Long Neck - Jack Nicklaus made his eighth visit in the last year to Delaware on Monday. That's the kind of hands-on attention $3.5 million can buy.
At 64, the greatest golfer of his generation pokes fun at his deteriorating skills on the course while busily expanding his reputation as the finest golf course designer in the country. Nicklaus estimated his company, Nicklaus Design, has 43 golf courses under construction around the world, while he is intimately involved in 25 of them.
Two of those courses are in Sussex County, both bearing the label of Nicklaus Signature courses, the certified stamp of attention that means Nicklaus will visit a site between six and 10 times during construction. Other Nicklaus courses, without the Signature, may have nothing to do with the winner of a record 18 golfing majors, designed instead by his sons or other partners.
Monday, Nicklaus was at The Peninsula on The Indian River Bay, a private, gated community with a waterfall at the entrance that is just off Route 5 in Long Neck. It is scheduled to open in the spring of 2006 and be open only to Peninsula residents.
Nicklaus also has made four visits to Bayside, a private resort community under construction on the water near Fenwick Island. Bayside will offer vacation packages and also be available for daily play to the public - with greens fees of $130 - for about four years, until the housing development is complete.
The projects are not linked and are both Nicklaus Signature courses by coincidence; they are competitors and also have the potential to help each other lure golfers to the area.
While both 18-hole courses are under construction, neither site has begun building homes. But The Peninsula, with condominiums, townhouses and villas from $350,000 to nearly $600,000 and custom homes for almost $1 million, has sold 187 of its planned 1,400 units. Director of sales Melissa Firetti said most of the buyers are purchasing second homes, with the Wilmington area providing the largest share of customers.
Bayside, with condos, townhomes and single-family homes from $300,000 to $700,00, has sold 255 units of a planned 1,700 units since opening sales at the end of June.
The Nicklaus name had a lot to do with that.
Larry Goldstein, the developer who is creating The Peninsula, said Nicklaus was paid a design fee of $2 million for his course . That doesn't include any actual construction.
Tom Tipton, the general manager of Carl Freeman Golf, the company creating Bayside, said Nicklaus was paid between $1.3 million and $1.5 million when he signed on for that project about six years ago. Bayside was then delayed while zoning was finalized.
"He is hands down the top golf course architect. He's at the top of the list," Tipton said. "But he's not only the number one golf course architect, he's the number one draw for golf course communities."
Said Goldstein: "I'm not a golfer. And when I tell people, 'Jack Nicklaus,' it's like, 'Oh my God, you know Jack Nicklaus?' It's unbelievable."
The Peninsula's welcome lobby features a Nicklaus room decorated with photos and a signed flag from the 2000 Masters. There is also a video of Nicklaus talking about the course.
"The men sit and watch the Jack Nicklaus tape," Goldstein said, "and the women go and buy."
Nicklaus still has a lot of work to do. Bayside was set back a bit by rain this summer, but the plans are still to put grass seed on most of the holes this fall. At The Peninsula, Nicklaus, during his three hours on the course Monday, was still shaping fairways and deciding which trees needed to be cleared on some holes.
"They made me the bad guy," Nicklaus said. "They left all the nice trees and I had to decide which ones to take down."
He seems to enjoy every moment of it, tweaking bunker and tee locations, sketching adjustments on sheets of white paper in a binder. He doesn't play as well as he wants to anymore. But he's getting better at this job.
"I haven't made my living playing golf for 25 years," Nicklaus said. "This is something I think I continue to do better than I play golf, but it all happened because of golf. Certainly nobody would ever care about a Jack Nicklaus golf course if he hadn't won a couple golf tournaments.
"Once I put my name out in front of the public and designed golf courses, I had to produce or I would have stopped after five or 10 courses because nobody would have hired me again."
After 37 years of designing, he has more than 250 courses to his name all over the world. And Nicklaus said he will commit to designing even more when he's officially retired from playing. Already he has suggested that he may have played tournaments like The Masters for the final time.
As a designer, he'll open one course in Nevada on Monday, another in Denver on Tuesday, and soon visit work sites in Palm Springs, Calif., Oregon and Montana.
Nicklaus was in and out of Delaware on his private plane Monday, but is scheduled to return to Bayside in late September. He should make about eight more trips to Sussex County before he completes his signature on the Delaware landscape.
Source: The News Journal (Wilmington, Del.)
