The best golf courses in West Palm Beach that a visitor can actually book are The Park West Palm on Georgia Avenue, Palm Beach National off Saint Andrews Road, the county's 27 holes at Okeeheelee, and the Palm Beach Par 3 Golf Course across the bridge with holes on the Atlantic. The famous names are mostly private. This guide sorts the courses by how far they sit from downtown, says plainly who can get on each one, and finishes with booking, heat and season.
How Golf Is Arranged Around West Palm Beach
Golf here runs east to west, not up and down the coast. Downtown and the Flagler Drive waterfront have no room for a course, and the only ocean-side layout you can play is over the Royal Park Bridge in the separate town of Palm Beach. Everything else sits inland: the city's flagship public course south of downtown, a belt of county courses out along Forest Hill Boulevard and Lantana Road, and a cluster of resort and municipal golf about 25 minutes north.
The second thing to know is that the supply is lopsided. The Palm Beaches cover 39 coastal towns and 47 miles of Atlantic coastline and are unusually deep in private clubs relative to public ones, as LINKS Magazine puts it, so the list of courses open to a visitor is far shorter than the county's course count suggests. Palm Beach County Parks and Recreation runs five public golf facilities, and they carry much of the everyday load.
Season matters more than distance. From December through April the snowbird population arrives and tee sheets tighten across the county, while June through September is hot, wet and wide open at 7 a.m. Plan around that before you plan around the drive.
Courses Within Fifteen Minutes of Downtown
The Park West Palm: The City's Flagship Public Course
The Park West Palm is the course to play if you only play one. It is a par-71 Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner design of 7,145 yards over rolling sandy ground, opened in April 2023 on the site of the old West Palm Beach Country Club where Arnold Palmer won the 1959 West Palm Beach Open. It is public, and it is genuinely walkable, which is rare in South Florida. The main course runs Tuesday through Sunday from 8 a.m. to dusk and tee times are required. The Lit 9, a nine-hole par 3, takes walk-ups only from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., and The House Kitchen & Bar handles the food afterward.
Palm Beach Par 3 Golf Course: Ocean Holes Across the Bridge
Palm Beach Par 3 Golf Course is the answer when you have two hours rather than five. The town-owned short course sits on the island of Palm Beach, about 15 minutes from downtown West Palm Beach, with several holes right on the Atlantic, and LINKS Magazine ranks it among the top ten courses a visitor can play in The Palm Beaches. It is public, walkable and short enough for a child or a beginner to finish without falling apart. Al Fresco is the on-site restaurant, and the ocean views are the reason to book here over anything inland.
Drive Shack West Palm Beach: Range Bays Near the Airport
Drive Shack West Palm Beach on Belvedere Road is not a course, and it earns its place anyway. The covered outdoor bays track every shot and run games alongside the practice, plus Puttery mini golf, so a group with wildly mixed ability can all do the same thing for two hours. Gameplay is half price on Wednesdays. Reservations are worth making for evenings and are required for parties of ten or more. The cover means it also works during an afternoon thunderstorm, which is not a small thing in July.
Public Courses Twenty to Thirty Minutes Inland
Okeeheelee Golf Course: Twenty-Seven County Holes on Forest Hill
Okeeheelee Golf Course gives you three nines to mix and match across 210 acres, about 20 minutes west on Forest Hill Boulevard. It is county-run and among the most affordable serious golf in Palm Beach County, and the wildlife on the course is part of the deal rather than a novelty. Book through the county tee time system. The course shares its site with Okeeheelee Park, so a morning round and an afternoon on the trails or by the water ski lakes is an easy pairing.
Palm Beach National Golf Club: The Easiest Walk-On in the City
Palm Beach National Golf Club is the most forgiving course on this list in terms of access, not difficulty. The public 18-hole Joe Lee design on Saint Andrews Road has TifEagle greens and a range fitted with Inrange tracking so you can see your real distances. There is no strict dress code, which makes it the practical choice for a visitor who did not pack golf clothes. The course is open from sunrise until 11 p.m., Smashers runs the bar and grill from 6 a.m., and you can book on the online tee sheet or by calling the golf shop.
