Raven Golf Club at Sandestin Golf and Beach Resort
What many might not realize is that many of the country’s most beautiful beaches are located on the Gulf Coast, from the tip of Florida all the way to the long coastline of Texas.
These shorelines and barrier islands are also home to some of America’s prettiest resorts, offering beautiful accommodations, beach clubs, and plenty of recreation.
Some of those resorts also have golf with some of the most scenic and challenging coastal layouts you can play. A few are right on the ocean, while some others are more inland, but you can bet you’ll feel those ocean breezes no matter what.
What follows are our top 10 Gulf Coast resorts with golf courses (arranged from southeast to west). They cover just about every budget, with the majority of them coming on the shorelines of western Florida from Naples up to the Panhandle’s Emerald Coast.
Ritz Carlton (Tiburon, Naples, Fla.)
Tiburon means “shark” in Spanish, so just as you’d expect, the two championship golf courses at the Ritz-Carlton in Naples – the original Gold and the Black – were both designed by Greg Norman. The courses are designed to play firm and fast with no rough, but plenty of bunkers. They’ve been the site of numerous professional events, most recently the Chubb Classic on the PGA Tour Champions, which is played on the Black Course, considered the more difficult of the two. Of course, any stay at the Ritz-Carlton comes with luxurious accommodations, impeccable service, and outstanding dining. In addition to golf, there’s the Patrick Mouratoglou Tennis Center and a reservoir water park that features a winding river, water slides, and private cabanas. All of this is located within an Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary.
Black Course at Ritz Carlton
La Playa Beach and Golf Resort (Naples, Fla.)
The key word here is beach (la playa is Spanish for beach), because this is right next to one of the most beautiful beaches in the United States. Fortunately, there’s also a beautiful Bob Cupp-designed golf course and clubhouse, which makes this a really gorgeous spot to tee it up. The course plays around 6,900 yards from the tips, and while it’s not right on the beach, most of the holes have water on them, so it’s plenty challenging. It’s also very well-maintained. The resort has brand new rooms and suites, a spa, and Baleen Restaurant, where guests can enjoy award winning fare while checking out the sunsets.
La Playa Beach and Golf Resort
Resort at Longboat Key (Sarasota, Fla.)
Located on one of Sarasota’s most beautiful barrier islands, the 410-acre Resort at Longboat Key is a terrific spot to relax, dine, and play tennis and golf. Accommodations have been fully renovated recently, as have the golf courses. The courses include the Links at Longboat Key and the 27 holes of Harborside. The golf courses were recently renovated by architect Ron Garl and now feature bright green paspalum turf and white sand bunkers giving them a real island feel. Beyond golf, there’s terrific dining, clay court tennis, and lots of other things to do at this wonderful resort and community, and that includes a pristine private beach.
Resort at Longboat Key
Innisbrook Golf Resort (Palm Harbor, Fla.)
Innisbrook isn’t right on the Gulf, but we do have to mention it, given that the famed Copperhead Course is a favorite on the PGA Tour (it plays host to the Valspar Championship), and the resort has four good to outstanding golf courses. The Copperhead Course was designed by Larry Packard (who lived to 101 and lived at Innisbrook for more than 40 years) and is one of the toughest courses on tour. It’s known for a difficult finishing stretch called the “Snake Pit.” The other three courses – the Island Course, North, and South – were also designed by Packard. As for the resort, which is part of the Salamander Collection, there’s plenty to do, including racquet sports, biking, hiking, fine dining, and enjoying live entertainment. Accommodations, which include condos and townhomes, have been renovated in recent years.
Sandestin Golf and Beach Resort (Destin, Fla.)
If you like to play a variety of golf courses, eat at different restaurants and fish, hike, play racquet sports, or other things on or around the water, the large Sandestin Golf and Beach Resort is a great choice. It starts with four golf courses, including the private Burnt Pine Golf Club by Rees Jones, which is available on some golf packages, plus Raven Golf Club designed by Robert Trent Jones Jr., and the Links Course at Sandestin, and Baytowne Golf Club. On top of that, there’s a wide variety of accommodations (including hotels, homes, and condos), more than two dozen restaurants, retail shops, spa, and more than 65,000 square feet in meeting space. It really is a complete vacation.
Burnt Pine at Sandestin Golf and Beach Resort
Camp Creek, Shark’s Tooth and the WaterColor Inn
Another really cool spot on the Emerald Coast not too far from Sandestin is the WaterColor Inn and Resort, where much of the movie “The Truman Show” was filmed because of its perfect houses and condos just minutes from the beach. It’s also where you will find the serene boutique hotel, the WaterColor Inn. The golf offerings include two private championship courses. The Tom Fazio-designed Camp Creek stretches out to well over 7,100 yards with lots of water features and sand. And guests can also Shark’s Tooth by Greg Norman, also a championship layout with plenty of water and wetlands.
