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When frost closes up Canadian courses, many golfers start daydreaming about Florida's world-famous resorts.

Scattered throughout a golf-obsessed state, where the game is a $5-billion-a-year industry, the best of these resorts offer every service imaginable for golfers, from customized massages to daily swing sessions with top instructors - and, of course, the opportunity to test their skills on courses that host PGA or LPGA Tour events.

"Golf resorts are like Disney World for everyone who loves the game," says Michael Kearney, managing director of Golf Away Tours, a Markham, Ont., firm specializing in golf travel. "Most also offer tennis, spas and activities for the kids, but they're really designed for golfers who want to immerse themselves in their favourite sport."

From the white-sand beaches of the northeast coast to the posh suburbs of Miami, this is a state where the game, like Arnold Palmer, is king - and the golf season never ends.

INNISBROOK RESORT AND GOLF CLUB

U.S. Ryder Cup captain Paul Azinger has called Copperhead - the showpiece of the four courses at Innisbrook Resort and Golf Club - the best on the PGA Tour. Sprawling across 364 wooded hectares near Tampa, Innisbrook has, like many of its Florida competitors, started a major renovation.

Already fully reworked is the Island Course, which takes second place to Copperhead but is nonetheless beautiful and challenging. Improvements are also being made to all three clubhouses, the resort's 620 rooms and suites, as well as the aesthetically pleasing and less demanding Highlands North and South courses.

Lawrence Packard, the architect often credited with - or blamed for - popularizing the par-five double dogleg, designed all four of Innisbrook's courses.

But Copperhead is undeniably his masterpiece. The home of the PGA Tour's Transitions Championship climbs and dips through rolling terrain, one unforgettable hole after another carved through a uniquely Floridian landscape of tall pines, cypress swamps and citrus groves.

SAWGRASS GOLF RESORT AND SPA

No golf hole has ever enjoyed a firmer grip on the public's imagination than the 17th at Sawgrass. Even elite players quake at the sight of the TPC Sawgrass Stadium Course's seemingly easy yet terrifying par-three island green. Last May, Sergio Garcia captured the Players Championship at the 17th when his jittery playoff opponent Paul Goydos launched his ball to a watery grave.

Located in Ponte Vedra Beach on the Atlantic coast, between Jacksonville and St. Augustine, Sawgrass has long been among the world's premier golf resorts. The recently remodelled Marriott-managed property includes 508 guest rooms, suites and villas, an extravagant new spa, four pools and access to kilometres of Atlantic beachfront.

The Stadium Course itself has had a $10-million make over supervised by its original architect, the brilliant Pete Dye. Unrelentingly punitive, Dye's masterwork is booby-trapped with tiny landing areas, huge waste bunkers, grassy mounds and knolls, and lightning-fast greens.

No mid-to-high handicapper can take that kind of punishment for long. So, fortunately, Sawgrass also offers the Valley Course, which is slightly more forgiving, and offers guests access to six other private clubs nearby.

WORLD GOLF VILLAGE

President Dwight D. Eisenhower's golf shoes. Sam Snead's lunchbox. Canadian legend Marlene Stewart Streit's first hole-in-one trophy. These are among the thousands of artifacts displayed at the World Golf Hall of Fame, the centrepiece of World Golf Village, a combination resort and golf theme park located between Jacksonville and St. Augustine.

Many visitors stay on site at the recently refurbished 300-room Renaissance Resort, then set out to explore the village's shops, restaurants and the World Golf Hall of Fame, an entertaining mix of conventional museum-style exhibits and cutting-edge video presentations.

A new exhibit opened this week - Bob Hope: Shanks for the Memory, a collection of Hope memorabilia that includes a look at the various ways the entertainer championed the game.

Almost in the shadow of the hall is the PGA Tour Golf Academy, the only teaching facility that carries the PGA Tour name. Also nearby is the PGA Tour Spa Laterra, which offers golf-enhancement treatments similar to those used by tour players.

Inspired and rejuvenated, golfers are ready to tackle the resort's two championship courses: the 6,939-yard Slammer and Squire, designed by Bobby Weed, with input from Sam Snead (the Slammer) and Gene Sarazen (the Squire); and the 7,279-yard King and Bear, the only design collaboration between friendly rivals Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus.

