Golf courses in Sarasota

This site holds records for 16 golf facilities in Sarasota, carrying 351 holes between them. That count comes from the county records rather than from a directory: Manatee publishes a golf course GIS layer and Sarasota assigns dedicated golf land-use codes in its tax roll, so a facility that exists is in one of them whether or not it markets itself. The split by access is 8 private, 5 public and 3 semi-private. Access type is the thing worth checking before anything else, because it decides whether you can play at all.

Yes. Sarasota has 5 public courses: Bobby Jones Golf Club, Tatum Ridge Golf Links, The Meadows Country Club, The Palms Golf Club at Forest Lakes and Village Green Golf Club. Public here means you can book a tee time without a membership and without owning a home in a particular community, which is not true of most golf in this market. Several are municipally owned, so a resident rate may apply. Green fees change by season and by day and very few of these courses publish a fixed table, so call the golf shop for the current number rather than trusting a third-party quote.

8 of the 16 are private: Gator Creek Golf Club, Heritage Oaks Golf & Country Club, Laurel Oak Country Club, Palm Aire Country Club, Sara Bay Country Club, Stoneybrook Golf & Country Club, The Founders Golf Club and TPC Prestancia. Private covers two quite different arrangements, and the difference is expensive. At some clubs membership is bundled with the home, so the cost arrives in the association billing whether or not you play. At others it is optional and bought separately, which means a lower monthly figure and a separate decision. Each club page here records which it is where a source states it, and says the club does not publish rather than estimating where none does.

Bobby Jones Golf Club, Tatum Ridge Golf Links, The Meadows Country Club, The Palms Golf Club at Forest Lakes, Village Green Golf Club, Bent Tree Country Club, Misty Creek Country Club and Serenoa Golf Club are either public or semi-private, which is the group a visitor or a new resident can actually get on. A semi-private club sells memberships and also sells tee times, so you can play it before deciding anything, and that is the sensible way to judge a course you are considering buying next to. A private club means a membership or a member host, and no amount of enquiring changes that.

The architects recorded for Sarasota are Arthur Hills, David Martin Alden, Dick Wilson, Donald Ross, Gordy Lewis, Joe Lee, Mike Souchak, Rees Jones, Robert Trent Jones Jr. and Ron Garl, and 4 more. Architect, year opened, par and yardage are the facts this site will take from a golf publication, because they do not change and most small clubs publish no course specification at all. Membership structure, access and fees come only from the club itself. Where two sources disagreed about a course, the club's own figure was used, and where the club was silent and two directories disagreed, the fact was left out rather than guessed at.