Great Golf and More in Jacksonville

For an enjoyable golf vacation, The Jacksonville and St. Augustine area on Florida’s north coast is a great destination. Its surrounding 68 golf courses (including the PGA and Senior PGA tour headquarters and the World Golf Village) make it a great golf destination. Apart from its superb golf courses and country clubs, Jacksonville also provides a heady mix of history, culture, shopping, dining, and nightlife.

One great golf course is the St. John’s Golf and Country Club which boasts of outstanding conditions and friendly service. It also provides a great layout and conditions for all skill-level golfers, plus a learning center and practice facility that includes a 10,000 square foot putting green, a separate chipping green, a double-sided driving range and practice bunkers.

Another great destination is the Golf Club at North Hampton, which golf legend Arnold “The King” Palmer designed himself. It is wrapped around over 10 crisp spring-fed lakes lined with coquina boulders and offers elevations over 40 feet. The wild grasses and rolling hills give you the feel of an Old Scottish Links Course.

A third, the World Golf Village, is home to the World Golf Hall of Fame and has two exceptional golf courses, the Slammer and Squire, and the King and Bear. The Slammer and Squire is named after golf legends Slammin’ Sam Snead and Gene “The Squire” Sarazen. It is a beautiful course, to say the least: built around wooded wetlands and old pine forest, with deep white sand bunkers on the front nine. This course is a challenging round for both the advanced and novice golfer.

The King and Bear is designed as a joint effort between golf legends Palmer (King) and Jack Nicklaus (Bear). Relatively harder to play on compared to the Slammer and Squire, it is loaded with several deep sand traps around the greens, sandy coquina that runs along the fairways, and water that seemingly comes into play on every hole.

What’s great is that because all three golf destinations mentioned are within close proximity to each other, you can enjoy a golf vacation package of three nights and three rounds of golf for as low as $300. 

Brief History

Jacksonville is the largest city in the state of Florida (by land mass, not population). About 25 miles south of the Georgia border, Jacksonville is in the First Coast region of northeast Florida and is centered on the banks of the St. Johns River. The First Coast region has a rich history which spans many years, dating from when the city of St. Augustine was founded by the Spanish in 1565, until the American Civil war.

Shopping, dining, and nightlife

For shopping, nightlife, and food, Jacksonville will not disappoint. It has exclusive nightclubs buzzing with excitement, to outdoor concerts to shopping for the entire family.

There are many inviting shops to enjoy, from famous brand name stores to local retailers. Full service restaurants catering to different tastes include steakhouses, seafood restaurants, Mexican and Japanese food, casual American cuisine and hamburgers, traditional Italian and Mediterranean cuisine, and Cajun cooking, among others.

For nightlife you can choose from bars with an upscale ambience, those that serve great bar food and tapas, and country western, southern rock concert halls and dance venues.

If you want to enjoy great golf and more in Jacksonville, there are a lot of affordable golf packages available. And it’s easy to book golf tee times online.