Golf around Dade City

The Big Two

Lake Jovita Golf & Country Club is the heavyweight. It sits at 12900 Lake Jovita Blvd, carries a 4.4 rating from 596 reviews, and is the kind of place people drive past on purpose. The course is the draw, and the numbers back it up. This is the full country-club experience, and it anchors the town’s serious golfing identity.

About ten minutes up the road, Scotland Yards Golf Club at 9424 US-301 holds its own with a 4.2 rating from 412 reviews. It is a different animal than Lake Jovita—more accessible, less formal, and still a proper course. Between the two, Dade City covers the spectrum from clubhouse formality to weekend rounds.

The Family Stop

7th Street Mini Golf and Game Parlour is the outlier in the best way. At 13841 7th St, it pulls a 4.8 from 60 reviews, the highest rating of any business we are allowed to name here. This is not a course. It is a parlour, and it is the closest thing Dade City has to a guaranteed smile. If you are bringing kids, or if you are an adult who remembers that mini golf is still golf, this is the stop.

The Odd Pair

Jim Crandell Golf Cart Sales at 12325 US-301 is exactly what it sounds like. 3.6 stars from 34 reviews. It is a sales lot, not a course, and it exists because golf carts are the unofficial vehicle of Florida small towns. You might not need one. But if you are moving here, you will notice everyone else has one.

Then there is The Cave Golf at 37945 Howard Ave. Five stars from nine reviews. That is a perfect score on a tiny sample, which means either it is genuinely excellent or only nine people have ever found it. Given Dade City’s layout, we suspect the latter. It is a niche attraction, and niche is fine.

What the Town Actually Is

Dade City is not a golf destination. It is a town of 7,570 people with a median age of 42.6 and a median home value of $211,900. The median gross rent is $1,002. The unemployment rate sits at 8.6 percent, and 23.4 percent of residents hold a bachelor’s degree or higher. Of its 3,213 housing units, 104 are held for seasonal or recreational use. This is a working town, not a resort.

The town’s identity is built on kumquats. The fruit grows here in quantity, and each January the Kumquat Festival draws tens of thousands downtown. The star is kumquat pie, a Pasco County speciality, alongside kumquat jelly, butter and the fresh fruit itself. Most of the country has never eaten a kumquat. Dade City built a whole festival around it.

The courthouse square hosts the Dade City Cruise-In car show. The Pioneer Florida Museum, opened on Labor Day 1975, holds a 1913 locomotive, a Methodist church, a pre-Civil War house, an old school and a train depot. The town is named for US Army Major Francis L. Dade, killed in the battle that opened the Second Seminole War. The Hatton post office became the Dade City post office on 18 December 1884, and the city reincorporated on 5 June 1889.

The Verdict

If you are coming to Dade City for golf, play Lake Jovita or Scotland Yards. If you are coming for the kumquats, you are coming in January. If you are coming for something in between, hit 7th Street Mini Golf and call it a day.

Jim Crandell Golf Cart Sales and The Cave Golf are not reasons to visit. They are reasons to live here. That is the difference. Dade City does not need to impress you. It has a fruit festival, a courthouse square, and two real golf courses. That is enough.