UK Nationals – St Mellion Golf Resort

Newsletter 1

Nomads UK Nationals are being held at St Million Resort near Plymouth in Cornwall, UK.  Please register and let Wayne know if you interested to join.  We are waiting on our allocations for the tournament.

It will come as no surprise to note that the Nicklaus golf course at St Mellion Golf & Country Club is the course that Jack built, his first European course design. This is the place to come if you really want to test your game. The onsite Hotel and Country Club complex has great facilities and is geared up for visitors.

The Nicklaus course opened for play in 1988. The great man was clearly happy with his creation and said: “I knew it was going to be good, but not this good – it’s everything I had hoped for and more… St Mellion is potentially the finest golf course in Europe”. The course was good enough to host the Benson & Hedges International Open for six years from 1990 until 1995 with Olazábal, Langer and Ballesteros amongst the winners.

St Mellion is located in the Tamar Valley, on what was once rolling farmland. Bodmin Moor is not too far away but you need look no further – the beast is the Nicklaus course.

Generally, the course is in manicured condition, with plenty of definition between the sculptured fairways and the first/second cuts of rough; similarly with the greens and fringes. Elevated tees provide a good view of the task in hand. Keep the ball in play, there’s plenty of bunkers and loads of water.

There is no doubt that this is a strong golf course and bears the hallmark of a designer who pays attention to detail. Many of the greens are multi-tiered and the hazards are strategically placed, making for intimidating tee shots. The fairways used to get waterlogged but extensive drainage work has resolved that problem.

There are no easy holes at St Mellion but there are many memorable ones, each with its own individuality. The 11th hole is an exacting par three measuring 203 yards; from a high elevation, the tee shot must carry across a river that wends its way across the front and down the left hand side of the green. No prizes for being short here. Our favourite hole is the par five 12th, running through a tree-lined valley. A stream meanders all the way along the right and then cuts back in front of the green before continuing on its way.

Ownership of the resort changed hands in 1998 and an extensive renovation of the facilities took place a decade later. Unfortunately, the new millennium credit crunch put paid to plans that would have seen the English Open staged on the Nicklaus course for an initial 5-year period, starting in 2011.

A course renovation was completed in 2022, involving the introduction of new tees on a couple of holes and the refurbishment of bunkers, along with substantial drainage work and the installation of a new irrigation system. A fairway topdressing programme was also introduced to improve general course playability.