Jacksonville FL Golf Weekend

T&L Golf 11/04

Golf Magazine 3/09

Play Away: Action Jacksonville
From T&L Golf November 2004
by Bob Cullen

Unless you're a member at Augusta National, or know someone who is, you have only one chance to try your hand at a short, tricky par three that Tiger, Phil and Ernie play every spring. You can go to Florida's northeast coast and book a tee time at the TPC at Sawgrass Stadium course, site of the Players Championship. Make your way to number seventeen, and match yourself against the best.

Pete Dye's island green is just one of the attractions in the area that spans Jacksonville and St. Augustine. The region has blossomed with courses since the PGA Tour moved its headquarters to Ponte Vedra Beach in 1979, and it's even waiting to welcome visitors to Jacksonville's first Super Bowl this winter. "It's unbelievable how Jacksonville golf has grown," says Billy Maxwell, a Tour pro from the 1950s and '60s. Maxwell took his winnings from seven tournament victories and in 1971 invested them in an old Donald Ross course in Jacksonville called Hyde Park. He still runs the register there on Sunday mornings, collecting the thirty-six-dollar greens fee. "When I moved here there wasn't a course worth a damn. Now we must have thirty courses, and every one is perfect."

Well, maybe not perfect. But there are a lot of very good ones. Vijay Singh, Jim Furyk, Fred Funk and a host of other pros live in the area. They must know something, right?

ORIENTATION
The coast from Jacksonville to St. Augustine is a lot closer to south Georgia than it is to South Beach, both in latitude and in attitude. You'll see far more F-150s on the roads than you will C320s. If you forget to pack your new Armani threads, don't fret about finding a place to eat. In northeast Florida, you won't be turned away by a sneering doorman. There are no sneering doormen. There are no doormen.

To get to the golf, fly to Jacksonville International Airport and rent a car, preferably one with unlimited mileage. The better courses are strung out along some seventy-five miles of the I-95 corridor. It's a godforsaken stretch of road, but at least it gets you to the next course fast.

PLAYING
The seventeenth at TPC Sawgrass isn't the only island green in northeast Florida, nor even the first. A visitor would do well to start with the home of the original, the Ocean Course at the Ponte Vedra Inn & Club. It's private, so to get on you'll need to stay at the inn or be the guest of a member, but it's worth it. Designed by Herbert Strong in 1928, redone by Robert Trent Jones Sr. in 1947 and lovingly renovated by Bobby Weed in 1998, today's Ocean course is vaguely reminiscent of Seminole in that it's laid out parallel to the Atlantic on a tract featuring a sand ridge. That gives it elevation changes. The course also has more playing space than many modern layouts, which probably reflects the (low) land prices and (lack of) environmental regulations in the 1920s. The island green is the ninth, a short-iron par three that has a lot more margin for error than Sawgrass's seventeenth.

Up the coast at Amelia Island there are three courses, and the best of them is Long Point, designed by Tom Fazio in 1987. It's a stern test, particularly if the wind blows, because nearly every hole is hemmed in by woods, marsh or both. The greens are heavily contoured and firm, and the penalty for missing them can be steep. Downwind, even a short-iron shot can hit the green, bounce over it and be lost forever.

The best set of oceanside holes in the region belongs to a new course south of St. Augustine called Ocean Hammock Golf Club. It's a Jack Nicklaus design, but in contrast to other seaside courses he's done, where he got just a few pinched acres of beachfront property to work with, at Ocean Hammock Nicklaus had space for two long par fours parallel to the beach and a couple of good par threes that play out to the water. The rest of the course is solid.

'07 T&L Golf Deal: Ginn Hammock Beach Resort, Palm Coast
The Deal
Stay & Play: choice of accommodations; one round at either Jack Nicklaus's Ocean course (formerly named Ocean Hammock) or Tom Watson's expansive, bunker-laden Conservatory course

The Golf
The Ocean course's four closing holes, known as the Bear Claw, are as challenging as their views are beguiling. Watson's new Conservatory course, which lies inland from the Atlantic, may be one of the toughest in the state.

Price*
From $189 per golfer, through December 31
Contact
www.oceanhammock.com, 888-246-5500

To get a glimpse of Jacksonville golf as it once was, try Hyde Park Golf Club, which Donald Ross designed in 1925. The course, owned by Maxwell and fellow former PGA Tour player Chris Blocker, was the site of the old Jacksonville Open. According to Maxwell, Ben Hogan made an eleven on the sixth hole, a 151-yard par three, in the 1947 tournament. Hogan's expression, legend has it, never changed.

