History
The year 2000 found the Emerald Coast in the middle of a boom, as Sandestin and the broader Miramar Beach corridor expanded to meet the demands of a golf travel market hungry for new destinations along Florida’s northern Gulf. Raven Golf Club opened that year as part of this wave, giving the resort community another eighteen holes to offer visitors who came for the beaches but stayed for the golf.
Robert Trent Jones, Jr. took on the design, bringing a résumé already thick with resort work around the world to this particular parcel near the Choctawhatchee Bay. Jones had built a reputation for adapting his father’s strategic principles to local terrain rather than imposing a single style everywhere he worked, and Raven reflects that inclination — a course built to test accomplished players from the championship tees at 6,931 yards while still giving resort guests of varying skill a fair route around. The par-71 layout, with its 137 slope and 73.8 rating from the tees, signaled from the outset that this would be no pushover exhibition course, but a legitimate test bearing Jones’s name.
In the years since its opening, Raven has remained a fixture of the Sandestin golf portfolio, maintained with Bermuda fairways and Tifeagle greens suited to the coastal Florida climate. It continues to operate as a resort access course, part of the rotation of layouts that has helped establish Miramar Beach and the surrounding Destin area as a golf destination of consequence along the northern Gulf Coast.
Playing notes
At 6,931 yards from the tips with a 137 slope, Raven Golf Club leans on length and green complexity more than tricked-up hazards. The Tifeagle putting surfaces run fast and true, so approach shots that miss on the wrong side will leave testing lag putts — plan your misses carefully rather than firing at every pin. Bermuda fairways give a fair bounce off the tee, but the yardage means shorter hitters will be pulling long irons and hybrids into greens all day, making distance control with those clubs the real test here. A cart is the standard way to get around given the layout's spread, so don't expect a walking-friendly routing. Bring extra sleeves of balls if the wind picks up off the Gulf, as the coastal breeze can turn mid-length approach shots into guessing games, and expect a few forced carries over water that demand a committed swing rather than a bailout.
Tee boxes
| Tees | Yardage | Par | Slope | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Championship | 6,931 | 71 | 137 | 73.8 |