Photo: Jax Sean
Designed by Rees Jones
History
The story of LPGA International begins not with a single visionary but with an organization looking for a home. The LPGA Tour, long headquartered informally and without a permanent base, found its anchor in Daytona Beach when the city and the Ladies Professional Golf Association struck a deal to build a championship facility that would carry the tour’s name and serve as its official home course. The partnership reflected a broader ambition: to give women’s professional golf a physical address, a place where the tour’s identity and a public golf facility could exist under one banner.
Rees Jones, already established as one of the sport’s most sought-after architects for his work reshaping and building courses suited to top-level competition, took on the Champions Course as his contribution to that vision. Jones brought his characteristic instinct for tournament-ready design, shaping a layout meant to challenge the game’s best players while remaining accessible to the public golfers who would fill out its tee sheets the rest of the year. The Legends Course, a companion design by Arthur Hills, opened alongside it, giving the property two distinct 18-hole identities under one clubhouse roof.
In the years since its opening, LPGA International has hosted LPGA Tour events, cementing the connection between the facility’s name and its founding purpose. The club has continued to operate as a public and semi-private facility, welcoming both resort visitors and Daytona Beach area golfers, while ownership and management have evolved to keep the two courses maintained to the standard befitting their tour pedigree. The property remains one of the few in the country built explicitly to serve as a professional tour’s namesake home.
Playing Notes
Expect wind to be the deciding factor here — this stretch of Daytona Beach sits open and exposed, with little in the way of tree cover to break up gusts coming off the coast, so club selection on approach shots deserves extra thought. Water and native scrub grass line enough holes that missing fairways carries real consequences, not just an awkward lie, so bring extra balls. The layout is walkable if you're up for it, but most visitors ride given the heat and the distance between some greens and tees. Greens run true but firm up in dry stretches, meaning approach shots that land short of the pin will often release further than expected, so factor that into your yardage rather than flying it straight at the flag. This is a course that rewards golfers who can control trajectory and shape shots against the wind over those who simply swing hard, and a pre-round warm-up on the range to dial in half-shots will pay off more here than at a sheltered inland course.