Audubon Country Club in Naples was designed by Joe Lee and opened in 1989 as a par-72 layout measuring 6,731 yards. Lee created a course within the Audubon conservation community in North Naples, where protected wetlands and native habitat preserve areas frame the playing corridors and provide habitat for the wading birds and raptors the community celebrates.
History
Audubon Country Club opened in 1989 in Naples, Florida, the product of a design philosophy that sought to integrate championship golf with one of Southwest Florida's most biologically rich landscapes. Golf course architect Joe Lee, who had built a distinguished body of work across Florida since the 1950s and whose clients included some of the most celebrated residential communities in the state, was commissioned to create a course that would function within a community committed from its founding to environmental stewardship. The result was a layout that treated the surrounding wetlands and preserve areas not as obstacles to be engineered around but as defining features of the playing experience — a choice that proved prescient as environmental awareness grew dramatically across the Collier County development community in the decades that followed. Lee laid out an 18-hole championship course across a total property of 755 acres, of which an extraordinary 59 percent was dedicated to nature preserves.
The course plays through a canopy of native vegetation — slash pine, cypress, and native shrubs — with fairways that border protected habitat corridors throughout the routing. Water hazards are integrated carefully into the design, and Lee's routing encourages golfers to work the ball in both directions to navigate the property's natural contours and preserve margins. Golf membership at Audubon was intentionally capped at 300 members — a figure chosen to ensure that both the playing experience and the ecological integrity of the site would remain intact. That cap has been maintained, creating a club atmosphere of genuine exclusivity and unhurried access.
The 300-member limit is not merely a marketing claim but a structural commitment enshrined in the club's governance, and it shapes the pace of play and the quality of the member experience throughout the season. In 2016 and 2018, architect Drew Rogers undertook two renovation phases that refined bunker shapes, regraded several greens, improved drainage infrastructure, and updated approach areas without disturbing the fundamental character of Lee's original design. Rogers worked carefully within Lee's intent, and the renovations preserved the natural setting that defines the course's identity. The club's name and its environmental identity came together in its certification as an Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary — one of approximately 800 communities worldwide to have received this recognition from Audubon International.
The designation acknowledges measurable commitments to wildlife habitat preservation, chemical reduction, water conservation, and outreach to members and staff about environmental stewardship. For Audubon Country Club, the certification is not aspirational but descriptive: the preserve lands, the membership cap, the low-chemical maintenance program, and the wildlife habitat corridors are all elements that have been part of the club's operation since it opened. Resident wildlife — including great blue herons, ospreys, roseate spoonbills, and alligators — is visible throughout normal rounds of golf, a daily reminder that the course shares its acreage with a functioning Southwest Florida ecosystem. The convergence of Joe Lee's thoughtful routing, the extraordinary proportion of preserved land, and the club's long-standing environmental governance has made Audubon Country Club a model for how private golf development and ecological integrity can coexist — a philosophy that has aged well in a region where natural habitat has come under extraordinary development pressure.