Course Comparisons / Florida
Shingle Creek Golf Club vs. Grand Cypress Golf Club - New Course: The Orlando Choice
Orlando resort golf usually blurs together. Flat ground, water everywhere, palm trees, a famous name on the scorecard. Shingle Creek and the Grand Cypress New Course break that pattern in opposite directions, which makes this the most interesting head to head in the city. One is a modern Florida resort course sharpened by an Arnold Palmer Design renovation. The other is Jack Nicklaus's tribute to St Andrews, in central Florida, with double greens and a replica style Road Hole concept. Picking between them is really picking what you want Orlando golf to be.
Shingle Creek: the polished modern resort round
Shingle Creek opened in 2003 at the Rosen Shingle Creek resort on the convention corridor, originally designed by David Harman, and was redesigned by the Arnold Palmer Design Company in 2016. Thad Layton led that work and added three entirely new holes. The renovation gave the course its current character, large greens and Palmer style risk reward par 5s, the kind where the second shot asks you to commit to a line over water rather than bail out by habit. It plays par 72 at 7,213 yards from the black tees, so there is nothing modest about the test.
Water comes into play on 15 holes, which sounds relentless until you remember the land. The course sits along the headwaters of the Everglades, and the water is the terrain, not decoration poured into low spots. Flat, water heavy Orlando parkland is the honest description, and Shingle Creek does that style about as well as it gets done. It hosts collegiate and charity events on the convention corridor, which tells you the operation runs to a high standard. Groups book it because the course, the resort, and the logistics all work.
The New Course: Nicklaus builds a links in Florida
Grand Cypress's New Course opened in 1988 as part of the resort's 45 hole complex, and the concept still startles people who have not seen it. Nicklaus built a St Andrews inspired links tribute in Orlando. Double greens. Deep bunkers. A Road Hole style concept. Swilcan Bridge style touches. Almost no trees where you expect a Florida course to be lined with them. The ground game matters here in a way it simply does not at Shingle Creek, where the aerial game rules because water guards everything.
That distinctiveness is the New Course's whole argument. It may be the most unusual resort course in Florida, a links arranged on land that has nothing to do with Scotland, and your enjoyment depends on whether the homage delights you or strikes you as theater. Plenty of golfers who expected gimmick leave converted, because the double greens and pot bunkers create real strategic problems, not just photo opportunities. Others find a replica concept harder to love than an original, the same reservation that applies to any tribute course.
One practical difference decides a lot of bookings. Shingle Creek sits on the convention corridor at the Rosen resort, built to serve groups, outings, and conferences, and collegiate and charity events keep its calendar honest. The operation is the product as much as the holes are. The New Course sits inside a 45 hole complex at Grand Cypress, which means a golfer staying there can pair it with the resort's other golf and never repeat a hole across a long weekend. So the trip planner's answer differs from the purist's answer. A group of sixteen with a dinner reservation wants Shingle Creek's polish and logistics. A foursome of golf sick friends who have played everything else in Florida wants the double greens and the Road Hole concept, because there is nothing else like it within a hundred miles.
The verdict
For a first Orlando resort round and the safest bet for a mixed group, take Shingle Creek. The Palmer renovation made it the more complete modern test, the greens are superb targets, and the risk reward par 5s give every handicap something to argue about on the drive back. For the round you will still be describing in five years, take the New Course. Nobody forgets putting across a double green in Florida.
Concede the New Course its originality, because nothing else in the city attempts what it attempts. Then book Shingle Creek if your group wants the better conventional golf course, and book Grand Cypress if you want the story. Both sit inside our Orlando town ranking, and the wider state picture is in the Florida state ranking.
Orlando has a hundred courses that feel like each other. These two do not, and that alone makes the choice worth arguing about.