Camp Creek
Kiva Dunes Gulf Shores (Alabama) Resort
Located just a few hundred yards from the beach, Kiva Dunes is certainly one of Jerry Pates’ best works as an architect and a must-play if you’re on the Alabama Gulf Coast. The course opened in 1995 ranked second on Golf Digest’s best new courses, and has maintained a reputation as one of the state’s finest since. Wind always comes into play on this links-like layout that’s both difficult and fun and located just a couple hundred yards from the beach. You can book stay-and-play packages that include homes or condos at Kiva Dunes, which also has excellent onsite restaurants, pools, and a beach club.
Fallen Oak at the Beau Rivage MGM (Biloxi, Miss.)
The former home of a PGA Tour Champions event – the Rapiscan Systems Classic – Fallen Oak Golf Club remains one of the finest and most well-conditioned golf courses on the central Gulf Coast. You have to be a guest at the Beau Rivage MGM Resort & Casino to play this par-72 layout that can play nearly 7,500 yards long. But if you’re not on a budget, we highly recommend it. Everything about this operation is first class, from the way you’re treated to the tour conditions of the course to the interest of the layout, which has 10 bridges over a rolling landscape covered in oak, pine, magnolia, pecan groves, lakes, winding streams, and wetlands. Beau Rivage MGM is a AAA Four Diamond Resort with luxurious rooms, suites, terrific dining, spa, and beautiful views of the Mississippi Sound and downtown Biloxi.
Fallen Oak
Contraband Bayou Golf Club at L’auberge Casino Resort (Lake Charles, La.)
The first casino course to open in Lake Charles back in 2005 is a good one. Designed by Tom Fazio and Beau Welling, the latter of whom has gone to become on the hottest architects in the nation, Contraband Bayou is an enjoyable par-71, 7,100-yard championship golf course that features eight lakes, saltwater marshes and Fazio’s signature deep bunkers. The course is right on property of the L’auberge Casino Resort, which has a hotel that offers large, luxurious rooms, lots of dining, and of course, gaming, including a sports book.
Contraband Bayou Golf Club
The Country Club at Golden Nugget (Lake Charles, La.)
Designed by Todd Eckenrode, The Country Club at Golden Nugget is the most premium offering in Lake Charles, which actually has a surprisingly good golf scene overall (there are several above average and good value courses you can play in the area). The course, which played host to the 2022 Lake Charles Championship on the Korn Ferry Tour, is a flat layout with lots of water. It’s a beautiful spot with the Calcasieu River and bridge as well as the resort as its backdrop. With four sets of tees, it’s very playable with a nice mix of long and short par 4s and a variety of par 3s. Water comes into play on at least half the holes. The Golden Nugget, as you might expect, offers gambling, luxurious rooms, great dining, and a spa.
The Country Club at Golden Nugget
Honorable mentions
Texas has nearly 400 miles of coastline on the Gulf, but you’ll notice the Lone Star State isn’t on our top ten list. In fact, the only one worth mentioning is Palmilla Beach Resort, which at one time had a pretty good regulation 18-hole course designed by Arnold Palmer. Situated in Port Aransas near Corpus Christi just a hundred yards or so from the beach with a few ocean views, the original par-71 course was destroyed by Hurricane Harvey in 2017. It hadn’t been making money before the storm, so the owners decided to rebuild the golf complex with an all-paspalum nine-hole course that’s just under 2,500 yards, as well as an enjoyable and optional three-hole course. It’s a beautiful area with a clubhouse that features great food and live entertainment, home rentals, endless beaches, and other recreational opportunities.
Back in Florida, however, there are a few other resorts you might want to consider as well.
In Wesley Chapel near Tampa and St. Petersburg, there’s Saddlebrook Resort, which has two fairly tight, but enjoyable Arnold Palmer layouts. What Saddlebook, however, is probably best known for, are its tennis facilities and academy.
Also worth mentioning is the Ritz Carlton Sarasota, a five-star hotel experience with its own beach club, fine dining, and great accommodations. The only reason we didn’t include it in our top 10 list is that the golf is about 15 miles away in Bradenton. Once you get there, however, the golf at the Fazio-designed Ritz Carlton Members Club is a treat with impeccable conditions, and premium service on a very enjoyable layout.
Other Gulf Coast resorts worth considering include the Seascape Golf, Tennis & Beach Resort in South Walton as well as Marriott’s Legends Edge at Bay Point Resort in Panama City, which offers the only Jack Nicklaus design in northwest Florida.
Saddlebrook Resort