Golfing greats to visit Harbor Shores

Published 3:13 pm Friday, May 28, 2010

Golf legend Jack Nicklaus (right), seen here last summer, will be joined by Johnny Miller, Tom Watson and Arnold Palmer for the Champions for Change Golf Challege at the Golf Club of Harbor Shores on Aug. 10. File photo

Four of America’s greatest golfers will be on hand when the Golf Club at Harbor Shores is officially opened.

Jack Nicklaus, whose accolades as a golf course designer parallel a legendary career that includes a record 18 professional major championships, will join friends and fellow greats Johnny Miller, Arnold Palmer and Tom Watson on Aug. 10 to celebrate the grand opening of The Golf Club at Harbor Shores, a new 18-hole Jack Nicklaus Signature Golf Course.

The Harbor Shores Champions for Change Golf Challenge will feature the foursome competing in an 18-hole scramble skins format with rotating two-man teams.

A limited number of tickets to the Harbor Shores Champions for Change golf event are available for $50, which include access to the 18-hole Golf Challenge and a Golf Clinic hosted by the four champions.

In addition, an Evening for Champions “roundtable” discussion with the four golf legends will be held at the Mendel Center Mainstage at Lake Michigan College that same evening from 7:30 to 9 p.m. – tickets are available for $25. Tickets for both the golf and evening events are available online at www.harborshoreschampions.com.

“I consider Arnold, Tom and Johnny among my closest friends in golf, so I not only look forward to getting together with them again but also having them with me as we celebrate the opening of The Golf Club at Harbor Shores,” Nicklaus said. “The Harbor Shores Champions for Change event is a great opportunity to highlight how golf is being used as a vehicle for social and economic revitalization, particularly in the Benton Harbor community.”

The legendary foursome, which collectively has 199 PGA TOUR wins and 35 major championship victories, will tee off together for the first time ever in competitive play at the Golf Club at Harbor Shores.

“We are truly honored to have four golf legends on board to celebrate the opening of this world-class resort golf venue and help us spark revitalization efforts throughout the community,” Harbor Shores managing director Mark Hesemann said.

Comprising 530 acres and highlighted by the 18-hole, public Jack Nicklaus Signature Golf Course, Harbor Shores will enhance and beautify the already popular vacation and second-home destinations of Benton Harbor and St. Joseph.

When completed, Harbor Shores will include 12 distinctive neighborhoods with a total of nearly 800 residences. The development will also include a wide array of recreational amenities, including a town center, health and fitness center, boutique lodge and spa, conference center, marina village, deep water marinas, retail shops and restaurants, recreational trails and much more.

Harbor Shores will serve as a catalyst for ongoing community transformation – economic, environmental and social. Not only will the non-profit resort community stimulate increased tax revenue, create jobs and generate new consumer spending, it will build human capacity in areas including work-force training, youth development, education, life skills development, housing and homeownership.

Harbor Shores has already restored beauty to a pristine area of Lake Michigan’s waterfront through rehabilitation of local public park space, cleanup of brownfields and preservation of natural wetlands.
All 18 holes of The Golf Club at Harbor Shores will be open for play by July 1.