Park Ridge Golf Course: Elevation Change in a Flat County
Park Ridge Golf Course, on Lantana Road in Lake Worth about 25 minutes southwest, is the county course with actual elevation change. That is unusual enough in Palm Beach County to be the reason people drive past two closer courses to get here. It is an 18-hole public layout run by the county and booked through the same county system as Okeeheelee, and it is inexpensive by local standards.
John Prince Golf Learning Center: Lessons and a Top-Rated Range
John Prince Golf Learning Center on South Congress Avenue in Lake Worth is where to go when there is no time for 18. The county facility has a driving range that has been rated among the top 50 stand-alone ranges in the country since 2010, a three-hole practice course, and instruction on site. It is open 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily. For a beginner, a junior or an hour of honest practice before a real round, it beats paying for a course you will not enjoy yet.
Courses Worth a Longer Drive North and South
PGA National Resort: Five Courses and the Bear Trap
PGA National Resort in Palm Beach Gardens, about 25 minutes north, is the serious golf trip in this county. Five courses sit on the property. The Champion hosts the PGA Tour's Cognizant Classic in The Palm Beaches in late February and holds the Bear Trap, the 15th, 16th and 17th that Jack Nicklaus built in 1990. The Palmer is the friendliest, the Fazio the most balanced, the Match a 5,744 yard course built for match play with no set tees, and the Staple a par 3 of 60 to 130 yard holes. Tee times are handled Monday to Friday, 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., and resort guests get priority, so if the question is whether you can get on, staying on property is the answer. If you are weighing that, our guide to where to stay in West Palm Beach covers the alternatives downtown.
North Palm Beach Country Club: A Nicklaus Redesign You Can Book
North Palm Beach Country Club is village-owned, which means a visitor can play a Jack Nicklaus design without knowing a member. The course on U.S. Highway 1 began as a 1926 Seth Raynor layout and Nicklaus modernised it in 2006 for a fee of one dollar. It now plays 7,071 yards to a par of 71, with wildly undulating greens, two holes along the Intracoastal and an expanded practice and teaching area. It is popular, so tee times take some effort between December and April.
Osprey Point Golf Course: Twenty-Seven Holes Beside a Wildlife Refuge
Osprey Point Golf Course in Boca Raton is about 45 minutes south and worth the drive once. The county-run 27-hole facility backs onto a national wildlife refuge, which means real wildlife and no houses along several holes, a combination that barely exists elsewhere in the county. Golf Digest named it the number one place to play in Palm Beach. Pair it with lunch in Boca and it becomes one of the better day trips from West Palm Beach.
The Private Clubs and Why the Public List Is Short
The most celebrated courses in this area are closed to the public, and knowing which ones saves you a wasted phone call. The Breakers owns two of them: the Ocean Course on the resort grounds, laid out in 1897 as Florida's oldest course and renovated by Rees Jones in 2018, and the Rees Jones Course rebuilt in 2022 on the mainland about ten miles away. Both are limited to resort guests and club members, so a stay at the hotel is the only way on.
Trump International Golf Club West Palm Beach, Emerald Dunes Club, Bear Lakes Country Club and The Club at Ibis are all private, members and guests only, and all four appear in Golf Digest's course guide for the area. The Club at Ibis is residential, with three courses attached to the community, so access there effectively comes with an address. The private Dutchman's Pipe club is open to guests of The Belgrove Resort & Spa on Lake Mangonia, which is the newest way into a Nicklaus signature course here without a membership.
That imbalance is the single most useful fact about golf in West Palm Beach. Roughly a dozen courses show up on a map search, and only a handful of them will sell you a tee time.