BAY HILL CLUB AND LODGE

In sharp contrast to the golf factories at many Florida resorts, Arnold Palmer's Bay Hill Club and Lodge in Orlando feels more like an upscale bed and breakfast.

Each of the 70 newly refurbished guest rooms is decorated with photographs and memorabilia celebrating Palmer's career. The great man himself is in residence at this intimate hideaway from October through March, making the trek almost daily from his condo down the street to his clubhouse office.

Palmer bought Bay Hill in 1976 and, together with design partner Ed Seay, remodelled it into a widely acclaimed course that annually hosts the PGA Tour's Arnold Palmer Invitational Tournament.

Like the King in his prime, the 7,400-yard tournament behemoth exudes strength and flair, demanding strategic shot-making while penalizing golfers who gamble rashly. And, like all great courses, this one ends with a wallop on the 18th, where the pinpoint approach shot over a pond (known as the "Devil's Bathtub") to a narrow green is nerve-rattling. Bay Hill also offers a third nine, the Charger Course, a far friendlier outing.

DORAL GOLF RESORT AND SPA

Famously dubbed the Blue Monster after the whitecaps on the lake at the 18th hole, Doral Golf Resort and Spa's signature course has become a pilgrimage site for golfers determined to try their luck where so many have failed.

Constantly raked by wind, the 7,266-yard West Miami home of the PGA Tour's WGC-CA Championship was designed by architect Dick Wilson to test not just every shot in a golfer's arsenal but to break hearts.

Jack Nicklaus twice fell out of contention with final-round bogeys on the Blue Monster's diabolical finishing hole, where the narrowest part of the fairway is only 25 yards wide and the left side of the green is bordered by water. Greg Norman once cranked a 6-iron so far left on the 18th that he nearly hit the floating scoreboard in the middle of the lake.

Norman returned to Doral to design the Great White Course, the most acclaimed of the four supporting courses at the popular 693-room Marriott resort, which is in the midst of a $100-million refurbishment. Also on the beautifully landscaped grounds are a posh spa, the acclaimed Jim McLean Golf School and the giant Blue Monster waterslide.

FAIRMONT TURNBERRY ISLE RESORT

Though Fairmont Turnberry Isle has a devoted following, a recent $150-million remodel- ling of the 392-room Mediterranean-style property - inclu- ding a gut job on its two worn-out courses - has rejuvenated the North Miami Beach landmark.

World Golf Hall of Fame member Raymond Floyd directed a $30-million makeover of the courses, adding elevation changes, contours, doglegs, tropical foliage and water features. Floyd's handiwork received international attention last April when Turnberry hosted the Stanford International Pro-Am, an LPGA Tour event won by Annika Sorenstam.

The longer of the two new layouts, the Soffer Course, stretches 7,047 yards and features a spectacular 64-foot waterfall at the island-green 18th hole. The 6,417-yard Miller Course, meanwhile, plays around Lake Julius, an Audubon sanctioned bird refuge that is home to a flock of flamingos.

Turnberry also offers a Willow Stream Spa, where one of the featured treatments is a 60-minute David Leadbetter-endorsed golf performance massage ($159) that includes stretching and acupressure.

Pack your clubs

INNISBROOK RESORT AND GOLF CLUB 1-800-456-2000; http://www.innisbrookgolfresort.com. Room rates from $179 (golf packages available). Green fees $150 to $230.

WORLD GOLF VILLAGE

1-800-WGV-GOLF; http://www.wgv.com. Admission to World Golf Hall of Fame: $19.50. Room rates from $139 (packages available). Green fees $129 to $159.

BAY HILL CLUB AND LODGE

1-888-422-9445; www.bayhill.com. Room rates from $495 (packages available). Green fees included in golf packages.

SAWGRASS GOLF RESORT AND SPA 1-800-457-4653; http://www.sawgrassmarriott.com. Room rates from $149 (packages available). Green fees from $195.

DORAL GOLF RESORT AND SPA 1-800-713-6725; http://www.doralresort.com. Room rates from $219 a night (packages available). Green fees $125 to $290.

FAIRMONT TURNBERRY ISLE RESORT 1-800-441-1414; www.fairmont.com/turnberryisle. Room rates from $279 (packages available). Green fees $199 to $279.