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The motto on the yardage book at Royal Amelia Golf Links proclaims "Royal Amelia is the most talked about golf course in northern Florida." It's uncertain whether that's true or not-there is some difficulty in measuring these things-but certainly there is plenty to speak of concerning this new course in the heart of Amelia Island, twenty minutes north of Jacksonville.

Royal Amelia Golf Links hasn't had much of an opportunity to develop its aforementioned reputation, having only been open for play since September of 2000, and thus far the marketing outside the Amelia Island area has been conservative. To make a name for itself among its island peers, let alone Northern Florida, Royal Amelia will have to find a way to compete with or tie into the popularity of the established names: Amelia Island Plantation (54 holes by Pete Dye, Bobby Weed, and Tom Fazio) and The Golf Club of Amelia Island (Mark McCumber) at the Ritz-Carlton.

It shouldn't be too severe a problem, based on the club's merits. Though it lacks the rare ocean holes of Amelia Island Plantation, this elegant 6,823-yard track has plenty of its own appeal.

Royal Amelia Golf Links is a scenic composition of golf holes molded into the thick indigenous vegetation of the island. The park-like course, highlighted by several small lakes and a creek that influences play on numbers one, two, nine, ten, and eighteen, is a unique illustration of balance and natural consistency.

North Carolina-based architect Tom Jackson drew up the plans for Royal Amelia for friend Jim Stoffel (who owns the course along with partner Don Hite), routing it through the wooded flatlands between the Intracoastal Waterway to the west and open space near the Fernandina Beach airport on the north and east.

Though the published credit for the design will go to Jackson, whose fluid and economical routing is refreshing for this region, Royal Amelia is really Stoffel's affair, a project into which he's immersed himself for over two years to wonderful effects.

"We broke ground in February of 1999 and I've been here ever since we started," he says.

Royal Amelia is Stoffel's idea and it has become the expression of his golf vision. "I've kind of always wanted to develop my own golf course and do it the way I thought it should be done," he proclaims. "I knew what I wanted and everybody, the contractor, the shaper, the architect, really helped out with that."

Stoffel, a golf professional most of his life at various locales in South Carolina and a previous owner and operator of several courses (including Carolina Shores in North Carolina from 1979 to 1986, and Chickasaw Point in western South Carolina), had been out of the golf business for some time and often doubted whether he would ever get back into it. If he were to re-enter the field he wanted to build a course from scratch, his way.

When Tom Jackson informed him of the land's availability he was immediately impressed with its potential, and eventually signed a 70-year lease with the city of Fernandina Beach. "I liked the area, I liked the island, loved the people, and it was such a good property it looked like a good opportunity."

After drawing up the initial plans, Jackson visited the site six or seven times, but it was Stoffel who oversaw the day-to -day construction. "I worked very closely with the contractor and particularly the shaper," he says, to whom he gives particular credit-"He was an artist with the bulldozer, and he was very conscientious."

The attention to detail and the personalized touch is evident in the movements of nearly every green complex. "I wanted a rolling golf course with a lot of contour, and contour on the greens…and not a terribly long golf course," Stoffel admits.