Alright, let’s talk about figuring out how many golf courses are actually in Naples, Florida – specifically splitting them into public and private. This seemed simple at first, but man, it ended up needing some digging.
Starting the Hunt
I was just chatting with some buddies online about planning a golf trip down south. Naples kept coming up, everyone saying it was packed with courses. Naturally, I figured, “How hard can it be to find a total count?” So I jumped straight to Google and punched in “Naples Florida total golf courses”.
The Initial Mess
Google just showed me a bunch of golf course listings – basically ads for specific places. It was useless for getting the big picture total. I tried adding “number of” to my search. This got me closer, pulling up some outdated articles from travel sites mentioning numbers like “over 70” or “80+”, but none clarified public vs private. Worse, these numbers seemed to include the whole wider region, like Marco Island and Bonita Springs.
So next step, I got more specific: “Naples public golf courses”. This was better. Suddenly I had a list of actual places to play without needing membership: places like Lely Resort Flamingo, Tiburon Gold, Arrowhead, Valencia Golf & Country Club… The list started growing as I clicked through a few pages.
Hitting a Snag
But figuring out the private ones? That was trickier. Search results mostly showed the clubs themselves, often hidden behind gatekeeper paywalls or just not bragging about being exclusive in their online ads. My tabs were stacking up and I was getting nowhere fast. I needed a smarter way.
The Turning Point
Finally, it hit me: maybe just go straight to the source. Naples has a big tourism machine. So I went looking for their official tourism site. Jackpot. They actually had golf listed as an activity. It didn’t give a clean, perfect total on one page, but digging around their sections specifically for “public golf” and looking at course listings labeled as “private” or requiring membership gave me way clearer info than anything else so far.
I cross-referenced this with another solid local source that lists courses to play, and started making a simple list:
- Public (Anyone Can Book): Lely Flamingo, Tiburon Gold, Arrowhead, Valencia, Hibiscus, Raptor Bay (Bonita), Old Corkscrew (Estero)… kept finding a few more like Quail Run. Ended up with about 18 solid public access ones people actually play.
- Private (Members Only): This list came mainly from the tourism site: Naples National, Talis Park, Grey Oaks, Isleworth, Quail West, Calusa Pines, Audubon… easily over 15 just for Naples proper.
The Final Tally
After sorting through duplicates and making sure I was focused just on Naples itself (excluding the wider Collier County stuff like Marco), the numbers finally made sense:
- Around 18 legit Public/Accessible Courses where you can realistically book a tee time without being a member or knowing one.
- Over 15 major Private Clubs that are strictly for members.
So, surprised to find there’s about 33 courses packed into Naples alone, but that the split is pretty even – maybe even leaning slightly more towards private options when you focus purely on the city.
Biggest lesson? Don’t trust those vague “70+ golf courses!” claims for Naples itself. They balloon the area. And don’t expect instant answers – it took bouncing between useless ads, outdated articles, and finally hitting the official tourism resources to get clear public vs private counts. That’s the rough breakdown.
