Lakewood Country Club

Twelve of the eighteen holes at Lakewood Country Club are par 3s. The other six are par 4s, spread over about 52 acres by the club's figure, with crushed-shell paths running between native trees and shrubs. A round is planned to take 3 hours 20 minutes or less, and you can walk it or take an electric cart.

Beside the course is a practice area: one big putting green, separate greens for chipping and pitching, a practice bunker, and a hitting net with two grass mats. The course is public, so the tee sheet takes anyone with a booking or a seasonal pass. Around it, on a loop of two roads just off Tamiami Trail East in Naples, stand condominiums, attached villas and houses built in the 1970s and 1980s. None of them comes with golf.

What is the golf like at Lakewood Country Club?

Short, and mostly about the approach. The club sums the course up as "Open to the Public, Lakewood Country Club is a 3,200 yard, par 60 Executive Course". Its scorecard puts the back tees at 3,161 yards and the front tees at 2,862. Fairways are Bermuda grass, and the greens are Tifdarf Bermuda.

Fourteen holes bring water into play, and most of the greens are raised above the fairway. There's no full-length driving range. The club pitches the course at short-game work instead, meaning shots into the green, chipping and putting, and the practice area follows suit with three small greens, a bunker, and a net for anything longer.

How do you get a tee time or a season pass?

Tee times are booked online through the club or in person at the golf shop. If you plan to play often, there are two seasonal passes. The six-month pass covers November 1 through April 30 and gives unlimited golf, with only a cart fee to pay each round, priced for a single player or for a couple. The three-month pass covers January 1 through March 31 and comes with or without cart fees.

The club organizes golf leagues, which players can join or start themselves. It also books outings and tournaments through an outing planner, on tee times or with a shotgun start.

How far is Lakewood from the beach, downtown and the airport?

Lakewood Boulevard runs up the west side of the course and Boca Ciega Drive curves around its south and east sides, and the two meet at the club's parking lot. Measured by road from that lot, free of traffic:

• A Publix on Tamiami Trail East, about 1.1 miles or 3 minutes
• Naples Botanical Garden on Bayshore Drive, about 2.3 miles or 7 minutes
• Fifth Avenue South at 8th Street South, about 3.8 miles or 8 minutes
• NCH Baker Hospital, about 4.6 miles or 10 minutes
• The Naples Pier, about 5 miles or 11 minutes
• Southwest Florida International Airport, about 33 miles or 46 minutes

Expect all six to run longer in the winter months.

What kinds of homes are at Lakewood, and what do they cost?

Three kinds, and they sell at very different prices. The condominium buildings rise one, two or three stories, on Boca Ciega Drive, Pine Isle Lane, Estero Bay Lane and nearby streets, and the attached villas share those streets. Detached houses sit mainly on Beechwood Lake Drive and along the northern stretch of Lakewood Boulevard.

This isn't one development. It's several separately platted groups of homes, and listings name four of them: Lakewood, Lakewood Villas, Boca Ciega Manor and Boca Ciega Village. Even the villas differ by plat, and the larger Lakewood Villas units have sold for well above the small one-bedroom villas in Boca Ciega Village.

Condominium flats run from about 650 to about 1,130 square feet, with 1 to 2 bedrooms. Villas run from about 650 to about 1,600 square feet, with 1 to 3 bedrooms, and houses from about 1,270 to about 2,100 square feet, with 2 to 4.

Prices follow the same split. Between March 2025 and October 2026, condominium flats sold from the $100,000s to around $240,000. Attached villas sold from the $100,000s to around $430,000, while detached houses sold from the $360,000s to around $670,000.

Who sets the fees and rental rules?

The association that runs the particular building or street. The fee, what it pays for, and whether and how often you can lease it to a tenant all come from that association, not from the club and not from any one body for the whole neighborhood. Before you make an offer, ask that association for its budget and its leasing rules for the exact address.

Does a home at Lakewood come with golf?

No. Settle that before anything else about buying here. Golf and the homes are separate purchases. The course sells tee times and passes to anyone, so owning a home beside it gives you no right to play, and playing it asks nothing about where you live. The club has said so for years, and its website in 2017 read: "There are NO residency requirements."

If you're buying in order to play, put a season pass or green fees in the budget on top of the house, at the club's rates for that season. The course is as open to someone driving in from across town as to the owner across the street.

The neighborhood is open in a second sense too. Lakewood Boulevard is a through road that carries on north to Davis Boulevard, with no gate across it or across Boca Ciega Drive.