Crane Creek Reserve Golf Course in Melbourne, Florida

Crane Creek Reserve Golf Course is an 18-hole, par-71 public course run by the City of Melbourne's Parks, Recreation and Golf department at 475 West New Haven Avenue.

The city's Golf page lists the course at 475 West New Haven Avenue, Melbourne, FL 32901, with a pro shop at 321-608-7430. The Florida Department of State's Florida Historic Golf Trail describes it as an 18-hole, par-71 course with four sets of tees playing from 4,600 to 5,800 yards, and a 2015 state release quotes the Secretary of State calling it a short course.

The name comes from the water that runs through it: the trail page describes the Crane Creek canal as running through the golf course, and the Florida Museum places the old club grounds south of West New Haven Avenue. For most of the 20th century the layout carried other names: it opened as the course of the Melbourne Golf and Country Club and was later known as the Melbourne Municipal Golf Course, before the City of Melbourne renamed it Crane Creek Reserve in 2007. It is one of two city courses; the other, Harbor City Golf Course, formerly Mallards Landing Golf Course, is at 2750 Lake Washington Road in Melbourne, with a pro shop at 321-608-7480.

The Melbourne course dates to 1920, and Donald Ross designed the 18-hole layout that opened in December 1928, according to the Florida Historic Golf Trail.

The trail history says the Melbourne Golf and Country Club was established in April 1920, and three months later M.K.V. Davis was brought in to lay out a golf course. Six holes were completed first, and the course was expanded to nine holes a year later. In 1923, while visiting Melbourne, President Warren G. Harding missed a luncheon to play golf on the course, with club members serving as caddies for his group.

As golf grew more popular in Melbourne, the club decided it needed a full 18 holes. The trail history states that in 1924 the club bought forty more acres and first consulted John Brophy of Miami Beach, but on April 7, 1925, it passed a resolution, without a dissenting vote, to engage the architect Donald J. Ross to lay out an 18-hole course. William H. Diddle of Indianapolis and Tarpon Springs was in charge of construction, and the new 18-hole Melbourne course officially opened in December 1928. A 2015 Florida Department of State press release gives a slightly different sequence, dating the Ross commission to 1926 and describing the original six holes as a City of Melbourne course opened in 1920.

The Ross routing survived about half a century. The trail page states that the course remained unchanged until the late 1970s, when the City of Melbourne hired golf course architect William Amick for extensive renovations. After a year of closure the course reopened on February 15, 1978, with a new clubhouse and new holes. In 2007 the city officially renamed the municipal course Crane Creek Reserve Golf Course. Kevin Briski, then Melbourne's Director of Parks, Recreation and Golf, called it originally the Melbourne Municipal Golf Course in the 2015 release, though the trail page gives the Melbourne Golf and Country Club as the earlier club name.

A round at Crane Creek Reserve costs $42 for 18 holes with a cart and $26 for 9 holes with a cart, tax included, on the City of Melbourne Golf page as listed on October 18, 2026.

Walking rates at the Melbourne course are $27 for 18 holes and $20 for 9. Late day rates drop the price, and the city posts an earlier late day schedule that starts November 1, 2026, shown in the table. A large bucket of 60 range balls costs $10 and a small bucket of 30 costs $7, rental clubs cost $21 for 18 holes or $16 for 9, and pull carts cost $10 or $5.

Melbourne also sells two annual packages. The Premier Pass, priced at $3,900 as of October 18, 2026, covers all green and cart fees, free range balls, a free locker, a GHIN handicap membership, advance tee time booking and 20 percent off golf shop merchandise. The Single Pass, at $1,000, covers green fees, advance booking and the same merchandise discount, with add-on fees of $10 for walking, $13 for 9 holes with a cart and $21 for 18. On Saturdays, Sundays and holidays, pass holders may walk after 12 p.m.

Lessons are taught at both Melbourne courses. The city's adult rates are $35 for a private half hour and $60 for a full hour, with a four-lesson series at $120 or $200, and semi-private lessons for two adults at $30 or $50 each; junior golfers under 18 pay $25 and $40, or $80 and $140 for a series. Lesson bookings at Crane Creek Reserve go through the pro shop at 321-608-7430.

Crane Creek Reserve is open 6:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. daily through October 31 and 6:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. from November 1 to March 7, according to the city's Golf page.

From March 8 to October 31, the course is open 6:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., seven days a week. From November 1 to March 7, it closes earlier, at 5 p.m. The driving range at Crane Creek Reserve closes at 5 p.m. every Monday for maintenance, and the city notes that hours may change because of weather.

Food service is on site. The Back 9 Bar and Grill at the Melbourne course opens at 10 a.m. every day and stays open until closing. The city's second course, Harbor City, has its own Harbor City Grill on the same 10 a.m. schedule.

The Crane Creek canal through the course was one of the two Melbourne localities that produced almost all of the fossils now in museum collections, according to the Florida Museum of Natural History.

The museum describes a 'Golf Course locality' on the east bank of Crane Creek where it crossed the Melbourne Golf and Country Club, south of West New Haven Avenue, stretching at least 100 feet with an average width of 30 feet. The museum gives the deposits an estimated age of about 11,000 to 25,000 years and says the find was reported to the Smithsonian Institution in 1922.

The trail history adds the Melbourne golf connection to the discovery. It states that in 1922, along the banks of the Crane Creek canal that runs through the golf course, a local resident found human remains alongside fossilized mammoth bones. Frederick Loomis of Amherst College arrived in late 1923, and James Gidley of the Smithsonian joined two years later. A 2019 Florida Tech Secret History article places the excavation sites in what are now Florida Tech's Botanical Garden and the Crane Creek Reserve Golf Course. One mammoth skeleton from the dig is at the Beneski Museum of Natural History at Amherst College, which chose the mammoth as its mascot in 2017, according to the trail page. The 2015 state release instead speaks of mastodon bones; the Florida Museum's faunal list for the Melbourne site includes both the American mastodon and the Columbian mammoth.

Crane Creek Reserve is a partner course on the Florida Historic Golf Trail, which the Florida Department of State describes as more than 50 historic, publicly accessible courses.

On February 5, 2015, Secretary of State Ken Detzner announced that the Melbourne course had been chosen as the trail's featured course for that month, calling it a short course suited to beginners and advanced players alike. In the same release, Briski summed up the course's history as running from mastodons to Donald Ross to President Harding.

The state program lists partner courses because they are historic and still publicly accessible. The Melbourne course is listed as a city public course that has carried three names: the Melbourne Golf and Country Club course, the Melbourne Municipal Golf Course and Crane Creek Reserve.

Last verified: October 18, 2026, against the City of Melbourne Golf page, the Florida Historic Golf Trail course page, the February 5, 2015 Department of State release, the Florida Museum site record and a 2019 Florida Tech history.