Bear Trace at Chickasaw

Bear Trace at Chickasaw winds through the hardwood forests and natural wetlands of Chickasaw State Park in Henderson, Tennessee, offering a par-72 Jack Nicklaus design that plays to 7,118 yards amid massive oaks and pines roughly 90 minutes east of Memphis. Originally part of the five-course Bear Trace state park golf trail, the course reopened in 2015 under new management after a period of closure.

Bear Trace at Chickasaw is a Jack Nicklaus Signature design located at Chickasaw State Park in Henderson, Tennessee, part of the Bear Trace series of courses developed through the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation as a flagship project for the state's Tennessee Golf Trail. The course opened in 2000, making it the fourth of the five original Bear Trace courses to open, and measures 7,118 yards from the championship tees — the longest of the Bear Trace quintet, reflecting Nicklaus's approach of creating a course demanding enough to test skilled players while offering forward tee options accessible to the full range of public golfers. Chickasaw State Park, where the course is situated, encompasses approximately 14,000 acres of rolling woodland in western Tennessee's Chester County. The park's hardwood forests, open meadows, and the natural water features that define the western Tennessee landscape gave Nicklaus a site with inherent character that his design philosophy — working with the natural terrain rather than imposing a manufactured experience — could exploit fully.

The Bear Trace courses were all designed with this principle: use the existing topography to create routing that feels organic to its setting while meeting the competitive standard that Nicklaus's signature designation demands. Henderson occupies a position in western Tennessee that makes the course accessible to golfers from Memphis, Jackson, and the broader region between the Mississippi River and Nashville. The Tennessee Golf Trail was conceived precisely to distribute high-quality golf experiences across the state's geography, ensuring that golfers in west Tennessee had access to Nicklaus design work comparable to what was available closer to the major population centers. Chickasaw's location made it the westernmost anchor of the Bear Trace system, serving a region that had few comparable public golf options.

The course closed at some point following its initial years of operation and reopened in 2015 under new management as Chickasaw Golf Course, transitioning away from direct state park management while retaining the Nicklaus routing and the state park setting that had made it distinctive. The reopened facility continues to serve the western Tennessee golf community with a course whose 7,118-yard length and Nicklaus strategic design provide a genuine competitive test for accomplished players. The Bear Trace system as conceived by the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation was one of the more ambitious state-sponsored golf development projects of the 1990s — a deliberate decision to invest in Jack Nicklaus Signature design across multiple state parks, creating a trail that would draw regional and national golf tourists to Tennessee's state park system. The Chickasaw entry in that system represented the trail's westernmost reach and its longest playing option, two characteristics that gave it a distinctive identity within the Bear Trace collection.

The broader Chickasaw State Park setting, with its lake, equestrian facilities, and woodland environment, provides a context for the golf course that extends well beyond the playing field. Golfers at Chickasaw play within a functioning state park whose natural resources are managed with the same care as its recreational infrastructure, and the integration of the Nicklaus course into that landscape is seamless — a design that belongs to its setting rather than being imposed upon it.