Big Cypress Golf Club

Big Cypress Golf Club in Lakeland was designed by Ron Garl and opened in 1987 as a par-72 layout measuring 6,680 yards in Polk County. Garl, one of Florida's most active course architects of the 1980s and 1990s, created a design that uses the natural cypress wetlands of the Central Florida interior as both aesthetic framing and strategic hazard.

Big Cypress Golf Club is the golf centerpiece of Cypress Lakes Village, a gated 55-and-over community on the north side of Lakeland in Polk County, Florida. The facility developed in two distinct phases that parallel the evolution of the community itself. The South Course was built in 1987, designed by Ron Garl, a prolific Florida golf architect who worked extensively throughout the state during the 1980s and 1990s. Garl created a par-72 championship layout stretching to 6,680 yards from the back tees, featuring the abundant water hazards and cypress-lined corridors that give both the community and the club their names. Water comes into play frequently on the South Course, and Garl's design rewards shot management and placement over power.

The North Course followed in 1994, designed by Chip Powell as a shorter, more accessible layout suited to a broader range of player abilities. The North Course plays as a par 60, offering an alternative that provides genuine enjoyment across a wide range of handicaps without the length and water exposure of the South Course. The two courses together give Cypress Lakes Village residents 36 holes of golf with genuinely different characters — the South a full championship examination and the North a more forgiving and socially oriented experience. That variety is particularly valuable in an active adult community where a wide spectrum of players — from accomplished golfers to those taking up the game in retirement — share the same facilities. Both courses are open to the public as well as community residents, a policy that connects the club to the broader Lakeland golfing community and gives the facility a welcoming character that purely private clubs often lack.

The dual-access model serves the commercial reality of Polk County golf and ensures steady play that supports the maintenance of both courses at a consistent standard. Lakeland's position midway between Tampa and Orlando has made Polk County an active golf market with players from both metropolitan areas making regular rounds at courses in the region. Big Cypress Golf Club occupies a stable niche within that market — a facility that serves a defined residential population while remaining genuinely accessible to the surrounding community. The cypress trees that give the property its identity grow in clusters around the water features and along some of the natural drainage corridors, particularly on the South Course, providing shade, visual character, and the impression of playing through a natural Florida ecosystem. The combination of the South Course's championship demands, the North Course's accessibility, 36 total holes of golf across a well-maintained property, and the active lifestyle amenities of the surrounding Cypress Lakes Village community gives Big Cypress Golf Club a rounded identity suited to the demographic it serves.

The club has operated continuously since 1987, making it among the more established golf facilities in Polk County's northern corridor. The broader Cypress Lakes Village community of which Big Cypress Golf Club is the centerpiece has developed into a self-contained active adult environment with residential areas, social clubs, fitness facilities, and organized recreational programming complementing the 36 holes of golf. Polk County's inland character — away from the congestion of the Tampa Bay and I-4 corridors while remaining within reasonable driving distance of both — gives the community a pace suited to the active retirement lifestyle its residents have chosen. The golf program at Big Cypress is woven into the daily social fabric of Cypress Lakes Village, with tournaments, leagues, and casual rounds providing the structure around which many residents organize their weeks. For more than three decades since the South Course opened in 1987, the club has served as both a recreational facility and a social institution for its community.