GOLF
Nicklaus tees off from the first hole during his trip to Santa Lucia
River Club on March 30.
to compete with the likes of Tiger Woods and Ernie Els
who are capable of hitting the ball up to 350 yards and
averaging 305 yards every time they tee the ball.”
Just moving the starting tee box back is a common
method of lengthening a course, Allabastro said.
But Nicklaus, with multiple awards for golf course
design, chose a more complex way to improve the
course at Santa Lucia River Club at Ballantrae – one
which makes sure skill counts and gives the average
golfer a better chance to play a good game.
“Instead of just pushing the first tee box back, he
made changes to the greens so you have to think about
how you’re going to play and strategize your game,”
Allabastro said.
Frequent golfer Sam Portolese said the redesigned
course gives him plenty to think about.
“The greens are very challenging,” he said. “There’s a
lot of undulation on them. The fairways are more playerfriendly
22
now. But it’s an exciting course, the kind you
are proud to bring your guests to.”
Applegate said 50 percent of the bunkers were
removed from the fairways.
Bob Duchay, who lives near the 13th green, said it’s
harder to hit out of bunkers because they are deeper
with lighter sand.
Mitch Kaleel, who said he’s been playing for 50 years,
finds the 13th, 15th and 16th holes on the redesigned
course the most difficult.
“They are always going to be tough holes for me,”
he said.
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JACK NICKLAUS Q&A
Golf legend Jack Nicklaus was the center of attention at a
press conference before the ceremonial grand opening of his
redesigned signature golf course at Santa Lucia River Club at
Ballantrae in Port St. Lucie. The course is now owned by
Penn-Florida Club Properties. Completed in November, the
redesign cost $3 million. Fielding questions from a room full
of reporters, here’s what he had to say about his handiwork.
Q. How does the course look?
JN: The course is coming along fine. We did some re-bunkering—
we haven’t finished all of it. Basically refreshed the golf
course is what we did. It’s got to go through a growing
season, which it hasn’t done yet.
Q. You’re involved in so many projects now. How do you
keep things fresh? How do you keep things new here?
JN: What we’re trying to do here is trying to see what he (Jim
Applegate, executive vice president of Penn-Florida Club
Properties) would like to see here in relationship to the membership
and the golf course and the things that I felt would
improve the golf course. Obviously, you go through a budget
and say what can the budget handle for this and that and you
come up with a collective group of thoughts and you proceed
with it.
Q. How many courses have you been able to come back and
freshen up like this?
JN: Well, unfortunately, a lot of them. We’ve been doing golf
courses now for 40 years. There’s a lot of golf courses I’ve
done that want to be modernized and refreshed. Grass usually
lasts about 15 years and then people want to redo it and they
say why don’t we come back and modernize the golf course
to do that so, we’re doing a lot of that.
I always used to laugh when I saw that Trent Jones used to
come back and redo all his old golf courses. I said that was a
heck of a living to come back and redo your own work. I see
I am coming back here and doing the same thing myself. But I
didn’t understand why in those days but you do a golf course
and golf courses get old and they get tired and you just need
to come back and have to have work done on them.
Q. How many have you done total?
JN: Company’s done 313, I suppose I’ve done about 265
myself and you know we’ve, we’re working right now and,
previously we’ve done work in about 36 countries, I think it
is, and 29, we’re doing about 26 or 29 new countries right
now so we’re working all over the world, working on
golf courses.