Arcadia Municipal Golf Course

Overview: Arcadia Municipal Golf Course is the city-owned course in Arcadia, DeSoto County. It is a public Florida layout with a long local history, maintained today by the City of Arcadia and open from sunrise to sunset on nearly every day of the year. The course follows USGA rules and retains a traditional municipal-golf role.

History: In the 1910s, Arcadia golfers pressed the city to build a course and approached golf professional Harry Cowie about a nine-hole design. Construction began in the fall of 1922, and matches were played on Christmas Day that year even though only a few holes were open. The historical record treats that Christmas opening as the course’s official beginning.

Did You Know? The course’s first official Christmas Day matches took place in 1922, even though only a few holes were open at the time. That small detail captures how quickly Arcadia’s original golf project moved from civic ambition to actual play.