Fairway Files: Nicklaus - St Mellion: Jack’s Cornish Masterpiece

Words by Jack Tranter

There are courses that test your game, and courses that test your resolve. The Nicklaus certainly does both. Jack’s first European design, opened in 1988, remains a beast of a golf course. Bold, strategic, and unapologetically demanding. From the beginning The Golden Bear called it “potentially the finest golf course in Europe,” and while debate will always follow such claims, there’s no denying this is one of the purest expressions of his design philosophy on this side of the Atlantic. Legends like Seve, Olazábal, and Langer left their mark at The Benson & Hedges Int Open, and later Paul Casey’s career took off at the English Amateur. 

Favouring Jack’s trademark fade and punishing anything offline, accuracy is everything. 
My first visit ended with a bag of lost balls, but oddly that only deepened the desire to return.

Opening Drama

The Nicklaus doesn’t ease you in gently, but it does reveal itself layer by layer. The opener drops into a two-tiered green set diagonally across the fairway, a clever introduction to the angles and precision Jack demands. By the second hole you’re already fighting creeks and bunkers, hazards that cling to the fairway edges and cut across approaches. By the time you reach the short par-3 4th, perched on a thin, multi-tiered green with steep banks and a sheer drop-off, you understand there are no easy shots here, only precise ones.

The front nine weaves through water hazards, elevation, and tight corridors of fairway. There are flashes of brilliance everywhere: the 5th with its long carry over water off the tee, the needle-threading 7th, the bunker-strewn short par-3 8th. But the real fireworks come on the back. 

A Sequence Like No Other

For me, the back nine contains one of the greatest sequences of holes (10,11,12) in English golf.

The 10th is a drive from the heavens, played from an elevated tee down into a valley-like fairway, the land itself carving the shot shape before your eyes. The par-3 11th is world-class, Augusta-esque, with water pressed right up to the green’s edge and trees encircling the stage like an amphitheatre. Then comes the 12th, my favourite par-5 anywhere. It tumbles downhill like a ski slope, lined by tall pines, the fairway bending and dipping right before the creek that runs its length to the right cuts across at the green’s throat. To play it is to feel both exhilaration and awe, the kind of hole that alone justifies the journey.

The Finishing Stretch

Even late in the round, St Mellion never lets up. The short par 4 13th offers brief respite, but the 14th yet another dramatic par-3 over a gorge snaps you back to attention. The 17th, guarded by a lone oak in the middle of the fairway, is both visually striking and mentally testing. And then the 18th… a finisher that would not look out of place on any championship stage. A pinching drive with a stone wall lurking, a green wrapped at its front by water, and the hotel towering above as spectators look on. It’s both a test and a theatre, the kind of hole that stays with you.

More Than Just Brutality

Yes, the Nicklaus is a brute. Yes, it can be punishing. But it is also exhilarating, dramatic, and deeply rewarding. The creeks and bunkers aren’t just hazards, they’re characters in the round, forcing you to plot, think, and commit. It’s golf as Jack imagined it; tough but fair, asking questions with every swing.

I’ve played many courses that are more forgiving, more manicured, perhaps even more “beautiful.” But few courses have lodged themselves in my memory like this. The Nicklaus doesn’t just challenge your game, it tests your spirit and it keeps you coming back, desperate to master it. It’s golf for those who want to be tested, humbled, and ultimately inspired.