Golf's 2020s continue to roar.
While the professional sport of golf seems stuck in neutral as a result of protracted divisions and suspect decision-making at the top levels, the game of golf is as healthy as it's been in decades, with rounds and course revenues up, providing a friendly climate for the construction of dozens of new golf courses each year.
It's not quite the go-go 1990s and 2000s - that's a good thing - but there are enough new projects on the near-to-medium horizon that I can easily continue with my tradition of matching the number of courses in this annual list to the year. In fact, limiting this list to 25 means leaving out several interesting projects, which GolfPass managing editor Jason Scott Deegan and I will endeavor to investigate this year as well.
Certain trends in new golf course development are ebbing and flowing a bit. You will notice that this year's crop is lighter in new public and resort courses than 2024's was. It looks like 2025 is going to be a huge year for new private clubs, while early forecasts call for 2026 to be the best of the decade for those of us without as many private-club hookups. Next year will see not one but two new Dream Golf resorts - Colorado's Rodeo Dunes and Texas' Wild Spring Dunes - debut their first golf courses, while a third, Old Shores, may see some golf built as well. A new family-oriented course, The Commons, will add to Sand Valley's already-exciting golf mix in '26, too.
But we're getting ahead of ourselves, because there are plenty of new golf courses to be excited about in 2025.
5 new public and resort golf courses opening in the United States in 2025
Bella Ridge Golf Club - Johnstown, Colo.
Art Schaupeter, who laid out the TPC Colorado course that has become one of the Korn Ferry Tour's best venues, designed this new public course between Denver and Fort Collins on the land of a family of dairy farmers who happen to also be avid golfers. It is expected to open in the summer of 2025.
Calusa Country Club - Lakewood Ranch, Fla.
New golf development continues to boom in Florida, with several new golf courses coming online this year. This Gordon Lewis design sits within a large Lennar housing development east of Sarasota and should open in the summer.
Gamble Sands Resort (Scarecrow) - Brewster, Wash.
GolfPass managing editor Jason Scott Deegan was part of a small group to preview this new David McLay Kidd course, which officially opens for play in August 2025. It adds a somewhat spicier companion to the resort's original 18-holer, with miles-long views in practically every direction throughout the routing.
Glynlea Country Club - Port St. Lucie, Fla.
Just over a year after Astor Creek opened just a couple of miles away, another new residential golf club has come to Port St. Lucie, one of the fastest-growing towns in America. Here, 2003 U.S. Open champ Jim Furyk is involved with the design of a new course that will be managed by Hampton Golf.
Poppy Ridge Golf Club - Livermore, Calif.
Although 27 holes of golf have existed on this site since the 1990s, architect Jay Blasi has taken 18 of them and built an entirely new routing that will serve as a home course for members of the Northern California Golf Association.
Don't forget...
We mentioned it as a potential 2024 opening, but Warmouth Sands, the new municipal course in Vidalia, Ga., should open in 2025 instead. Progress can be sluggish when local authorities are closely involved, but knowing architect Mike Young's track record building high-quality affordable golf, Warmouth is the new golf course I am most excited to see in 2025.
13 new private golf courses opening in the United States in 2025
Apogee Club (North) - Hobe Sound, Fla.
The build-out of this expansive and exclusive private club has happened at warp-speed, and if all goes to plan, the opening of the Kyle Phillips-designed North Course towards the end of 2025 will mean Apogee will have gone from zero golf to four courses - three 18s plus a short routing - in 36 months, a towering achievement even in the current climate of super-deep-pocketed club developers.
Childress Hall (Doak) - Childress, Texas
Heaving dunes midway between Amarillo and Wichita Falls will provide the canvas for at least two courses at this private club. The first, by Tom Doak, is ready for play, while the second, a Gil Hanse design, is expected to follow soon after.
Contentment Golf Club - Traphill, N.C.
Architect Lester George, whose designs at Kinloch and Ballyhack are two of the greatest golf courses in the Commonwealth of Virginia, finally gets the chance to expand his horizons into the mountains of North Carolina with a project more than a decade in the making. George's course design at Contentment will be inspired by C.B. Macdonald and Seth Raynor.
Crazy Mountain Ranch Golf Club - Livingston, Mont.
The former Marlboro Ranch, now owned by Lone Mountain Land Company (who own the swanky Yellowstone Club), will welcome a Coore & Crenshaw golf course to this private dude ranch around mid-year.
