Michael Keiser announced that construction is underway for Old Shores, a new golf course located in the Florida panhandle. Old Shores is the fourth course that Keiser has commissioned with renowned architect Tom Doak.
The property is situated on a completely sand-based site and draws its name from old-world maps that show the former reach of the Gulf farther inland. Plans for the site include a larger community with restaurants, a hotel and sites for cottages and homes, as well as a second 18-hole course and short course.
“This site is unlike anything I’ve seen,” Keiser said in a press release. “The contours are incredible, and there is a deep beauty in the forests and the flowing water. The Old Shores vision includes outdoor recreation, food, art and land restoration, inspired by the towns I’ve fallen in love with in Scotland.”
The course will be built among the site’s diverse terrain and will feature longleaf pines, open fields, rivers, hills and a geographic feature unique to the area: wide, inverted dunes called “sinks.” The routing Doak has planned will highlight and accentuate the natural topography.
“The site for Old Shores is not at all what people expect when they think of golf in Florida,” Doak said. “There is about forty feet of elevation change from high to low on our site, and even more on the site for the second course, with big sweeping hills providing a variety of stances. Then there are the sinkholes, which are unlike anything I’ve seen on a golf course; in some cases there are abrupt banks 30-50 feet deep, and the largest of them, Long Lake, is something like 50 acres in size.”
Preview play for Old Shores is expected to begin in Q4 2026, with the grand opening planned for the fall of 2027.
