Southern Dunes Golf & Country Club

Overview: Southern Dunes Golf & Country Club in Haines City is a public Steve Smyers course that uses central Florida’s sandy rises to create dramatic movement. The 18-hole layout is par 72 and reaches 7,227 yards from the black tees, with roughly 100 feet of elevation change, large contoured greens and high-lipped bunkers. Its former citrus-grove setting helps explain why the course looks unlike much of the flat resort golf around Orlando. Broad fairways can invite aggression, but the slopes and green angles reward a controlled plan.

History: Southern Dunes was built after a severe freeze destroyed a 350-acre citrus grove in 1989. The property’s agricultural history supplied a large, open site with enough natural and shaped elevation for Smyers to create a distinctive inland course. The course opened in 1993 and developed a reputation for combining a championship scale with daily-play access. Its design remains closely tied to the transformation from citrus land into a rolling golf landscape.

Did You Know? Southern Dunes’ par 3s generally play downhill, allowing the elevated terrain to shape both the view and the club selection. The course also has an unusual mix of long and short par 4s: several stretch beyond 420 yards from the back tees, while others are short enough to invite a strategic decision from the tee. That contrast is central to the course’s risk-and-reward identity.