High Grove - Venus, Fla.
Elevation changes are not what most people expect from stereotypical Florida golf, but the interior of the state is blessed with several areas of rolling hills that spill off the central Lake Wales Ridge, which runs through much of the peninsular part of the state. High Grove sits on a particularly exciting 1,200-acre tract of orange groves, where Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner will lay out a course that will be part of a new exclusive private club in a town mostly known as the home of The Venus Project, a 25-acre compound that is home to futuristic home designs and philosophies.
The International Golf Club (Pines) - Bolton, Mass.
Half a decade in the making, this completely new golf course, courtesy of Coore & Crenshaw, built on the site of the former longest golf course in the world will finally debut in 2025. Rock outcroppings, rolling topography and some bold bunkering should vault the course well up the rankings of New England's top courses.
Luling Sporting Club - Luling, Texas
Kyle Franz is one of the busiest architects on the new-golf-course front, attracting clients with his keen sense of dramatic golf. He helped build three of 2024's new crop - Karoo and Roost at Cabot Citrus Farms and Broomsedge in South Carolina - and has brought his talents to a new private retreat an hour south of Austin. His course will be fully operational this year, and a second course, by the Ogilvy Cocking Mead firm, is also in progress.
Loraloma Golf Club - Spicewood, Texas
Fresh off finishing exciting new courses in Nebraska (GrayBull Golf Club) and Washington (Scarecrow at Gamble Sands), David McLay Kidd heads to Texas to join the green-rush of golf development outside of Austin. Loraloma will be a private residential club with a modernist bent, developed by the Utah-based Arete Collective, which has also designed spaces for golf properties like Chileno Bay in Los Cabos and Baker's Bay in the Bahamas.
Marcella Club - Park City, Utah
Even as he continues to play competitibely when he can, Tiger Woods' golf course design business continues apace. The first of at least two courses at this private club adjacent to the Deer Valley ski resort will be called Skyline in deference to the site's reportedly stunning views of the surrounding Wasatch Mountains. It is expected to open in the summer of 2025.
Miakka Golf Club - Myakka City, Fla.
This club, practically next door to the just-opened Soleta Golf Club, will come online in the latter half of 2025. Architects Dana Fry and Jason Straka are handling the design, with some input from Paul Azinger.
Old Sawmill Golf Club - Ridgeville, S.C.
Tyler Rae, who has built a strong reputation for restoring classic courses - especially Donald Ross designs - is seizing the opportunity to create his own original designs. His 9-hole Spy Ring Golf Club in Long Island opened in 2024, and 2025 will bring the debut of the 18-hole Old Sawmill located 30 miles north of Charleston.
Palmetto Bluff - Bluffton, S.C.
Palmetto Bluff's golf footprint is set to swell by 27 holes in as many months. Its new reversible 9-hole Crossroads course by King-Collins opened in 2024, and now Bill Coore & Ben Crenshaw are set to construct a new 18-hole layout on a 500-acre tract within the community's 20,000 total acres. Coore & Crenshaw brought their brand of sensitive, classically-inspired golf to South Carolina's Lowcountry when they laid out Chechessee Creek Club just 20 miles north. It will be interesting to see how a quarter-century's passing affects their approach. This as-yet-unnamed course is expected to open late in the year.
Travis Club - Spicewood, Texas
The Austin area continues to boom, with Travis Club joining multiple other new projects on this list in coming online in 2025. Beau Welling's second new-build of the year in Texas will be set mostly inland from the lake after which it's named, but a couple of holes on the front nine will touch its shores.
3 new short golf courses opening in the United States in 2025
Big Cedar Lodge (Cliffhangers) - Ridgedale, Mo.
Bass Pro Shops founder and Big Cedar Lodge liege lord Johnny Morris continues to mold his beautiful ridgetop domain into a wonderland for golfers. This time, he and his son have taken the design reins and fashioned an 18-hole par-3 course that, as its name indicates, will place golfers on the edge of sheer rock dropoffs several times. When Cliffhangers opens in summer 2025, Big Cedar Lodge will be the only golf resort with three distinct par-3 courses, all with different numbers of holes (Top of the Rock is 9 holes; Mountain Top, 13).
Hazeltine National Golf Club - Chaska, Minn.