The World Golf Village, outside St. Augustine, has two courses: The Slammer & Squire was designed by Bobby Weed in consultation (brief though it was) with Sam Snead and Gene Sarazen before they died. The King & Bear is a 2001 collaboration between Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer. A look at the swampy pastureland that surrounds the site suggests the limitations of the land both courses are built on. The King & Bear is the better of the two, making good use of several lakes that were likely built for drainage. It's still a bit raw but should mature nicely.

The TPC at Sawgrass Stadium course is, deservedly, the centerpiece of northeast Florida golf. When it opened in 1980, it was greeted by many players the way James Joyce's Ulysses was greeted by censors in 1922. But time and some tweaking have proven its merit. The course never lets up; almost every shot requires thought and precision, and the sixteenth hole, a short(ish) par five, is the best example. The green is perched on a small peninsula jutting into a lake. But even if a player opts not to challenge the green with his second shot, he has to contend with the water. A strategically placed tree forces the layup second to flirt with trouble or there's no clear shot to the green.

The sixteenth is a fitting prologue to number seventeen, which ought to be an easy hole. The day I was here, it was playing only 120 yards from the whites, but as at the twelfth at Augusta, it's the wind that makes this hole difficult. It's set at a low point on the course, ringed by trees and spectator mounds that make it hard to gauge the breeze at treetop level. I figured there was a one-club wind over my shoulder. The pin was back right, for a total distance of some 125 yards—normally for me a stock nine-iron. I hesitated, then decided to go with my 110-yard club, a pitching wedge. I pushed from my mind the lurking fear of seeing the ball splash short of the green. I pured the shot. It rose like a dream and headed for the middle of the green. I had about two seconds to enjoy the sight. Then the ball lit about a foot from the back edge, maybe 130 yards from the tee, took a big bounce and disappeared.

It's a cruel hole. Tiger, Phil and Ernie deserve what they earn for playing it.

STAYING
Northeast Florida has three first-class resorts and one fascinating dowager of a hotel. All four of the resorts boast fine dining choices, spas and pools, tennis, and beach access. The one to pick probably depends on the golf course you'd most like to play. Starting in the north, there's the Ritz-Carlton, Amelia Island, with no less than one-and-a-half miles of beach. Moving south, the plush Ponte Vedra Inn & Club is nestled in one of those quiet Florida oceanside enclaves where the right people live. Even better, guests get access to its Ocean course. A few miles away, the Sawgrass Marriott Resort & Spa is a 4,800-acre resort with all the facilities. It can smooth your way onto the Stadium course.

If you fancy a taste of lodging the way the Four Hundred, the aristocrats of the Gilded Age, experienced it en route to their Florida winter homes a hundred years ago, stay at the Casa Monica Hotel in St. Augustine. Once owned by Henry Flagler, who founded Palm Beach, it's a lavishly restored Moorish Revival "castle" replete with ceiling beams and gauzy drapes. The World Golf Village courses are about fifteen miles away.

WINING AND DINING
There are some predictable franchises at the World Golf Village in St. Augustine, including a branch of Sam Snead's Tavern that displays everything from the Slammer's Ryder Cup team badges to his collection of forty-two hole-in-one balls. The steaks are a wise choice. The Murray Bros. Caddyshack, to its credit, glorifies loopers in its collection of wall memorabilia. Think of a Hard Rock Café for fans of Fluff Cowan.

To eat where the locals go in St. Augustine, try Cap's on the Water, on the beach side of the Intracoastal Waterway. You can get there by car or boat. Order fried shrimp and vanilla grouper. Sit on the deck under a tree dripping Spanish moss. Sip a margarita. Watch the fishing boats head home as the sun sets over the water. This is living.

Close to downtown Jacksonville, there's the cozy Bistro Aix, offering rustic French cuisine such as mussels with pommes frites. For a casual meal after a round at Amelia Island, try the Down Under Marina Restaurant in Fernandina Beach. It's a waterside seafood shack under the bridge that carries Highway A1A over the Intracoastal. You can't get much more Florida than that.

OTHER ATTRACTIONS
You'll want to see the World Golf Hall of Fame, but be advised it's a work in progress. They still haven't figured out how to memorialize the honorees. Originally the greats were commemorated on crystals that looked like glass sunflowers. For a few years, they tried portraits in inlaid woods; the effect made Gentle Ben Crenshaw look like the Phantom of the Opera. Recently they announced plans to redo the memorials as bronze-relief plaques. We'll see.

