Crane Creek Reserve Golf Course — Melbourne, Florida

Crane Creek Reserve Golf Course is a public golf course owned by the City of Melbourne and run by its Parks, Recreation and Golf department. 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, which makes it a short course by modern standards.

The name comes from the water that runs through it. Crane Creek crosses the Melbourne property as a channelized canal 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.

The Melbourne course dates to the 1920s. According to the Florida Historic Golf Trail, 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, said in 2015 that the course was originally called the Melbourne Municipal Golf Course.

The City of Melbourne publishes one set of daily fees for its courses, with tax included. As listed on the Golf page in October 2026, 18 holes with a cart cost $42 and 9 holes with a cart cost $26, while walking rates were $27 for 18 holes and $20 for 9. Late-day rates drop the price: after 2 p.m., 18 holes with a cart cost $35; after 3 p.m., 9 holes with a cart cost $21; and a 4 p.m. special allowed unlimited walking play for $18. A large bucket of 60 range balls cost $10 and a small bucket of 30 cost $7, and rental clubs cost $21 for 18 holes or $16 for 9.

Melbourne also sells two annual packages. The Premier Pass, priced at $3,900 in October 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 and advance booking, with add-on cart fees of $13 for 9 holes 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; junior golfers under 18 pay $25 and $40, and semi-private lessons for two players cost less per person. Lesson bookings at Crane Creek Reserve go through the pro shop number.

Crane Creek Reserve runs on two seasonal schedules set by the City of Melbourne. 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 produced a large share of the Melbourne fossils now held in museum collections. The Florida Museum of Natural History 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.

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 and reported them to the United States National Museum. 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 now stands at Amherst College, which chose the mammoth as its mascot in 2017, according to the trail page.

Crane Creek Reserve is a partner course on the Florida Historic Golf Trail, a Florida Department of State program of 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. The 2015 release summed up the course's history in three names: the mastodons of Crane Creek, Donald Ross and President Harding.

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