- February 1, 2025
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Dear Editor.
When reporting and discussing whether or not the City of Palm Coast should sell or keep the Palm Harbor Golf Club please note its historic importance to this community.
It was designed by renowned golf-course architect William Amick of Daytona and not Arnold Palmer. The first nine holes opened in September 1971. The second nine holes opened two years later. At the time, it was known as the Palm Coast Golf Club since it was the only one that existed in the small community opened by ITT in 1970.
Arnold Palmer and Nancy Lopez collaborated on the design of the Pine Lakes Golf Course which opened in 1981. The name of the Palm Coast Golf Course was later changed to Palm Harbor. ITT hired LPGA golf champion Nancy Lopez as its resident golf pro from 1978 to 1983.
In 2021, the Palm Coast Historical Society celebrated the 50th anniversary of each set of successive openings with Nine & Dine golf fund-raisers at the course. William Amick, now in his 80s, attended the first event and spoke about his experiences working in what was then a pine-covered swamp filled with alligators, snakes and mosquitoes.
He donated maps containing his original designs along with film footage of the construction process that the society later paid to have digitized. Mr. Amick also visited the PCHS Museum in Holland Park where I interviewed him for an article that later appeared in Sun and Surf magazine. You can find it on our website www.palmcoasthistory.org.
To commemorate the significance of this site, PCHS Board Member Mery Gable sponsored the Arts Foundation Turtle “Nancy Marie” which was installed behind the deck of the golf club's restaurant in 2020. Nancy Lopez herself attended the dedication, much to the delight of area residents who remembered her from the early days.
Please consider the importance of honoring our history when discussing the value of keeping or selling our community’s first golf course.
Kathy Reichard-Ellavsky
Past PCHS president and interim museum director.
Editor's note: The course was originally designed by William Amick with a redesign by George Clifton in 2009, according to the city of Palm Coast's website.
