The Jacksonville Area Golf Association announces its 2024 schedule, which includes 11 events at nine locations.
The Jacksonville Area Golf Association unveiled its 2024 event schedule, which includes 10 tournaments at nine different courses in Duval, St. Johns, Clay, and Nassau Counties that it either sponsors, co-sanctions, or supports.
At Amelia National, the First Coast Amateur will begin competition on January 13–15.
The tournaments run by JAGA include the following: the Jacksonville Amateur (July 18–20 at the Jacksonville Golf and Country Club), the Senior Amateur (April 7-9 at Deerwood), the Spring Four-Ball (March 25 at Marsh Landing), the Fall Four-Ball (Oct. 28 at the Plantation at Ponte Vedra), and the Family Championship (Dec. 21 at the Jacksonville Beach Golf Club).
Additional happenings:
The Northern Chapter PGA, in collaboration with JAGA, will be hosting the 33rd Underwood Cup on February 5–6, at Timuquana Country Club.
The North Florida Junior Foundation, in collaboration with JAGA, will be hosting the Greater Jacksonville Junior Championship at Eagle Harbor on July 16–17.
JAGA supports the First Coast Women’s Amateur committee, which will be conducting the event at the Plantation at Ponte Vedra from July 22–24.
The JAGA Scholarship Trust Classic and the JAGA/Northern Chapter Team Championship are the two events that are still on the schedule. November will see both at locations and times that will be revealed later.
The Timuquana Country Club will host the First Coast Celebration of Golf Banquet on February 21.
Complete circle: First Coast Amateur returns
At Amelia National, the First Coast Amateur made its debut in 2017. Brandon Mancheno, who won the Times-Union high school player of the year award outright, went on to play at Auburn and the University of North Florida.
The competition returns to Amelia National, the Tom Fazio-designed course, after eight years.
In 2023, Brock Healy from Norcross, Georgia, won the seventh annual JAGA First Coast Amateur after making a birdie on the tournament’s 53rd hole at Hidden Hills.
In 2023, Brock Healy from Norcross, Georgia, won the seventh annual JAGA First Coast Amateur after making a birdie on the tournament’s 53rd hole at Hidden Hills.
The City of Jacksonville’s Sports and Entertainment department sponsors and manages the tournament through JAGA.
Representing over forty colleges and universities, 22 states, and 13 countries, there are 96 players on the field. The World Amateur Golf Ranking lists thirty-two of the players.
The reigning champion is Brock Healy, a University of South Florida player.
‘The Commissioner’ Roger Nichols was one of the biggest golf enthusiasts around.
Nichols, who broke his age more than 200 times, won seven club championships, and was a member of four First Coast clubs before passing away on December 14 at the age of 86.
Known as “The Commissioner” to the Munchkins, he was a member of the TPC Sawgrass group that played multiple times a week, with approximately half of them being former PGA Tour employees. Nichols held memberships in Deerwood, the Plantation at Ponte Vedra, and the Sawgrass Country Club in addition to being a charter member of the TPC Sawgrass.
Nichols won three times at the TPC Sawgrass and four times in the Sawgrass club championship. In addition, he participated in multiple local charity tournaments as a volunteer.
Illinois native Nichols relocated to Jacksonville in 1972. He worked for Westinghouse as an executive. He spent 65 years of marriage to his wife Louise, with whom he had three children.
At the Citrus Golf Trail Ladies Invitational, Chloe Schiavone, a junior at the University of Notre Dame and a Bolles graduate, finished solo second to Sofia Cherrif Essakali after shooting 69 in the final round at the Sun ‘n Lake Golf and Country Club in Sebring.
In the competition formerly known as the Harder Hall Invitational, Essakali came in at 6-under 282. Schiavone’s best score for the 72-hole competition came in her final round.
