is fast becoming my favorite renovation architect, as I previously mentioned his great work at Quail West. Like there, he introduced elements of golden age design to really inject some character into the course.
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| Seagate Golf Club |
Keeping with the theme of renovation work, I was also fortunate to play the newly renovated Village course at Jonathan's Landing Club. Beau Welling did the work at the Village course which is in the town of Jupiter.
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| Jonathan's Landing (Village) |
Besides the course, the most memorable part of playing the Village is the ferry you need to take to cross part of the par five 17th hole.
On my birthday this year I had the pleasure of playing Orchid Island Golf Club in Vero Beach. I have been trying to play this course for many years and actually had a tee time there last year that was canceled by Hurricane Milton. Mother nature didn't get in my way this year, and Orchid Island made for a wonderful birthday gift.
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| Orchid Island Golf Club |
It's hard to find a well preserved Golden Age course in Florida. That is the reason I was so excited to play RioMar Country Club in Vero Beach. The front nine, right on the ocean, was designed by Herbert Strong and opened in 1919. The back nine, designed by Joe Lee, is on land across the road from the front and was added many years later.
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| RioMar Country Club |
If you follow my blog or Instagram page, you will know I am on a quest to play every course by Donald Ross. This summer, I finally played the last Ross course in Florida I was yet to play, Riviera Country Club in Coral Gables. The course has been renovated multiple times over the years, but the routing is still pure Ross and the course upholds his design well.
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| Riviera Country Club |
After a difficult winter last year where I didn't really have a place to play regularly, I am happy to say that I now have a home course to play regularly. Dutchman's Pipe Club in West Palm Beach is the third incarnation of the course.
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| The punchbowl 13th hole at Dutchman's Pipe Club |
It started life as the Eagle course at President's Country Club. Then in 2017 it was renovated by Nicklaus design and became Banyan Cay Resort. In 2023 it was closed and again renovated by Nicklaus design and opened as a private club. I get asked about the name all the time, apparently Dutchman's Pipe is the name of a type of vine that is native to south Florida.
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| Dutchman's Pipe Club, 1st hole |
The last course I'll mention on the east course was a very memorable day for me as a proud husband. On July 4th this year my wife shot her lowest score ever at Frenchman's Reserve Country Club in Palm Beach Gardens. One of the best things about private clubs in south Florida is that a lot of them have very good forward tees. Because of the demographics of their memberships, they understand that tees below 4000 yards are needed for men and women who, for whatever reason, can't hit it very far anymore. These tees allowed my wife to hit irons into par fours. What a concept! |
| Frenchman's Reserve Country Club |
NOTABLE PUBLIC COURSES
Many years after I played the famous Blue Monster course at Doral I returned in the summer of 2025 to play two of the other courses at the facility. First up was the Red Tiger course renovated by Gil Hanse a few years ago.
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| Trump National Doral(Red Tiger) |
After my round on Red Tiger, I was able to get out on the Golden Palm course, also renovated by Gil Hanse a few years ago. |
| Trump National Doral(Golden Palm) |
The surprise public access course I played this summer was The Boca Raton Golf Club. The course was originally designed a hundred years ago by one of the best architects of all time, William Flynn. It has been subsuqently redesigned many times over the years and it is difficult to say how much of the original design remains. What is on site now is an incredibly fun and quirky course. |
| Boca Raton Club & Resort |
One of the best public options closest to my home in Stuart is Astor Creek Golf & Country Club in Port St. Lucie which opened in 2023 and was designed by local Florida architect Chris Wilczynski. While not exactly a highlight, I did want to take a moment to discuss the picture below. I really believe that lower end public courses are doing the best that they can to achieve great conditions, but this is simply unacceptable. I played a course this summer where they had clearly given up on preserving any sort of site lines from the back tees. The picture below is one of the worst, but it happened on at least eight holes on this course. If you can't afford to cut down the trees or bushes so that golfers can see where they are going, don't put out the back tees. I get it, very few people play these tees and it don't make financial sense to do the work, but sometimes you just need to save golfers from themselves. Ok, rant over.
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