North at Highlands Ridge Golf Club

Highlands Ridge Golf Club's North Course sits in the rolling terrain of central Florida's Ridge region near Avon Park, where the landscape offers more elevation change than typical Florida golf. Steve Smyers designed the course with Dave Harman, creating a layout that takes advantage of the property's natural contours and sandy soil. The routing works through native scrub vegetation and incorporates the kind of strategic design elements Smyers became known for in his Florida work during the 1990s and early 2000s.

The course features wide fairways with significant internal movement and greens that present varied approach angles and recovery options. Smyers typically emphasized ground game possibilities and multiple routes to the hole, characteristics that appear throughout the North Course. The sandy base allows for firm conditions, and the design incorporates waste areas and native grasses that frame playing corridors without creating overly penal conditions.

Highlands Ridge operates as a semi-private facility, serving both members and daily-fee players in the Avon Park area. The club's location in the central ridge country places it among citrus groves and cattle ranches, away from Florida's more developed coastal corridors. The North Course shares the property with a companion South Course, also designed by Smyers and Harman, giving the facility thirty-six holes of golf that reflect the design team's approach to working with the region's distinctive topography.