Calusa Pines Golf Club

Calusa Pines is an absolute blast and that’s official. You’ll need to befriend a member to get a game here on this intensely private Michael Hurdzan and Dana Fry designed layout but persevere because this pine-sheltered course is dynamite. The course is perched on the highest land point in south Florida. It’s actually set some 60 feet up so perched is perhaps an exaggeration!

The dynamite bill alone reached $1m as they blasted through tons of rock to create huge, deep lakes and the fill was then used to create rare Floridian elevation changes. The earth certainly moved at Calusa Pines where numerous sand and waste bunkers connect the playing surfaces to the water hazards in a surprisingly natural manner. The planting of more than 100 mature Oak trees alongside indigenous Sable palms and mature pines has created maturity way beyond its 2001 birth date.

With membership numbers set below 300 and a joining fee of around $150,000 Calusa Pines is a high-end facility so get networking and perhaps one day you’ll be fortunate enough to sample the club’s slippery TifEagle greens.

Darius Oliver, in this short edited extract from the book Planet Golf USA, writes: “Holes of note include the short 3rd, its small green protected on one side by deep bunkers and by a steep fall-off on the other, and the peninsula par three 16th, which drops off the central hill. Of the longer holes, the most interesting are those around the hill as well as the cross-lake par four 9th and the strong and open 5th, which features an elevated target guarded by sand and slopes.”