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St. Augustine, Florida It's hard to dispute the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews in Scotland as the sport's most famous landmark. But a corridor of northeast Florida is making an Arnold Palmer-like charge up the leader-board. Anybody looking for the ultimate golf destination on the American side of the Atlantic would be hard pressed to find a better target than a 25-mile area nestled between Jacksonville and St. Augustine, the oldest city in the United States. Golf fanatics don't need to fly across the pond to experience championship-style courses and a monument to the game in one convenient setting. During the last quarter century, a corner of Florida known as the First Coast has become the home to several venues - World Golf Hall of Fame, PGA Tour headquarters, THE PLAYERS Championship, The First Tee program and an abundance of resort-type courses. All contributed to this area's growing reputation as the "golf capital of the United States," in the words of PGA Tour communications executive Bob Coombs. Imagine this travel scenario for a baseball fan: Yankee Stadium, Fenway Park and the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown all about a 40-minute drive from each other. That aptly describes the kind of golf paradise available here to people with the desire to chase a little white ball, watch all of the world's best players on one stage and learn everything about the history of the game.  Right at home: WGHOF inductee Vijay Singh was born in Fiji, but makes his home near St. Augustine. Most golf observers are familiar with THE PLAYERS Championship, which has the deepest field of any tournament and has been played at the TPC Sawgrass Stadium course since 1982. It features the 132-yard, par-three 17th hole, a fan favorite at golf's unofficial fifth major because one tricky tee shot to an island green often decides who will hoist the Waterford crystal trophy. But what makes the golf package available in northeast Florida unique from other places in the U.S. is the World Golf Village, a 6,300-acre property located 25 miles southwest of the TPC Sawgrass Stadium Course and adjoining Valley Course, both popular layouts for vacationing golfers. World Golf Village, which began development a decade ago and continues to evolve as a tourist destination, is headquarters of The First Tee program, which is designed to introduce golf to youngsters of all ages and which especially targets minorities. The WGV also features two courses - The Slammer Squire and The King & Bear - named after four of golf's legendary figures. Its centerpiece, however, is the World Golf Hall of Fame, a museum that struggled for years to find an ideal home until it moved to northeast Florida from Pinehurst, N.C. in 1998. Golf's Hall of Fame, which has 109 members and will add another five at induction ceremonies on October 30, doesn't boast the rich history associated with Cooperstown or Canton (Pro Football Hall of Fame). On the plus side, it has an ideal location – just one mile off heavily-trafficked Interstate 95 – and gatekeepers who are committed to continually upgrading a venue that will attract 290,000 visitors by the close of 2006. "We're seeing a change in travel trends where more people are planning trips here," said Jack Peter, chief operating officer at the World Golf Hall of Fame. "For kids who grow up playing baseball, Cooperstown is ingrained in them. That's what we want here for golf." Peter has spearheaded several changes to golf's Hall of Fame, but none as vital as the 2004 renovation that has made this museum more visitor-friendly and given customers better exhibits for the price of admission ($16 adults, $14 seniors/students, $11 kids 4-12). The renovation was a major improvement from an aesthetic standpoint, creating a snake-like path for visitors through the Hall of Fame that ensures they don't miss anything. More walls were added for exhibits, plus an upstairs floor that contains the Hall's most popular feature, a locker room that contains personal and golf souvenirs from the careers of nearly all its 109 members. Only a handful (Nick Faldo, Jack Burke, Jr., Willie Anderson, Peter Thomson) sit empty because the members or relatives had yet to provide any items.
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