Best golf courses near Port Saint Lucie, FL

The Dye Course at PGA Golf Club in Port St. Lucie is a links-style course routed through wetlands. Pine straw, coquina waste bunkers and grass bunkers capture the Florida setting, while the layouts of the holes draw strongly on British Isles roots.

If there’s such a thing as an undiscovered Tom Fazio design, it’s McArthur Golf Club, a players-only layout he did in conjunction with PGA Tour star Nick Price. It’s little-known because of its neighbors, No. 111 Jupiter Hills, a few miles south, Hobe Sound G.C., one of Joe Lee’s finest, just a few miles closer, and Greg Norman’s Medalist right next door. McArthur sits astride the same sand ridge upon which Jupiter Hills and Medalist were built, and while Fazio had to deal with wetlands and easements in his routing, he framed each hole with acres of exposed white sand in the form of dunes, slopes and hollows to provide McArthur with a singularly stunning look that’s unlike any of its rivals. With those wide expanses of sand, McArthur started a trend that continues today.

Medalist is a long, demanding course that can stretch out to roughly 7,600 yards, a necessary requirement when the membership includes Tiger Woods, Dustin Johnson, Rory McIlroy, Brooks Koepka and many more of the world’s top professional players. They like The Medalist for the relaxed atmosphere and local convenience, but also because it’s a demanding driving course—the holes circle through an undeveloped sanctuary of wetlands and low scrub vegetation one parcel south of McArthur (no. 179) and are buffeted by the strong Atlantic crosswinds from every direction. Pete Dye designed Medalist with co-founder Greg Norman (this was one of Norman’s first U.S. designs) and the course features Dye’s S-shaped holes curling around sand buffers, slinky ground contour, and small, low-profile greens that bleed into short-grass surrounds. The course had undergone numerous modifications and formalizations in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but Bobby Weed reclaimed much of original Dye character during a 2015 renovation.

The bunkering at Floridian National distinguishes it from many of the other uber-private Southwest Florida courses. Between the bright white sand and clamshell shapes, with softly rising tall lips, the bunkers share many similarities to those at Augusta National. They play an integral role in the strategy at this 7,100-yard Gary Player design, as they often pinch in where longer players would be landing off the tee. The long par-4 18th is a strong finisher and roughly resembles the famous closers at TPC Sawgrass and Pebble Beach, with the hole boomeranging to the left as water runs up the entire length of the hole. Floridian is a popular practice spot for many pros, and Claude Harmon III, Butch’s son, is the Director of Instruction.

Situated on a tight, triangularly shaped property about a mile from the Atlantic Ocean in Hobe Sound, Fla., Loblolly is a challenging Pete and P.B. Dye design. Angles are key at Loblolly, as many of the narrow and tilted greens are best attacked from one side of the hole. The Dye's were ingenious when they built the course in the late 1980s, using excavated sand from the retention ponds to create rambling fairway movement and 40-foot-high dune ridges on which to place greens and separate holes. The same concept was later used by architects at Calusa Pines, McArthur and other South Florida courses. The par-3 16th is one of the more dramatic holes in the region, as any shot coming up short and right will filter down into a bunker 20 feet below the putting surface. Golf course builder Jim Urbina has recently overseen a comprehenive renovation to faithfully restore the faded Dye character.