For those who like to mix golfing with angling, the Jacksonville area has some of the best fishing, both saltwater and freshwater, in the country. Book an all-day or half-day trip with Captain Kevin Faver, of Double K Charters, who'll show you where to catch redfish all year and tarpon in summer. Faver spent three years as a PGA Tour caddie, and he's a good raconteur. Ask him about his adventures at the 1987 Players Championship.

St. Augustine is also among Florida's leaders in roadside attractions. In addition to the standard alligator farms and the surprisingly interesting Victorian collectibles to be found in the town's Lightner Museum, there's the site where Ponce de Leon, according to legend, thought he'd discovered the Fountain of Youth. Six bucks gets admission and a drink. Alas, it's tap water. And when you get to your next golf course, you're still not going to hit your drives as long as you did when you were twenty-one.

TRIP PLANNER: JACKSONVILLE
PLAYING
TOURNAMENT PLAYERS CLUB AT SAWGRASS (Stadium), 904-273-3235. YARDAGE/SLOPE: 6,954/149. GREENS FEES: $150-$290. ARCHITECT: Pete Dye, 1980. T+L GOLF Rating: *****

PONTE VEDRA INN & CLUB (Ocean), 800-234-7842. YARDAGE/SLOPE: 6,811/138. GREENS FEE: $185. ARCHITECTS: Herbert Strong, 1928; RTJ Sr., 1947; Bobby Weed, 1998. T+L GOLF Rating: ****1/2

AMELIA ISLAND PLANTATION (Long Point), 800-874-6878. YARDAGE/SLOPE: 6,706/132. GREENS FEES: $140-$160. ARCHITECT: Tom Fazio, 1987. T+L GOLF Rating: ****

OCEAN HAMMOCK GOLF CLUB, 800-654-6538. YARDAGE/SLOPE: 7,201/147. GREENS FEES: $185-$215. ARCHITECT: Jack Nicklaus, 2000. T+L GOLF Rating: ****
WORLD GOLF VILLAGE (King & Bear), 904-940-6088. YARDAGE/SLOPE: 7,279/141. GREENS FEES: $69-$200. ARCHITECTS: Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer, 2001. T+L GOLF Rating: ****

HYDE PARK GOLF CLUB, 904-786-5410. YARDAGE/SLOPE: 6,468/125. GREENS FEES: $26-$36. ARCHITECT: Donald Ross, 1925. T+L GOLF Rating: ***

STAYING
RITZ-CARLTON, AMELIA ISLAND, Amelia Island; 904-277-1100. ROOMS: $159-$339. SUITES: $289-$539.

PONTE VEDRA INN & CLUB, Ponte Vedra; 800-234-7842. ROOMS: $170-$430. SUITES: $330-$630.

SAWGRASS MARRIOTT RESORT & SPA, Ponte Vedra Beach; 904-285-7777. ROOMS: $149-$299. SUITES: $300-$1,500.

CASA MONICA HOTEL, St. Augustine; 904-827-1888. ROOMS: $169-$289. SUITES: $369-$899.

DINING
BISTRO AIX (French), Jacksonville; 904-398-1949. $$$$
CAP'S ON THE WATER (Seafood), St. Augustine; 904-824-8794. $$
DOWN UNDER MARINA RESTAURANT (Seafood), Fernandina Beach; 904-261- 1001. $$ MURRAY BROS. CADDYSHACK (American), St. Augustine; 904-940-3673. $$$
SAM SNEAD'S TAVERN (American), St. Augustine; 904-940-0161. $$$

OTHER ATTRACTIONS
DOUBLE K CHARTERS, 904-829-0027.
LIGHTNER MUSEUM, St. Augustine; 904-824-2874. 9-5 daily.
WORLD GOLF HALL OF FAME, St. Augustine; 800-948-4653. Mon.-Sat. 10-6, Sun. 12-6.

Per Golf Magazine's Travellin' Joe, 3/09:

Hands down the best value in Jacksonville is Windsor Parke Golf Club (904-223-4653, www.windsorparke.com). This 1991 Arthur Hills design boasts an array of strategically placed trees, lakes and bunkers and while there may be one too many houses to please purists, the price is right: $55 weekdays for non-residents through May and $70 weekends. Another solid choice, especially if you crave a stern challenge, is The Golf Club at North Hampton (904-548-0000, www.hamptongolfclubs.com; $75-$85), a 7,171-yard, par-72 Arnold Palmer design situated in Fernandina Beach, a half-hour north of Jacksonville.