Golf membership at World Golf Village, and what the club actually publishes.

World Golf Village golf is one membership with access to two championship courses: the King & Bear, which opened in 2000 as the only course co-designed by Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus and runs through the gated King & Bear neighborhood, and the Slammer & Squire, the Bobby Weed design named for Sam Snead and Gene Sarazen that opened in 1998 beside the former Hall of Fame. Both are public-access resort courses that also sell memberships, which is the structural difference from Ponte Vedra Beach’s private, member-owned clubs: a World Golf Village member shares the tee sheet with resort and daily-fee play, and in exchange pays a fraction of a private club’s entry.

By the club’s own membership page, members get both courses, priority tee times, complimentary range balls, unlimited use of both practice facilities, and a calendar of member tournaments, couples events, junior clinics and social nights. What the page does not carry is a price: membership categories, initiation and dues are provided by the membership office on request, and the public rate page lists daily play on the King & Bear at $79 to $249 per player including cart and range balls, priced dynamically inside a 30-day booking window. King & Bear homes for sale, live →

A King & Bear, Turnberry or Heritage Landing home carries a village HOA (King & Bear listings report about $650 a quarter, which covers the gate and the grounds, not the golf) and in some villages a CDD line on the tax bill. The golf membership is a third, separate contract with the club, and it does not transfer with the house unless the club says so in writing at the time. Builders and listings have at times advertised initiation promotions tied to a home purchase; treat any such offer as the club’s current promotion, dated, and confirm it with the membership office before it changes your offer price.

For a buyer who golfs, the honest comparison across the county is total monthly cost of the golf life: HOA plus any district plus club dues plus the course you will actually play. Against Ponte Vedra Beach’s clubs, where initiation alone can be a six-figure equity deposit, World Golf Village is the value side of that comparison; against a daily-fee golfer with no membership, the question is simply how many rounds a year make the dues pay. How Ponte Vedra Beach’s clubs work, for the comparison →

Competitor sites print initiation and dues for this club; the club itself does not. A number copied from a 2023 listing remark is worse than no number when you are modeling a purchase, because dues move with the season, the category and the promotion. What I do instead: I call the membership office for the current schedule in the week you are deciding, get it in writing, and put it in the monthly math next to the HOA, the tax line and the roof age. That is the number you can rely on.