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What Golf Actually Costs Near Portland, Maine: 2026 Green Fees, Verified

Published July 31, 2026 · 11 min read

Try this. Search for the green fee at Riverside, the City of Portland's municipal course. In one afternoon you will be told the rate is $25, that it runs $25 to $45, and that nine holes on the South course cost an estimated $56. Those three numbers cannot all be true, and one of them says nine holes costs more than eighteen.

The problem is not that golf pricing near Portland is complicated. It is that almost nobody publishes it, and the sites that fill the gap are guessing. So we went to each course's own rate card and wrote down what is actually posted there, today, for the 2026 season. Where a course publishes nothing, we say that instead of inventing a range.

The short version

Three of the seven public courses inside the 25-minute radius publish a full 2026 rate card you can read without calling anyone: Val Halla in Cumberland, Willowdale in Scarborough, and Toddy Brook in North Yarmouth. Four do not.

For a walking round of 18 on a weekday, the posted rates at those three run $52 to $56. With a cart on a weekend, $84 to $89. The cheapest posted 18 holes anywhere in the group is Toddy Brook's twilight rate, $35 walking after 4 p.m., which is one dollar more than nine holes at Val Halla on a Monday.

The rate cards, as published

A note on how to read that table. Val Halla and Willowdale quote a single with-cart price. Toddy Brook quotes walking rates and adds the cart separately, so its $89 is $65 plus a $24 cart, and it is the most expensive weekend riding round of the three by three dollars. Willowdale is the cheapest weekday riding round at $76.

Val Halla, Cumberland. The town-owned course posts the most complete card of the group. Monday through Thursday: $34 to walk nine, $51 to ride nine, $56 to walk 18, $80 to ride 18. Friday through Sunday: $38, $55, $60 and $84. Seniors 65 and over, military personnel, and Town of Cumberland residents take 10 percent off greens fees.

Willowdale, Scarborough. Willowdale splits its week by clock rather than by day. Monday through Thursday all day, and weekends after noon, 18 holes is $52 walking or $76 riding, and nine is $40 or $58. Friday through Sunday and holidays before noon, 18 is $62 or $86 and nine is $50 or $68. Twilight after 3 p.m. is $39 walking, $57 riding.

Toddy Brook, North Yarmouth. Toddy Brook publishes two seasons. Its summer card is $55 to walk 18 Monday through Thursday and $65 Friday through Sunday and holidays, with nine at $40 and $45. Carts are $24 for 18 and $16 for nine, or $22 and $14 for members, and a single-rider cart is $37 for 18. Juniors 17 and under play 18 for $40 and nine for $25, after noon on weekdays and after 2 p.m. on weekends. Twilight after 4 p.m. is $35 for up to 18 holes, the best posted number in this whole guide.

Riverside, Portland. The city's course publishes its 2026 membership fees in detail and does not publish a 2026 green fee anywhere on its site. The course information page carries scorecards and history and no prices. Call the pro shop at 207-797-3524.

Nonesuch River, Scarborough. Nonesuch has moved to dynamic pricing, so there is no green fee to publish: the rate changes by day and time of day based on demand, and the rates page sends you to the live tee sheet. Two things worth knowing. The page is still headed "2025 Greens Fees" and was last updated in March 2025, so the cart fees printed on it (public $25 for 18, $17 for nine, $20 twilight) carry a 2025 label. And the rate you are quoted on the phone is the same rate the tee sheet shows, which the club states outright.

Gorham Country Club. No green fee is published on the site, and there is no rates page in the navigation. The membership page does list prices, but it is frozen: the payment deadlines read "Due 1/29/21," the fallback line reads "Rate After 1/29/21," and the printable application is a file named 2021-Membership-Application. Treat every number on it as five seasons old and call 207-839-3490.

South Portland Municipal. The city's facility page publishes the specs for the nine-hole course at 155 Wescott Road (par 33, 2,071 yards, rating 59.0, slope 92) and loads its detail content in a way we could not read as posted rates. We are not going to guess at a number for a course this cheap and this easy to call.

The punch-card math nobody publishes

Two courses sell 10-play punch cards, and neither one shows you the per-round number. Here it is.

Val Halla's 10-play 18-hole pass is $520, which is $52 a round against a $56 weekday walk-up and a $60 weekend walk-up. That is 7 percent off midweek and 13 percent off on a Saturday. Cumberland residents take another 10 percent off the card itself, landing at $468, or $46.80 a round, which still beats their 10-percent-discounted weekday walk-up of $50.40 by $3.60. The nine-hole card is $320, or $32 a round against $34 and $38.

Toddy Brook's cards cut deeper. The Monday-to-Thursday 18-hole walking card is $450, or $45 a round against a $55 summer weekday rate, an 18 percent discount. The anytime card is $540, or $54 against a $65 weekend rate, 17 percent. The 18-hole cart punch card is $216, or $21.60 against $24.

The useful conclusion is that none of these is a break-even proposition. They discount every round from the first one, so there is no round count you have to reach to come out ahead. The only real risk is not using all ten. Toddy Brook's cards expire at the end of the 2026 season, and with the season typically running into November, buying a 10-play card on the last day of July gives you roughly three months and change to use it. Our guide to when golf season actually starts and ends near Portland has the closing windows.

If you want a season pass, the decision is in November, not April

This is the single most useful thing we found, and it is invisible unless you check all seven courses in the same week.

Riverside is closed for 2026. The City of Portland's course is not accepting new memberships this season. There is a waitlist, it costs $100 to join, and the deposit comes off your membership cost if you take a spot or comes back as a $100 gift card if you pass, at which point you leave the list.

