# The Best Golf Courses in Pinellas County, Florida

Source: https://thecourserankings.com/blog/the-best-golf-courses-in-pinellas-county-fl/

[The Course Rankings](/)

County Rankings / Florida


A golf ball beside the hole on a green. Photo: PattayaPatrol, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Pinellas County is a peninsula packed with golf, 27 courses in our dataset, between Tampa Bay and the Gulf. The surprise is the quality at the top: a PGA Tour course, two Donald Ross designs, a Fazio, and one of Florida's best known municipal restorations, all a short drive apart. Much of the best of it is private, but the public game here is stronger than in most Florida counties. We rank the golf first, as in [the 5 best golf courses in Florida](/blog/the-5-best-golf-courses-in-florida/), and say plainly where the doors are closed.

## 1Innisbrook Copperhead Course

Larry Packard designed Copperhead, opened in 1971 at Innisbrook Resort in Palm Harbor, and it remains the county's headline course by a distance. It hosts the PGA Tour's Valspar Championship. It is known as unusually hilly and tree-lined for Florida, more Carolina in feel, which in flat Pinellas County is a genuine distinction. The Snake Pit, holes 16 to 18, is its branded closing stretch, and a closing stretch with a name that tour players actually use is earned, not marketed. Resort access with public booking means anyone can test that claim. No. 1, and not a debate.

## 2Dunedin Golf Club

Donald Ross designed Dunedin, opened in 1927, and for a stretch in the postwar era this municipal course was the home of the PGA of America headquarters. Let that settle. The PGA lived at a muni in Dunedin. Kris Spence restored the course, recovering Ross greens and bunkering from old aerials, and it reopened in the mid-2020s to wide praise. Municipal access at resident-friendly rates, Ross architecture, and a restoration done from evidence rather than taste. It is one of Florida's best known municipal Ross courses, and it is the best public value argument in the county.

## 3Belleair Country Club - West Course

The West Course at Belleair is Donald Ross's other Pinellas work, at a club with an 1897 lineage described locally as Florida's oldest club, on the old Belleview Biltmore site. Par 71 at 6,447 yards. Fry and Straka rebuilt the course in a 2022 restoration guided by Ross's original sketches, which is the right way to restore Ross: from his drawings, not from a committee's memory. Private, like its sister East Course, and ranked behind Dunedin here only because Dunedin's combination of Ross, restoration, and public access is harder to beat on a full rubric.

## 4Bayou Golf Club

Tom Fazio designed Bayou in Largo, opened in 1991, par 72 at 7,085 yards, the longest serious test among the county's private courses. Water features on 16 of 18 holes, and the signature 16th, the Bridge Side hole, is a par 3 requiring about a 200 yard carry from the championship tee. Fazio in Florida can drift toward the scenic. Bayou has a sterner spine than that, and the 16th alone would make it memorable. Private access keeps it at No. 4 rather than higher on our day and access scoring.

## 5Feather Sound Country Club

Joe Lee designed Feather Sound in Clearwater, Bobby Weed renovated it, and Kipp Schulties renovated it again in 2022. Par 71, stretchable to 7,215 yards, the most yardage on this list. The club hosted the Skechers World Champions Cup in December 2025, with all competition played on the back nine, a recent and real credential. Private, in the Gateway area, and easy to underrate until you see the length and the event history together.

## 6Bardmoor Golf & Tennis Club

Bill Amick designed Bardmoor in Seminole, opened in 1971, par 72 at 7,015 yards, and Gary Koch carried out a $2 million redesign in 2001. Its claim is tournament history the public can actually access: Bardmoor hosted the JCPenney Classic for 13 seasons, a PGA and LPGA co-sanctioned event in its era. Thirteen seasons is not a cameo. It is a tour venue that stayed public, and that combination is rare enough to earn this spot.

## 7Belleair Country Club - East Course

The East Course, Herbert Strong's work, was originally Belleview Course No. 2 and renamed the East Course in 1920, playing par 71 at 6,253 yards. It lives in the West Course's shadow, as second courses at famous clubs usually do, and on a pure ranking it is a step behind. Strong was no placeholder architect, though, and members who play both Belleair courses weekly get a variety most private clubs cannot offer. Private, and ordinary only by the company it keeps.

## 8East Lake Woodlands Country Club

A 36 hole private club in Oldsmar, Devlin and von Hagge design work, with the North Course at par 72 and 6,807 yards carrying over 80 bunkers, and the South at 6,705 yards. Depth is its argument. Two full courses, real length, and a bunker count that tells you the North does not defend itself softly. It lacks a headline event or a famous name to push it higher.

## 9Chi Chi Rodriguez Golf Club

We close the ranked nine with the county's best story. A public course in Clearwater tied to Chi Chi Rodriguez's youth foundation, par 69 at 5,454 yards, more than 70 sand traps, water on 12 holes, and a portion of every green fee supporting the Chi Chi Rodriguez Academy and First Tee Clearwater. It is executive length and it knows it. As golf architecture it sits below everything above it. As a use of a golf course, it might be the most admirable entry on the list.

Past these nine, Pinellas runs long and mostly ordinary: Clearwater Country Club's 1920 Herbert Strong course, Countryside's 27 Gary Player holes, and names like the Vinoy, Mangrove Bay, and Pelican fill out a deep local bench. The summit is a tour course in the pines at Palm Harbor, and the best seat in the county is a municipal Ross in Dunedin that anyone can book.

**Reader responses are open.** Please cite a specific hole, a price, or a round you have played.