Old Shores: Tom Doak Breaks Ground on the Panhandle Course That Could Rewrite Florida Golf

Picture Florida golf and you probably see something flat and palm-lined, water lurking on every hole, a fountain burbling in the distance while the group ahead hunts for a fourth ball in the lake. Old Shores wants a word.

Michael Keiser Jr. has officially broken ground on Old Shores, a new resort and residential community in the Florida Panhandle built around a golf course from Tom Doak. It is the fourth course Keiser has handed to Doak, and the early word out of the property suggests it will look nothing like the Florida golf most of us grew up cursing. Preview play on select holes is targeted for the fourth quarter of 2026, with a full grand opening planned for the fall of 2027.

Where It Is

Old Shores sits about 35 miles north of Panama City and roughly 35 minutes from Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport (ECP), tucked just inland from the Gulf's sugar-white sand and the 30A corridor. The name comes from old maps that show the Gulf once reaching this far inland, and the whole property rests on sand, which is the soil every great modern course seems to be built on for a reason. Sand drains, sand stays firm, and firm turf is where the fun lives.

What Doak Found

This is the part that should make you sit up. Doak says the site is not what anyone expects from Florida, with around 40 feet of elevation change across the first course and even more on the ground earmarked for the second. Then there are the sinkholes, which he calls unlike anything he has seen on a golf course, with abrupt banks dropping 30 to 50 feet. The biggest of them, Long Lake, runs something like 50 acres. Add longleaf pines, open savannas, and clear spring-fed rivers, and you have a Florida routing that trades fountains for genuine landforms.

Doak's plan winds along features with names like Kersey Branch, Sunset Meadow, and Long Lake, starting near the heart of the planned village before looping back so the first and 11th greens and the second and 12th tees all sit within a short walk of one another. Running the build on the ground is Angela Moser, a longtime Doak associate who was lead associate on Pinehurst No. 10. If you played No. 10 and loved its width and its weirdness, that is a very good sign for what is coming here.

What Is Coming

The Doak eighteen is only the opening act. The current plan calls for a par-3 loop, a short "precision" course, a second 18-hole course already in design, plus a hotel, multiple dining venues, cottages, and an initial run of 21 estate homesites starting at $1.3 million, perched above Long Lake with views down the closing holes. The village is meant to be walkable in the spirit of the Scottish towns Keiser keeps falling in love with, which is developer-speak you can actually trust when the same family gave us Bandon and Sand Valley. Founding Memberships are open now, with preferred tee access, Founder-only events, and early homesite selection for the people who like to plant their flag first.

Old Shores joins a portfolio that is filling in fast. Rodeo Dunes in Colorado is already hosting Founder play ahead of a 2027 opening, and Wild Spring Dunes in East Texas recently opened an eight-hole preview loop, also a Doak design, ahead of a fall 2026 debut. Keiser is a co-owner of Sand Valley in Wisconsin as well. The man is busy.

Pairs Well With the Drive

Here is the trip-planning math. You are 35 minutes from 30A, which means after a morning loop you can be eating oysters in Seaside, walking off dinner through the white-walled streets of Alys Beach, or pointing a couple at the Gulf in Rosemary Beach while the rest of the group claims a porch and a bourbon. Buddies trip or couples getaway, this stretch of coast handles both without anyone faking enthusiasm.

It will be a couple of years before any of us tees it up out here. Based on the dirt Doak is moving, it is worth the wait.