Looking to live where you play? We have you covered with the top 200 residential golf courses in the U.S. for 2023.
Welcome to Golfweek’s Best 2023 list of top residential golf courses in the United States.
The hundreds of members of our course-ratings panel continually evaluate courses and rate them based on our 10 criteria. They also file a single, overall rating on each course. Those overall ratings on each course are averaged to produce a final, cumulative rating. Then each course is ranked against other courses in the region.
This list focuses on the golf courses themselves, not the communities as a whole or other amenities. Each golf course included is listed with its average rating from 1 to 10, its location, architect(s) and the year it opened.
The stretch of Florida known as the First Coast offers tons of options, with TPC Sawgrass and Hammock Beach leading the way in the rankings.
Florida is synonymous with golf. It’s the Sunshine State, where fairways roll for miles and there’s always another course to sample – more than 1,250 of them in all.
Want to play where the top PGA pros live? These days, that’s Jupiter on the southeast coast. On vacation with the family? Plenty of tee boxes are available around Orlando and Disney World. Looking for a retirement home where you can tumble out of your own bed and land on a fairway? Naples and its surrounding towns are ground zero for those fortunate transplants. Three top-ranked courses in one comprehensive, golf-focused resort? Streamsong, just southeast of Tampa, ticks that box nicely.
Just about anyone who travels to play Florida golf is at least somewhat familiar with those regions. But what if you’re looking for something different, maybe a coastline where the game is on an uptick? Keep reading, because the region south of Jacksonville has something for any golfer, ranging from elite PGA Tour courses to municipal standouts with long histories and cheap green fees. And it doesn’t hurt at all that this First Coast, as it is called, is the first bit of Florida that anybody driving south on I-95 will reach.
The pool scene at Hammock Beach Golf Resort & Spa (Courtesy of Hammock Beach)
Golf in Northeast Florida roughly can be categorized as three geographic areas along an 80-mile stretch of coast starting at the Georgia state line. There’s the smaller area north of Jacksonville proper, with the resorts at Amelia Island and a handful of courses. Continuing south, there’s Jacksonville itself, the largest city in Florida by population and the largest in the contiguous United States as measured by land mass. And then there’s south of Jacksonville all the way down toward Daytona Beach, a stretch that includes Ponte Vedra Beach, home to the PGA Tour.
The top-rated courses in the Golfweek’s Best public-access rankings are found in this stretch south of Jacksonville, so this story takes us to this region dotted with beach resorts, high-end gated communities, daily-fee destinations and even a recently revamped municipal that shouldn’t be missed. The full scope of green fees and amenities to suit any budget. Oceanside holes. Inland holes. Old layouts and renovated tracks. Even one course with three, six, 12 or even 18 holes, depending on how you want to play it. Options abound.
Mention the region and most golfers flash right to TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach. Completely understandable. The Players Stadium Course – and, of course, its famed par-3, island-green 17th – hosts the PGA Tour’s Players Championship each year. It’s the top-ranked public-access layout in Florida, home to one of Pete Dye’s monsters.
But just as there is more than one island green along this stretch of coast, there is much more to the region.
“People are always aware of TPC Stadium and the Players, but they are often surprised by everything else,” said David Reese, president of Florida’s First Coast of Golf, a non-profit organization established nearly 30 years ago to promote the region. “Once people set foot in northeast Florida, they are blown away. … You’ve got the beaches, of course, but there’s a lot more to do. I could go on for hours, so many courses.”
While the Players Stadium Course gets almost all of the attention – especially during the Players – there is other quality golf in the area.
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – The 17th hole at TPC Sawgrass is a fun risk-reward par 5, stretching 499 yards with water all down the left. But you already knew that, right? Because everybody knows about the world-famous 17th at TPC Sawgrass?
Sorry for the misdirect, but that short par 3 with the island green next door isn’t the only 17th hole in town. Not even the only 17th built by Pete Dye. While the Players Stadium Course gulps down almost all of the attention – especially during the Players Championship – there is a more-than-worthy track that begins on the other side of the practice range at TPC Sawgrass.
Dye’s Valley, which Dye built with fellow architects Bobby Weed and Jerry Pate, is a watery test of its own. Opened in 1987, Dye’s Valley is likely to rejoin the Golfweek’s Best Courses You Can Play list for best public-access courses in Florida when the annual list is revised in May.
No. 16 at TPC Sawgrass Dye’s Valley (Courtesy of TPC Sawgrass)
But that doesn’t make Dye’s Valley any less fun, what with its generous-enough fairways, seemingly everywhere water and mounding straight out of the famed architect’s textbook.
For golf fans looking to tee it up themselves in northeast Florida as the Players Championship revs into high gear in March, there are several solid options.
About 20 miles by car from TPC Sawgrass are two courses that have grabbed plenty of televised commercial time in recent years, with Gary Player extolling the virtues of the World Golf Hall of Fame and its two neighboring courses: the King and Bear, and the Slammer and Squire at World Golf Village.
The King and Bear at World Golf Village (Courtesy of World Golf Village)
The King and Bear, with 18 holes built by Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus in 2000, is the wider and more forgiving of the two layouts. Billed as the only course in the world co-designed by the two legends, it presents a fun chance to take mighty cuts off the tee – Palmer and Nicklaus enjoyed the long ball, after all – and still find room to recover from a few foul balls.
The layout features what Palmer called one of his favorite holes that he designed, the 360-yard par-4 15th with water all down the right and a green perched atop boulders. In immaculate shape for a recent mid-winter round and with water in play throughout, the King and Bear is more than worthy of a side trip inland from TPC Sawgrass during Players Championship week.
The Slammer and Squire at World Golf Village (Courtesy of World Golf Village)
The Slammer and Squire is much more old-school Florida golf, with tighter fairways nestled between thick native foliage and frequent water.
Design credit goes to Weed in collaboration with a different pair of Hall of Fame legends, Sam Snead and Gene Sarazen. Offering close views of the World Golf Hall of Fame’s tower, the Slammer and Squire perhaps requires more thought and patience than the King and Bear. Its elevated greens also exact a steeper price for approach shots that fail to find the putting surfaces.
Hammock Beach’s Ocean Course (Courtesy of Hammock Beach)
About an hour south of TPC Sawgrass is another pair of highly touted standouts at Hammock Beach Resort.
The Ocean Course, designed by Nicklaus and ranked No. 10 in the state among Golfweek’s Best Courses You Can Play, features a surprising Florida rarity: six holes along the Atlantic. A face-lift that wrapped up in 2018 included wall-to-wall re-grassing and better views of the beach.
The resort’s second course, the Conservatory, is an inland design by Tom Watson that ranks No. 18 among the state’s public-access courses.
So while the spotlight will shine brightly on the Players Stadium Course for the Players, as it should, there are plenty of worthy options along the coast. In the Sunshine State, there’s plenty of light to go around.