A 10-hole short routing inspired by a never-built "approach-and-putt" course at Augusta National by Alister MacKenzie served as the inspiration for Love Golf Design at this venerable Midwest club. Scot Sherman will oversee its construction. In the meantime, Love Golf Design is master-planning the original 18-hole course ahead of the 2029 Ryder Cup.
Golden Horseshoe (The Shoe) - Williamsburg, Va.
After initially losing its Spotswood course to the threat of encroaching development, the club rode a wave of pushback from locals that ultimately those plans, paving the way for a reimagining of the tired routing into a more functional nine-hole par-3 loop with holes ranging from 50 to 150 yards. It is set to debut this summer.
These originally expected 2024 new golf course openings have been pushed to 2025
Atlantic Fields Golf Club - Hobe Sound, Fla. - This Discovery Land property has finished up its short course, and the 18-holer by Tom Fazio should open in 2025.
The Roost at Cabot Citrus Farms - Brooksville, Fla. - The official opening of the second 18-holer at this completely overhauled and rebranded resort has been moved to January 2025, but we got a sneak peek a few weeks ago. Read our review.
7 Mile Beach Golf Links - Hobart, Tasmania, Australia
Grow-in has come along slowly at this much-anticipated addition to Tasmania's already-vibrant golf scene. A second course on site, 5 Mile Beach, is already in planning.
We missed these notable 2024 new golf course openings
Broomsedge Golf Club - Rembert, S.C.
This Kyle Franz design on rolling pine barrens has a craze of bunkers reminiscent of the work of George Thomas. It's a private club but offers some outside play. Read our review.
Darmor Club - Columbus, Texas
Hal Sutton and architect Doug Wright let a passion for classic golf architecture run wild at this club an hour west of Houston, where template holes and features include an Alps, Road hole, Dell, Biarritz and more.
The Fall Line - Mauk, Ga.
Relatively little public information exists about this emerging club south of Atlanta beyond the following: it's going to have 48 holes - two 18s and a 12-hole short - by the firm of OCM (Ogilvy, Cocking, Mead), and one of the courses has opened for play. Membership is said to be capped at just 100.
Sandglass Golf Club - Hobe Sound, Fla.
This Tom Doak design has been shrouded in secrecy due to its small membership, but its concept is an exciting one. Using the same technology that enabled him and Renaissance Golf to reproduce The Lido in Wisconsin, Doak drew inspiration from some of his favorite golf holes in the U.S. and the U.K. and vamped on their features, mixing in original concepts to produce something unique to South Florida.
Webbs Reserve Golf Club - Babcock Ranch, Fla.
This enormous master-planned community welcomed its second golf course, a Nicklaus Design effort, in November of 2024.
4 new international golf courses expected to open in 2025
Fox Harb'r Golf Resort (Ocean Course) - Fox Harbour, Nova Scotia, Canada
This project by Doug Carrick and Thomas McBroom expands on the pair's original 18 holes at this resort overlooking the Northeumberland Strait that separates Nova Scotia from Prince Edward Island. A total of 18 new holes are being built in phases to integrate with the original routing and forge distinct new courses called Ocean and Vineyard. The full Ocean loop opens in 2025 with nine new holes and several reconfigured existing ones. The Vineyard is expected to be finished in 2026.
Cabot Highlands (Old Petty) - Inverness, Scotland
Ever since Cabot took over what was Castle Stuart Golf Links, the expectations that more golf would join Gil Hanse's highly-rated original course have ratcheted up. A new 18 by Tom Doak, named after a centuries-old church that sits on the property, is forecast to welcome play in the latter stages of 2025.
Jack's Bay Club - Eleuthera, Bahamas
With its 10-hole, cliffhanging Playgrounds course by Tiger Woods already open, this club seeks to bring big-time golf back to Eleuthera, where Pan Am Airlines founder Juan Trippe once built a retreat for avid golfers in the 1960s. Jack's Bay's 18-holer is a Nicklaus Heritage course and is expected to be ready for play in 2025.
Limassol Greens - Limassol, Cyprus
Cabell Robinson may not be a household name among American golfers, but he has laid out several well-known courses in Europe, including Finca Cortesin, which hosted the thrilling 2023 Solheim Cup. Robinson's latest design brings him to the island of Cyprus, where Limassol Greens will become the country's fifth course of note.
