Highland Woods Golf & Country Club

Six days a week, a water aerobics class meets in the zero-entry main pool beside the Highland Woods clubhouse. Next to it, The Woods Café, built in the club's 2022 renovation, has tables inside and out, a cocktail bar with a happy hour, and meals carried out to the pool deck, while golfers making the turn order from its Cabana window. The clubhouse Grille Room looks over the 18th green, with big screens for the games and a seasonal American menu. Evenings move to the main dining room, where the dress code after 5 p.m. is evening country club casual.

All of that sits behind one gatehouse in Bonita Springs, off U.S. 41 at a spot the club describes as halfway between Naples and Fort Myers. Around it are 799 homes, a Gordon Lewis golf course and eleven lakes on the club's map. The club runs no marina or beach club, so the Gulf is a drive.

What is the golf like at Highland Woods?

Eighteen holes, par 72, laid out through the neighborhoods and around the lakes. Nine tee choices, three of them combinations, run from 3,373 to 6,799 yards. In 2016 the course was re-grassed wall to wall and given new greens. Tee times open seven days ahead in the Chelsea booking system, which hands first choice to whoever has played least over the previous fourteen days.

Practice happens on a 50,000-square-foot aqua driving range tee with an extra mat area, two putting greens, two chipping greens and three bunkers. The professionals give lessons and run clinics, some of them free.

Riding means a club cart: privately owned or leased carts are banned everywhere on club property, the course included, unless the board approves one in writing for a temporary medical need. Between the 12th and 13th holes, inside the loop of villas, a wooded gopher tortoise preserve is posted no-entry, even to golfers chasing a ball.

What is there to play besides golf?

Pickleball gets six dedicated courts, with open play every morning, free loaner paddles and a ball machine. From October to April the Racquet Sports Committee holds a pickleball social once a month.

Tennis courts are lit until 10 p.m. and free to book. Doubles leagues for men and women, team practices, weekly drop-in sessions and a Saturday morning mixed round robin fill the season, plus five events through fall and winter, the club championship among them.

Bocce is played on Clay Tech, a fabric surface dressed with sand, in six-week seasonal leagues for men, women and couples. Shaded benches and a patio with umbrellas sit courtside.

Seven pools in all, every one heated to about 84 degrees. The main pool adds a Jacuzzi. Six more are spread through the condominium and veranda neighborhoods, one of them covered. Members may use any of them in daylight, with no lifeguard.

The fitness center never closes. It fills the upper floor of the cart barn the club put up in 2016, with an equipment room, a separate studio for group classes and a personal trainer.

How far are the beach, the shops and the airport?

A Publix is about a quarter mile down U.S. 41. Without traffic, Coconut Point is about 8 minutes away, Bonita Beach Park about 9 and Lovers Key State Park about 22. Southwest Florida International Airport takes about 26 minutes. Naples is the longer run: Mercato about 12 minutes, NCH North Naples Hospital about 13 and Fifth Avenue South about 27.

What kinds of homes are there, and what do they sell for?

Five kinds, as the club describes them. By the entrance, Heathermoor and Terrace condominiums have two bedrooms, two baths and screened lanais over the fairways, plus a detached carport and storage at Heathermoor. Ringing the course, the St. Andrews Verandas add open verandas, detached garages and, in some, a third bedroom. Villas come with two bedrooms and an attached two-car garage. On Summer Greens Drive, the single-family homes are one story, with two to four bedrooms.

Homes date from 1996 onward. Condominiums measure about 1,000 to about 1,700 square feet and villas about 1,500 to about 2,300, while the houses fall between about 1,950 and about 2,600. Between April 2025 and September 2026:

• Condominiums sold from just under $200,000 to around $500,000
• Villas sold from the mid $400,000s to around $725,000
• Single-family houses sold from the low $900,000s to around $1.1 million, on only five sales

Does the club come with the house, and what does it cost?

It does: there is one class of membership, every owner of title holds it, and nobody applies separately. Golf privileges go to one designated household per home, switched on within a day or two of the club receiving the deed and fees.

Club dues for 2026 are about $13,800 a year on every home, roughly $1,150 a month, and they include bulk cable television and internet. The bill is due in one payment on 1 January. Closing adds a one-off capital contribution to the club of about $10,000 for 2026 and an estoppel fee of a few hundred dollars. A yearly dining minimum of about $500 applies to every home, and any unspent balance passes from seller to buyer.

That still isn't everything. Under the club sit eighteen neighborhood associations, and every home is in one. Each sets and collects its own dues, and they vary. Club dues are the floor of the yearly cost, so get the association's figure for your address before budgeting.

Why did the club's charges climb so much for 2026?

The board resets dues and the capital contribution every year, and for 2026 it raised both sharply. Dues were about $10,800 for 2025, so they rose close to 28% in one year, mostly through the operating budget and a far bigger payment into replacement reserves. The capital contribution went from about $6,500 to about $10,000, and you pay whatever applies on your closing date. Find out what the board expects for 2027 before you settle on a price.

Can you rent out a home at Highland Woods?

The club allows leases of 30 consecutive days or longer and lets an owner hand privileges to tenants up to twelve times a year, for a transfer fee that grows with the stay. While a tenant holds them, the owner is locked out of the club, golf included. A neighborhood association can demand a longer minimum in its own documents, so read the ones for your building or street.

Visitors use a separate lane at the gatehouse on Highland Woods Boulevard, and the speed limit everywhere inside is 20 mph.