Course Comparisons / Florida
Shingle Creek Golf Club vs. Dubsdread Golf Course: The Orlando Choice
Orlando offers a visitor two completely different ideas of a golf day, and they are both inside the city. At Shingle Creek you get a 7,213 yard resort course at a big hotel on the convention corridor, redesigned by Arnold Palmer's company, water on 15 holes. At Dubsdread you get Orlando's historic municipal course, opened in 1924, par 70 at 6,153 yards, with a restaurant locals treat as an institution. Same town, same afternoon available. The choice is really about what you think a round of golf is for.
Shingle Creek: the modern resort test
Shingle Creek opened in 2003 at Rosen Shingle Creek, a David Harman design that Arnold Palmer Design Company redesigned in 2016, when Thad Layton added three entirely new holes. The redesign is the story. It brought large greens and Palmer style risk and reward par 5s to a flat, water heavy parkland course along the headwaters of the Everglades, and it turned a hotel amenity into a course that hosts collegiate and charity events and holds its own in the best golf courses in Orlando.
From the black tees it is par 72 and 7,213 yards, a full examination. The water is not scenery. On 15 holes it is in play, which means the round asks for commitment on shots a resort course usually lets you fake. Play it from the right tees and the Palmer questions scale down fairly. Play it from the back and it will find your loose swings.
Dubsdread: a century of Orlando golf
Dubsdread is the opposite proposition, and its name makes the point with a wink. The name derives from the intent to instill dread in dubs, novice golfers, which is a 1924 joke that still works because the course, short as it is, still defends itself. Tom Bendelow designed it, it hosted the Orlando Open on the early PGA Tour, and Mike Dasher renovated and redesigned it in 2008, reopening on July 10 of that year. Par 70, 6,153 yards, municipal access, and the Tap Room restaurant, a local institution where the round properly ends.
What Dubsdread sells is continuity. Orlando golfers have played here for a hundred years, through the Tour era and the muni era, and the course is woven into the city's actual life in a way no resort course can be. The golf is shorter, tighter in feel, and cheaper to access in every sense. It will not test a strong player's long game. It was never meant to.
The verdict
On the golf alone, Shingle Creek wins, and it is not particularly close. The Palmer redesign gave it decisions, length, and hazards with teeth, and a competitive golfer choosing one round should choose it. It is the course we rank for play in the 5 best golf courses in Florida public access terms.
Concede Dubsdread the day, though, and mean it. If the round is the excuse and the afternoon is the point, if you want to play where Orlando itself plays and finish at the Tap Room with a century of local golf in the walls, Dubsdread is the better experience and the better story to take home. Plenty of visitors should pick it anyway, especially shorter hitters and anyone traveling with history minded golfers.
Verdict: Shingle Creek for the golfer, Dubsdread for the day. Book both if the trip allows. They are an hour of Orlando apart in every way except distance.