The 55-year-old property in Tallahassee, Fla. that serves as the home course for FSU’s men’s and women’s golf teams has not had any major upgrades in more than 10 years. The Nicklaus family has many athletic and academic ties to the school. The only other Nicklaus Design course in northwest Florida is at Bay Point Golf & Tennis Club in Panama City.
After vetting and meeting with four renowned golf course architecture firms in January, including Nicklaus Design, the global golf course design firm founded by Jack Nicklaus, Florida State University (FSU) has selected Nicklaus to renovate its Don Veller Seminole Golf Course and Club, the Tallahassee (Fla.) Democrat reported.
While the planning process looks to identify conceptual improvement ideas, phasing options and funding, the Democrat reported, everyone is in agreement that the 18-hole, 7,147-yard university-owned course, which opened in 1962 as Seminole Golf Course, boasts vast opportunities with its natural terrain of rolling landscape, pine and oak trees and an elevation difference of 70 feet between its highest and lowest points.
The course was renamed in 2000, the Democrat reported, for Don Veller, a former FSU football and golf coach and professor in the school’s Department of Physical Education.
Nicklaus also has strong ties to FSU, the Democrate noted. His son Steve was a wide receiver for the Seminoles football team in 1981, and grandson Nick O’Leary was a four-year starter, from 2011-14, at tight end. Four other Nicklaus grandchildren also attended FSU.
Another son, Nicklaus Design President Jack Nicklaus II, will be the lead designer on the FSU renovation/redesign in collaboration with his father, the Democrat reported. His former wife, Barbara Gillespie, played softball at FSU in the mid-1980s.
“Our family has a great affection for Florida State, and a wonderful history there—academically and athletically,” Jack Nicklaus II said in an e-mail, the Democrat reported. “We hope that our work on the Don Veller Seminole Golf Course will only help to further showcase the golf program, the athletic department and the university, while also being a source of pride for the Tallahassee and Seminole community.”
Seminole Golf Course, located in southwest Tallahassee adjacent to Innovation Park, serves the university men’s and women’s golf teams and is open to the public as well as FSU students and faculty, the Democrat reported. The course also serves the school’s Professional Golf Management program.
The par-73 course is operated by Century Golf Partners and averaged 42,000 rounds in 2016, according to Regional Manager Corey Hamlin. The club has 800 members and averages 100 tournaments a year, Hamlin told the Democrat.
Renovation to the course is overdue and a component of a strategy by the university and Seminole Boosters, Inc. to improve athletic facilities and team-support areas over the upcoming years, the Democrat reported. FSU’s golf course last underwent a major renovation in 2001, when FSU spent $5.5 million to build a new clubhouse, pro shop and restaurant facility. In 2004, it spent $2.2 million to rebuild its tees and greens and install a new irrigation system.
The latest renovations to the course and two-story brick facility are expected to cost between $4 million to $6 million, the Democrat reported. The project’s start date is yet to be determined.
“The timing of it and how it all gets put together, we are still trying to work through that now,” said Karl Hicks, FSU’s Deputy Director of Athletics for External Operations.
“It is exciting,” Hicks added. “[Nicklaus Design] is going to put together a design and some recommendations, and we are going to have to get the financial end in order, which will be a process. The vision for that golf course is an exciting one.”
The goal behind the renovations is to provide an enjoyable and challenging experience for players of all levels and to help separate the course from other local and area courses, the Democrat reported. Leon County, where the university is located, and the neighboring counties of Wakulla, Gadsden and Franklin now feature over 10 courses ranging from public to semi-public to private, the Democrat noted.
While the FSU women’s team holds its annual three-day Florida State Match-Up on its home course, the FSU’s men’s team currently does not play any matches at the venue, the Democrat reported.
When Nicklaus redesigned the Scarlet Golf Course at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, where he played collegiate golf, the Democrat noted, bunkers were restored and the course was lengthened to 7,455 yards.
Nicklaus Design currently has 410 courses open for play in 39 states and 41 countries, the Democrat reported, but The Nicklaus Course at Bay Point Golf & Tennis Club in Panama City, Fla. is the first and only Nicklaus Design course in Northwest Florida.
Tell Us What You Think!
You must be logged in to post a comment.