Temple Terrace Golf and Country Club

Temple Terrace Golf and Country Club sits at the literal center of the city it shares a name with, its fairways laid out by golf architect Tom Bendelow when Temple Terrace was first platted as a planned community in the 1920s. The course still follows Bendelow’s original routing today, playing to 6,414 yards against a par of 72, and it remains the anchor around which much of the rest of the city was built. Streets curve around the greens, front doors face the fairways in places, and a short drive from most Temple Terrace neighborhoods leads back to the clubhouse at 200 Inverness Avenue.

This is a private club, so access runs through membership rather than a public tee sheet, and that arrangement shows in how the grounds are kept and how the pace of play feels. Members have described a comfortable, unhurried atmosphere and a staff willing to go out of its way to help, the kind of small touches that separate a member focused club from a high volume public course. The layout rewards accuracy over raw distance, a hallmark of Bendelow era design, with tree lined corridors and greens that ask golfers to think through a round rather than simply swing hard and hope to find the fairway.

History is easy to feel here. Billy Graham Memorial Park sits along the east side of the eighteenth green, a quiet reminder of how long this course has been woven into daily life in Temple Terrace, and the clubhouse has hosted generations of member tournaments, holiday gatherings, and junior clinics. Beyond the course itself, a full service country club in this category typically offers a practice area for working on your short game before a round and a pro shop stocked with equipment and apparel. Amenities and membership tiers can shift from season to season, so prospective members should confirm current offerings directly with the club rather than assume.

For residents who grew up playing junior golf here, or who moved to Temple Terrace specifically for the lifestyle a golf course community offers, the club is less an amenity than a piece of the city’s identity. It is one of the few Tampa Bay area courses that predates most of the neighborhoods around it rather than the other way around, and that history gives it a different character than newer clubs built to fit around existing development. Golfers who value tradition, a settled membership, and a course that has not been redesigned to chase modern trends will find a lot to appreciate in the original routing and the mature tree canopy that has grown in over the last century.

Prospective members are encouraged to call ahead to ask about membership categories, initiation requirements, and guest policies, since private clubs typically structure these differently than daily fee courses. Whether you are a longtime Tampa Bay golfer or new to the area and looking for a home course with real history behind it, Temple Terrace Golf and Country Club is worth a phone call to 813-988-1791.