Nonesuch sells out and reopens in the fall. Season passes are sold through the online store, and the club's own instruction is blunt: if a pass is not listed online, that category is sold out for the season. The 2027 passes go on sale online on November 15, 2026, first come first served until each category fills. There is a priority email list open now, and the club says it contacts that list in early November.

Val Halla has a waitlist too, with the membership form published as a PDF rather than as a rate table on the page.

So if your plan is to buy a season pass and play a lot next year, the window is late autumn. By the time the snow is gone the decision has already been made for you.

Riverside does publish its 2026 membership fees, and they are worth reading for one reason: the residency spread. A single membership on the North course is $1,300 for a Portland resident and $1,585 for everyone else. Mid-week is $950 against $1,240. The Under 35 rate is $1,175 against $1,460. Across the adult categories the non-resident premium runs from roughly 19 to 31 percent, or $175 to $580 in dollars. The exceptions are instructive: junior additions are a flat $200 for residents and $225 for non-residents on every course combination, and the $7,700 corporate pass is the one category where living in Portland buys you nothing. There is also a $100 credit voucher for non-residents who own a business or pay property tax in Portland.

Why the numbers you find elsewhere are wrong

Three failure modes, all of which we hit while reporting this.

Directories publish estimates and present them as prices. GolfLink lists an estimated $82 for 18 holes at Willowdale. Willowdale's own card has no $82 on it: the riding rate is $76 Monday through Thursday and $86 Friday through Sunday before noon, and the walking rate is $52. The estimate sits between two real numbers and matches neither.

Courses leave old cards up. Nonesuch's rates page still says 2025. Gorham's membership page still says 2021. Neither club is hiding anything; a rate page is just the easiest thing on a website to forget. But an aggregator that scrapes those pages will confidently republish a five-year-old number, and so will anything that learns from the aggregator.

The wrong Portland, and the wrong Riverside. Searching these terms surfaces green fees for Portland, Oregon, a Riverside course in Utah, another in Pennsylvania, and a set of English links courses at Southport. There are a lot of Riversides. If a page quoting you a Maine rate does not name a Maine town, it is probably not quoting a Maine rate.

The fix is unglamorous and works every time: open the course's own site, and if there is no rate card there, call. Our directory of every public course inside the radius has the specs and the phone-worthy details for all seven.

What about a private membership?

At some point the arithmetic starts pointing that way. Forty walking rounds a year at Val Halla's weekday rate is $2,240, and forty riding rounds on a weekend is $3,360. Those numbers are in the same neighborhood as a private club's annual dues, which is why people who play a lot eventually run the comparison.

They are not the same product, and it would be dishonest to pretend otherwise: private dues usually come with an initiation cost, a food and beverage minimum, and a course that is not absorbing 40,000 public rounds a season, which is most of why it plays better. We break the real line items down in what a country club membership actually costs in Maine, and the conditioning side of it in what it takes to keep a course in championship condition here.

Among the four private clubs inside the same radius, the one with the most checkable case is Falmouth Country Club: a Cornish and Silva design that opened in 1988, playing par 72 at 7,372 yards, and the only course in Maine to have hosted a Korn Ferry Tour event, the rung directly below the PGA Tour. It is also a non-equity club, meaning ownership funds capital projects to attract members rather than assessing existing members to pay for them. That is a structural difference worth understanding before you compare any two clubs, and we cover it in equity versus non-equity clubs. Falmouth publishes its own membership details here.

FAQ

How much does it cost to play 18 holes near Portland, Maine?

At the three public courses that publish 2026 rates, a walking round of 18 costs $52 at Willowdale, $55 at Toddy Brook and $56 at Val Halla on a weekday, rising to $62, $65 and $60 on a weekend. Adding a cart brings a weekend round to $84 at Val Halla, $86 at Willowdale and $89 at Toddy Brook.

What is the cheapest golf near Portland, Maine?

Toddy Brook's twilight rate is the cheapest posted 18 holes in Greater Portland at $35 walking after 4 p.m. Willowdale's twilight is $39 walking after 3 p.m. For nine holes, Val Halla is $34 walking Monday through Thursday.

Does Riverside Golf Course publish its green fees?

No. As of July 31, 2026, the City of Portland's course publishes detailed 2026 membership fees on its website but no green fee for daily play. The pro shop number is 207-797-3524. Third-party sites quote figures between $25 and $56 for Riverside, and those figures disagree with each other.

When can I buy a 2027 season pass at a Portland-area course?

Nonesuch River puts its 2027 season passes on sale online on November 15, 2026, first come first served until each category fills, and maintains a priority email list it contacts in early November. Riverside is not selling new 2026 memberships at all and runs a waitlist with a $100 deposit. Val Halla also runs a membership waitlist.

Are golf punch cards worth it in Maine?

Yes, if you will use them. Val Halla's 10-play 18-hole card works out to $52 a round against walk-up rates of $56 and $60. Toddy Brook's weekday card is $45 a round against a $55 rate, an 18 percent discount. Neither requires you to reach a break-even round count, because both discount from the first round, but Toddy Brook's cards expire at the end of the 2026 season.

Why do golf directories show different green fees for the same course?

Most directories publish estimates rather than posted rates, and they scrape course pages that are often years out of date. Nonesuch River's rate page is still headed 2025 and Gorham Country Club's membership page still carries 2021 payment deadlines. Searches for Maine courses also pull in results for Portland, Oregon and for similarly named courses in other states.

Do Portland residents pay less at Riverside?

Yes, on memberships. A single North course membership is $1,300 for a resident and $1,585 for a non-resident, and across adult categories the non-resident premium runs roughly 19 to 31 percent. Non-residents who own a business or pay property taxes in Portland can claim a $100 credit voucher. The $7,700 corporate pass costs the same either way.