Margate has three golf courses inside its own city limits, which is rare for a nine square mile suburb: Oriole Golf Club and Carolina Golf Club, both 18 holes and both open to public play, plus the nine hole Margate Executive Golf Course. Widen the radius to about fifteen minutes and you pick up a handful more, including two public layouts at Colony West in Tamarac. This guide covers the best golf courses in Margate, FL and the ones just outside it, sorted by how far you have to drive, and says plainly which a visitor can get on.
The Three Drive Time Rings of Margate Golf
Margate covers about nine square miles between Coral Springs, Coconut Creek and North Lauderdale, with 30 miles of canals running through it and the Atlantic 7.5 miles east (City of Margate). Golf is the one category where the city punches above its size. The condo and villa communities wrapped around Oriole Golf Club off Margate Boulevard hold a large share of the city's 55 and over housing, which our guide to moving to Margate covers in more depth.
Past the city line the rings are simple. Fifteen minutes west and north puts you in Coral Springs, Tamarac and Pompano Beach. Twenty to thirty minutes south opens up Plantation and Deerfield Beach. None of it is walkable from anywhere you would stay, so plan on driving, and if golf is only part of the trip, the rest of the city sits in our things to do in Margate guide.
Three Courses Inside the Margate City Limits
All three Margate courses take public play and none of them requires a membership to book a tee time. Oriole and Carolina are full 18 hole, par 72 layouts of similar length; Margate Executive is a nine hole par 30 built for a quick round. Between them they cover most of what a golfer living here needs on a weekday.
Oriole Golf Club: Small Greens and a Natural Grass Range
Oriole Golf Club at 8000 Margate Boulevard is the course the city is actually known for, an 18 hole par 72 that has been running more than 50 years and is semi private but open to the public (Oriole Golf Club). Fairways are fairly generous off the tee, so the difficulty lives in the greens, which are small and full of movement, and in the par 3s. The 7th plays uphill at 185 yards from the championship tees. Members get preference on busy days, so a weekday morning is the reliable window for a visitor, and the natural grass range is the reason locals warm up here instead of elsewhere. There is a restaurant and lounge on site, and tee times book online or on 954-972-8140.
Carolina Golf Club: The Longest Round Inside the City
Carolina Golf Club at 3011 N Rock Island Road opened in 1971 to a Bruce Devlin and Robert von Hagge design, playing 6,590 yards from the back tees and 5,066 from the forward (ForeTee course listing). The 15th, a 445 yard par 4, is the number one handicap hole, and the par 5 14th at 531 yards is the longest on the card. The 162 yard 7th is the gentlest thing you will face all afternoon. Carolina is semi private with public play, same as Oriole, so ring the shop rather than assuming a walk on at the weekend.
Margate Executive Golf Course: Nine Holes in Under Two Hours
Margate Executive Golf Course is the city's short course: nine holes at par 30 over 1,379 yards from the white tees, opened in 1982 to a Bill Dietsch design with six par 3s and three par 4s (Hole19). The course rating is 27.0 and the slope is 90, so nobody is getting humbled here. It is public, walkable in well under two hours, and has a driving range and putting green. This is the course for a beginner, a junior, or an evening nine after work.
Courses Within About Fifteen Minutes
Four more courses sit roughly fifteen minutes from Margate, and they are where local players go when the two Margate 18s are booked out. Two of them take public play as a matter of course. The other two are semi private, which around here means guest access depends on the day and on how full the tee sheet already is.
Country Club of Coral Springs: Renovated Greens and a Full Practice Area
The Country Club of Coral Springs at 10800 W Sample Road is a semi private 18 hole championship layout that is open to the public, with newly renovated greens, a driving range, a short game area and a practice putting green (Country Club of Coral Springs). The course and shop run 7 a.m. to dusk and the restaurant closes at 6 p.m., so a late round does not end with dinner. It is the highest rated of the nearby courses on the golf directories, and it is worth booking a few days out from January onward.
Colony West Golf Club: Two Public Courses in Tamarac
Colony West Golf Club at 6850 NW 88th Avenue in Tamarac puts two public courses on one site: the 18 hole Championship layout, which carries a reputation as one of the more demanding rounds in South Florida, and the par 64 Glades course for something quicker and gentler (Colony West Golf Club). You can book direct with no booking fee, and children under 17 play free with a paying adult after 3 p.m., which makes this the best value family golf anywhere near Margate. The View at Colony West handles the food side.
Palm-Aire Country Club: Three Courses in Pompano Beach
Palm-Aire Country Club in Pompano Beach runs the Oaks, Cypress and Palms courses, the widest single site choice in the area after Colony West. It is semi private, and availability for non members swings by course and by season, so call before you drive over rather than after. Club Wyndham Palm-Aire Resort sits alongside it, 3.3 miles from Margate, which is the closest thing the area has to a stay and play setup; the rest of the lodging picture is in our Margate hotels guide.
Cypress and Pines at Woodmont Country Club: Call Before You Drive
Woodmont Country Club in Tamarac has two semi private courses, Cypress and Pines, and both land among the highest rated inside the Margate golf directory radius. Access for non members depends on the day and the tee sheet, so a phone call is the difference between a round and a wasted trip. One practical warning: a Woodmont Country Club in Maryland shares the name, and it is easy to end up reading the wrong club's tee sheet online.
Courses Worth the Longer Drive
Two courses south and west of Margate justify 20 to 30 minutes in the car, and one familiar name near Deerfield Beach is off the table for 2026 entirely. Order the drive by what you want from the day: a step up in difficulty, a full 36 hole day, or a practice session.
