Hat Island Golf Course

Reaching Hat Island requires a ferry ride from Everett's waterfront — and that short trip across Possession Sound sets the tone for everything that follows. The island sits in the northern reaches of Puget Sound, surrounded by water on all sides, with the Olympic and Cascade ranges visible on a clear day. Wind off the Sound is a genuine factor here, shifting conditions hole to hole in ways no yardage book can fully prepare you for.

The course itself is a private, community layout serving the island's residents, which gives it a character you don't find at resort or daily-fee operations. It's a place where regulars know every quirk of the turf and every predictable gust, and visitors arrive as guests rather than customers. That intimacy shapes the atmosphere entirely.

The broader Everett area has a modest but earnest golf culture, and Hat Island occupies a singular niche within it — not because of prestige or pedigree, but because no other course in the region requires you to leave the mainland to play it.