6 great public options near TPC Sawgrass

After the Players Championship wraps up this weekend, public-access will resume on the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass, where the peak-season green fee is $750. That may — or may not— be in your budget. Either way, it’s good to have options. Here are 8 other of the best golf courses in the Jacksonville area that anyone can play.

Dye’s Valley Course at TPC Sawgrass

In another setting, this first-rate layout wouldn’t be a sleeper. But sitting as it does alongside its famous sibling, the Valley Course often gets overlooked. Like the Stadium Course, it’s a Pete Dye design and it sports many similar features: railroad ties, shrewdly placed pot bunkers, tricky collection areas around the greens. There’s plenty of water to contend with, too, on a rolling, tree-lined property that has hosted multiple KornFerry Tour and Q-school events.

Jacksonville Beach Golf Course

True to its name, this inviting muni sits blocks from the beach. It’s also less than 10 miles from TPC Sawgrass, though it can seem like a world away, with weekend rates that top out at $67 and an unassuming atmosphere that belies the quality of the course. It’s among the greatest steals in the Sunshine State.

Hyde Park Golf Course

Five years before he finished Seminole, his most famous Florida course, Donald Ross completed work at Hyde Park Golf Club, the oldest public track in Jacksonville. Fittingly, a round here can feel like walk through time, in the shade of stately oaks and pines, on a layout defended by strategic doglegs and pushed-up greens that tips out at just over 6,400 yards, just as it did in the Golden Age.

The Yards

If you can’t enjoy yourself on a sporty 12-hole course with a 3-hole ‘beer loop,’ you might consider taking up a different game. As it happens, you can do that here, as the Yards is part of a sports complex that also offers tennis and pickleball

Hammock Beach Golf Resort & Spa

Extending your radius about an hour south will take you to this seaside resort, which has two enjoyable 18-hole courses—the Ocean and the Conservatory— designed, respectively, by the great friends and rivals Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson.

Omni Amelia Island Resort & Spa

Pete Dye was a busy guy. His work in Florida included Oak Marsh Golf Course, which snakes its way through the salt marches of Amelia Island. Currently under renovation, Oak Marsh is slated to reopen in May. Meantime, golf continues on two other courses at the resort: Little Sandy, a 10-hole short course, and Long Point, a picturesque Tom Fazio that operates as a private club but with limited times set aside for resort guests that can be booked up to 24 hours in advance.