Eagle Trace Country Club: A Serious Player's Round in Coral Springs
Eagle Trace Country Club in Coral Springs, about twenty minutes out, is one of three Broward County courses the Greater Fort Lauderdale tourism bureau puts on a serious player's list, alongside Heron Bay and Hollywood Beach (Visit Lauderdale). It is semi private, so ring the shop about guest access before you build a day around it. Treat Eagle Trace as the step up from a weekday round at Oriole, not as a casual fill in when the closer courses are full.
Jacaranda Golf Club: Thirty Six Holes in Plantation
Jacaranda Golf Club at 9200 West Broward Boulevard in Plantation is the one that repays a real drive, about thirty minutes south, with 36 holes across two championship courses: the longer East and the shorter, more strategic West (Jacaranda Golf Club). It is semi private, held in good condition year round, and has dining on site. The pro shop runs 6:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. seven days a week and tee times book online. Save it for a day when you want golf to be the whole plan.
Deer Creek Golf Club: Range Only Through the Renovation
Deer Creek Golf Club in Deerfield Beach is an Arthur Hills design that normally takes public play with no membership required, but the course itself is closed through 2026 for a full renovation of greens, fairways, bunkers and tees (Deer Creek Golf Club). The driving range is open and the Deer Creek Grille is still serving, so it works as a practice stop and nothing more. Plenty of older roundups still send golfers there for eighteen holes. While you are checking, note that Eagle Lakes in Margate still appears on aggregator directories and has been closed since 2004.
Heat, Rain, and When to Actually Tee Off
The comfortable golf window in Margate runs November through May. NOAA's 30 year normals put January at an average high of 76.2F and August at 91.4F with an overnight low of 76.8F, and the city averages roughly 169 comfortable days a year (HistoricalClimate). From June through September the only sensible tee time is the first one on the sheet.
Rain decides more rounds here than heat does. Margate takes about 61 inches a year, September is the wettest month at 8.13 inches, and Atlantic hurricane season runs June 1 to November 30 with a peak on September 10 (NOAA National Hurricane Center). Summer thunderstorms build fast in the afternoon and clear a course faster, so treat a morning start as the plan and the afternoon as a bonus. Month by month detail sits in our guide to the best time to visit Margate.
Tee sheets tighten from January through April, when Broward County fills with seasonal residents, and that is the stretch to book Oriole and Country Club of Coral Springs several days ahead instead of turning up. Humidity is the other year round tax on equipment. Climate controlled storage in Margate is where a fair number of local players keep a spare set, because leather grips and headcovers do not survive a South Florida garage in August in any recognizable condition.
Walking is realistic at Margate Executive and much less so on the two 18s once the heat arrives, so budget for a cart from May onward. Snowbirds have the opposite problem in April: clubs, a pull cart and a pair of shoes need somewhere to sit for six months. A 5×5 storage locker takes all of that, and a 5×10 unit also swallows the patio furniture that has to come in before the first named storm anyway.
Where Margate Golfers Keep the Rest of Their Gear
Gear here is seasonal in a way it never is up north, and so is half of what lives in a Florida garage. Value Store It's Margate storage facility rents month to month with no long term contract and is open seven days a week. Sizes step up from a 5×15 unit for bags, bikes and boxes, through 10×5 storage units and the 10×10 unit, which holds roughly a one bedroom's worth of furniture. A 10×15 space suits a household mid move, and the 10×20 and drive up 10×30 unit are what people take for a small business or the contents of a seasonal home. If the size question stalls you, the storage size guide settles it in a couple of minutes.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the best public golf courses in Broward County, Florida?
Near Margate, the strongest public options are the Championship and Glades courses at Colony West in Tamarac, the Country Club of Coral Springs, and Jacaranda in Plantation, which carries 36 holes. Inside Margate itself, Oriole Golf Club and Carolina Golf Club are both semi private but take public play, and Margate Executive is fully public. All of them book tee times without a membership.
How many golf courses are in Margate, Florida?
Three sit inside the Margate city limits: Oriole Golf Club and Carolina Golf Club, both 18 hole par 72 layouts, and the nine hole Margate Executive Golf Course. That is unusual density for a nine square mile city. Eagle Lakes still turns up on aggregator directories as a fourth Margate course, but it closed in 2004 and should be ignored.
Can a visitor get a tee time at Oriole Golf Club?
Yes. Oriole Golf Club is semi private but open to public play, and tee times book online. Members can get preference on busy days, so a weekday morning is the dependable window for a visitor rather than a Saturday. The natural grass practice range is open too, which is rare in this part of Broward County and worth arriving early for.
What are the public golf courses in Coral Springs, Florida?
The Country Club of Coral Springs on West Sample Road is the one to start with: semi private, open to the public, with renovated greens and a full practice area. Eagle Trace Country Club is the other Coral Springs course of note, but it is semi private and guest access varies, so call the shop first. Both are inside twenty minutes of Margate.
Where can I find a map of the golf courses in Margate, FL?
Any map app will do it with the addresses. Oriole Golf Club is at 8000 Margate Boulevard and Carolina Golf Club is at 3011 N Rock Island Road, with Margate Executive Golf Course making up the third inside the city. Add Colony West at 6850 NW 88th Avenue in Tamarac and the Country Club of Coral Springs at 10800 W Sample Road to see the full fifteen minute picture.
Margate is not a golf destination the way Palm Beach is, and it does not need to be. For nine square miles it gives you two public 18s, a nine hole course you can finish before dinner, and half a dozen more layouts inside a twenty minute drive. Book the early tee times from June to September, call ahead at the semi private clubs, and the rest of it takes care of itself.
