Golf Communities in Bonita Springs: Bundled and Optional Clubs Compared

Bonita Springs packs a remarkable number of golf communities into a small city between Estero and Naples. What surprises many buyers is how differently those clubs work. Some golf communities in Bonita Springs include golf with every home, some make it optional, and two well-known names do not include it at all. This guide compares the gated golf neighborhoods in our Bonita Springs guides by membership structure, with costs from their own documents and tax bills, and the questions to ask before you buy.

How Golf Communities in Bonita Springs Are Structured

Ten Bonita Springs communities appear in our guides, and nine of them are built around golf or sit next to a golf club. They fall into three groups:

• Bundled: golf membership comes with every home, and every owner shares the cost.
• Mandatory social, optional golf: every owner joins the club at a social level, and golf is an upgrade.
• Optional or separate: the club sells memberships separately, or the community’s golf belongs to independent clubs.

The structure changes both your yearly cost and your access to tee times, so identify it before you compare prices. Two homes at the same price can carry very different carrying costs.

Bundled Golf Communities

These communities include golf with the home, according to the club, builder or community materials summarized in our guides:

• Bonita National. Lennar opened Bonita National Golf & Country Club in spring 2014 as a bundled-golf community, with a Gordon Lewis-designed 18-hole course and a 40,000-square-foot clubhouse. Lee County records date its homes to roughly 2015 through 2021. A sampled 2025 tax bill shows a Beach Road Golf Estates CDD assessment of $2,046.70.
• Highland Woods. A member-owned bundled community built from the mid-1990s around an 18-hole Gordon Lewis course. Every owner can play, and membership also covers tennis, pickleball, pools and fitness. Its sampled 2025 bill shows no CDD line.
• Worthington. Another member-owned bundled community, built from the early 1990s on about 328 acres around an 18-hole Ron Garl course. Golf privileges come with every home, and the sampled bill shows no CDD.
• Vasari. Built by WCI from around 2000 as a bundled-amenity community with an 18-hole course. Its guide notes that the level of golf access included depends on the current membership plan, so confirm it. A sampled bill shows a Vasari CDD assessment of $1,883.85.

In a bundled community, every owner is already a member, so there is no separate application to play. The trade-off is that a non-golfer pays for golf, and future course projects land on every owner.

Mandatory Social, Optional Golf

Two communities split the difference:

• Hunters Ridge Golf & Country Club. Every home includes at least a social membership, which covers the clubhouse, pool and spa, tennis, the activity center and limited golf privileges. A full golf membership is an optional upgrade. Its 18-hole Gordon Lewis course opened around 1988, and its neighborhoods include single-family homes, villas, coach homes and condominiums. The sampled bill shows no CDD.
• Palmira Golf & Country Club. Every homeowner is automatically a member of the Renaissance Center, the community’s bundled amenity club, with resort and lap pools, fitness, and tennis, pickleball and bocce. Golf on the 27-hole Gordon Lewis course is a separate, optional membership. The Ronto Group developed Palmira beginning around 2001, and the sampled bill shows no CDD.

This structure works for an owner who wants a club’s pool, tennis and social side without golf dues. Ask how many golf memberships the club offers and whether there is a waiting list, since an optional tier can fill up.

Optional Membership and Separate Clubs

Three communities leave golf fully separate from the home:

• Spanish Wells. The semi-private Spanish Wells Golf & Country Club has 27 holes, with nines by Gordon Lewis and Bruce Howard. Under the master documents, owners do not have to join; the community association owns the club and can charge user fees for access. The club’s own FAQ says buyers in the Cordova neighborhood must hold a membership under that sub-association’s rules. The master association’s 2026 budget works out, by our arithmetic from its budget and owner counts, to about $253 a month per owner, including a bulk cable and internet package and the staffed main gate but not neighborhood dues, and buyers pay a $4,800 resale capital contribution to the master association at closing.
• Bonita Bay. The Bonita Bay Group began this 2,400-acre community in the mid-1980s. Its five championship courses belong to the separate, member-owned Bonita Bay Club, and membership is not included when you buy. Community amenities include a private beach park, a marina and 12 miles of paths.
• Pelican Landing. Golf here runs through two separate, member-owned clubs, The Colony Golf & Country Club and The Nest Golf Club, with memberships bought independently of the house. The association’s own amenities, including a 34-acre private Gulf beach island reached by shuttle boat, a 12-court tennis center and an Estero Bay marina, come with the home. A sampled 2025 bill shows a Bayside Improvement CDD assessment of about $803.

For non-golfers, these communities avoid paying for a course they will not use. For golfers, they mean a separate application and a second set of dues, and, at a member-owned club, possibly an equity contribution.

Comparing Costs

Because the structures differ, compare the full yearly cost for the exact home, not the headline dues. Add up:

1. Master association and neighborhood association dues.
2. Club dues, and any food and beverage minimum.
3. Any CDD assessment on the tax bill. Among the sampled 2025 bills in our guides, Bonita National, Vasari and Pelican Landing carried CDD lines, while Highland Woods, Worthington, Hunters Ridge and Palmira did not.
4. One-time costs at closing, such as capital contributions, transfer fees or an equity buy-in.

Home prices vary as much as club structures. Lee County’s recorded qualified sales for the 12 months to late August 2026 put the median at about $1.62 million in Bonita Bay, $1.15 million in Pelican Landing, $989,000 in Bonita National and $837,500 in Spanish Wells, where most or all homes are single-family. Communities with many villas and condominiums show lower medians: about $645,000 in Palmira, $410,000 in Hunters Ridge, $406,000 in Highland Woods, $400,000 in Vasari and $380,000 in Worthington. Those medians mix home types and rest on 33 to 61 qualified sales each, so compare like with like.

You can see the non-ad valorem lines on any parcel’s bill through the Lee County Tax Collector. Sampled bills vary by lot and home type, so treat our figures as examples rather than quotes.

All ten communities in our Bonita Springs guides are inside the City of Bonita Springs, and most of the sampled bills include a small city stormwater charge of $20 to $50.

Questions to Ask Each Club

• Which membership does this specific home convey, and can it be upgraded or downgraded?
• What are this year’s dues, minimums and assessments, and are any capital projects planned?
• How are tee times booked, and how busy is the course in peak season?
• Are there outside members, and how many?
• For optional or separate clubs, is there a waiting list, an initiation fee or an equity contribution, and what happens to it when you leave?

Get the answers in writing from the club or association. Listing descriptions often simplify membership terms, and a neighbor’s summary of the club’s rules is no substitute for the current documents.

This is general information. Confirm membership terms and costs with each club and association, and have your attorney review the documents before closing.

Frequently Asked Questions

Rules and fees vary by community. Check your own governing documents and county sources before you rely on any article. Spot something out of date? Report a correction.