In the summer, you have enough sunlight after that meal for nine holes at the Innisbrook Resort, home of the Tampa Bay Championship. “The best golf course the PGA Tour plays in Florida,” Ernie Els says of the Copperhead layout.

This is where the look and feel of the Gulf Coast start to change, and you know you’re no longer in Sarasota when you see the Spongeorama in Tarpon Springs, near Innisbrook. For years Tarpon Springs’ main industry was fishing sponges from the Gulf, and Spongeorama pays homage to this timeless pursuit with a gift shop, exhibits and a film that explains why the wool sponge is the “Cadillac of Sponges.”

Heading north from Innisbrook, you’ll realize why you never hear much about the mid-central coast. The area makes Titusville look like Manhattan. It’s mostly marsh, rocky beaches and abandoned fishing trawlers blown ashore by the last hurricane.

You also won’t find golf resorts, but in an area where Florida starts to roll with elevation changes, you can stumble onto one of the state’s most distinctive courses. The clubhouse at World Woods, about 10 miles north of Brooksville, wouldn’t qualify as a cart barn at Sawgrass, but golfers come from all over to play Tom Fazio’s Pine Barrens layout.

From there the coast meets Florida’s last golf frontier. Panhandle residents don’t like it when their area is referred to as the “Redneck Riviera.” But the sugar-white beaches are as good as any in the Mediterranean. Who could blame all those folks from Alabama and Mississippi for coming down and enjoying them?

There’s plenty of golf, although the ultimate destination is the Sandestin Golf and Beach Resort, 72 holes between the Gulf and Choctawhatchee Bay. To which your buddies back home would say “Choctaw-what-chee?” The area doesn’t carry the cachet of Key Biscayne or Boca Raton, so if your goal is to impress, choose the east coast.

But if you want to taste as much of Florida as possible, choose the, umm... Pardon the copout, but it really is a matter of taste. If you’re into bag tags and celebrity spotting, go east. If you’re into hidden gems, superior beaches and glorious sunsets, go west. You won’t end up like Ponce de Leon. On his first trip to Florida, he came ashore on the east coast. His second voyage, which began on the west coast, was ended quickly by a poisoned arrow.

Ponce never found the Fountain of Youth, but he explored a peninsula that would become a fountain of golf. You’ll discover plenty of riches whichever coast you take. And if you’re really lucky, you might even spot the Skunk Ape.