Booking, Weather and the Season
Book the earliest tee time you can tolerate. From June through September the afternoon thunderstorm is close to a daily event, with rainfall averaging 8.3 inches in June, 7.95 in August and 8.35 in September according to U.S. News, and lightning clears a course faster than rain does. Mornings are also the only comfortable hours in August, when the average high sits at 90 degrees. Winter is the opposite problem: December through April brings the snowbird crowd, and popular tee sheets fill days ahead.
Carts are the default at most courses here, so if walking matters to you, The Park and the Palm Beach Par 3 are the two to look at first. Dress codes vary more than visitors expect, from none at Palm Beach National to conventional collared-shirt policies at the resort courses, and parking is free and plentiful at every public course on this list. Late February is worth a note in your calendar for a different reason: the Cognizant Classic takes over PGA National, which changes what is playable there that week. Our best time to visit West Palm Beach guide goes deeper on the calendar.
Part-time residents solve the gear problem in a way visitors rarely think about. Rather than fly clubs back and forth twice a year, plenty of people leave a set, a push cart and a pair of shoes here in a 5×5 storage unit and pick them up on the way in from the airport. Florida humidity is hard on leather grips, gloves and headcovers, so a climate controlled unit in West Palm Beach is the version of that worth paying for. The same logic applies to the second car that sits idle from May to November, which is why car storage is a normal seasonal arrangement in this county, and to the boat that shares the driveway, since boat storage keeps it out of the sun between trips.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the best public golf courses in West Palm Beach?
The Park West Palm is the strongest public course inside the city, a 7,145 yard Gil Hanse design that opened in 2023. Palm Beach National is the easiest to walk on to, Okeeheelee gives you 27 county holes about 20 minutes west, and the Palm Beach Par 3 Golf Course on the island has holes directly on the Atlantic. All four sell tee times to the public.
Can you play the private golf courses in West Palm Beach?
Not without a connection. The Breakers Ocean Course and its Rees Jones Course are reserved for resort guests and club members, so booking a room is the workaround. Trump International, Emerald Dunes, Bear Lakes and The Club at Ibis are members and guests only, and the Dutchman's Pipe club is open to guests of The Belgrove Resort & Spa.
What is The Park West Palm?
The Park West Palm is the city's public golf course at 7301 Georgia Avenue, opened in April 2023 on the site of the old West Palm Beach Country Club. It has a par-71 championship layout by Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner, a lit nine-hole par 3 called the Lit 9 that takes walk-ups until 9 p.m., a range, and two places to eat. It is open Tuesday through Sunday.
Which public golf courses does Palm Beach County run?
Palm Beach County Parks and Recreation operates five public golf facilities: Okeeheelee on Forest Hill Boulevard, Park Ridge on Lantana Road in Lake Worth, Osprey Point on Glades Road in Boca Raton, Southwinds, and the John Prince Golf Learning Center in Lake Worth. All of them are open to anyone and share the county's online tee time system.
When is the best time of year to play golf in West Palm Beach?
April and May are the sweet spot, with temperatures in the 70s and 80s and the winter crowd gone after Easter. December through April plays best weather-wise but books out and costs the most. June through September is hot and wet, with a near-daily afternoon storm, so play at sunrise and treat the rest of the day as indoor time.
Where Value Store It Fits Into a Golf Season Here
Clubs are the small end of what people store between seasons in this city. Our West Palm Beach storage facility rents month to month with no long-term contract, so a unit can follow the season rather than the calendar year. A 5×10 unit or its 10×5 equivalent handles bikes, beach gear and a season's worth of boxes, a 10×10 storage unit holds roughly a one-bedroom, and the 10×15, 10×20 and 10×30 units take a full house or a small business inventory. RV parking is available too, and the storage size guide is the fastest way to work out which one you need before you drive over.
Once the clubs are sorted, the rest of the city is worth your time. Start with our roundup of things to do in West Palm Beach for what to book on the days you are not playing.
