On a Thursday afternoon in Melbourne, the parking lot off Parkway Drive fills up for two different reasons at once. Vendors are backing pickups toward the Regional Pavilion to set up folding tables of honey, pastured meat, and hand-thrown pottery for the weekly farmers market. A few hundred yards away, a disc golfer pulls up to what used to be hole one and finds a rerouted tee pad, because the fairway he expected is currently occupied by a produce tent.
That collision is not an accident. It is the whole story of what has changed at Wickham Park this year, and most of the regulars who use the park every week still only know about the half of it that touches them directly.
The Course That's Been Here Since 1990
Wickham Park's disc golf course is not a recent amenity. Discalibur Disc Golf Club laid it out in 1990, and it has spent more than three decades as one of the anchor stops on the original Florida Triple Crown, a three-city tournament series that ran through Melbourne, Orlando, and Gainesville. It still hosts the annual Melbourne Open and remains a regular stop on the current Fabulous Florida Tour.
Ask five different sources how many holes the course actually has, though, and you'll get five different answers. Some list it at 18. Others say 22 to 32, "varies throughout the year depending on other park activities." One course-review site counts 23. That inconsistency is not sloppy reporting. It's the course itself changing shape depending on what else the park has scheduled that week, because the fairways share ground with everything else Wickham Park does.
Discalibur just finished a full redesign of that layout, working with Brevard County Parks and Recreation to preserve the bones of the original course while fixing safety and flow problems that had built up over 30-plus years of foot traffic, tournaments, and improvised rerouting. New hole designs, alternate tee pads, and clearer routing are already in place. After this year's Melbourne Open, championship-level tee signage is the next planned addition.
Why a Second, Separate Course Just Opened
The more telling change is the addition of a brand-new nine-hole wooded course on the opposite side of the park.
Wickham Park hosts a rotating calendar of food-truck days, a renaissance fair, holiday light displays, cultural festivals, and the weekly farmers market. Events can limit access to sections of the main course, while the new nine-hole course offers disc golfers another place to play.
That is a different kind of park investment than a redesign. A redesign changes the original layout; a second, standalone course adds a separate wooded layout. If you have played Wickham Park for years and only just noticed there's a second course tucked into the woods, now you know it's there.
The Rest of the Park Didn't Wait Around Either
Disc golf isn't the only corner of Wickham Park's 391 acres running at capacity. A few things worth knowing if you use the park for anything besides throwing plastic:
- The dog park is split into two sections, one for small dogs and one for large.
- There are two guarded swimming lakes and three smaller fishing lakes, plus a 1.3-mile paved pedway that loops past most of the open ground, so walkers, cyclists, and joggers rarely have to share pavement with vehicle traffic.
- The campground runs 133 full hookup sites with showers, laundry, and an RV dump station, and Brevard County treats reservations under 45 days as pay-in-full at booking.
- The amphitheater keeps its own event calendar separate from the disc golf and market schedules, which is how the park manages to host concerts and seasonal festivals without shutting down the trails or lakes.
- The equestrian area sits in the park's southwest corner, connected to its own network of hiking and biking trails that horseback riders share with everyone else on foot or wheels.
None of these pieces changed this year. What changed is that disc golf finally got the same kind of accommodation the rest of the park quietly built for itself over time.
The Farmers Market Moved, Too
Here's a detail even longtime residents tend to miss: the Brevard County Farmers Market didn't always run under the Regional Pavilion. It used to set up closer to the horse stables on the park's equestrian side. It has since relocated to the newer, larger pavilion, where it runs every Thursday from 3 to 6 p.m., year-round except holidays and hurricanes, as a partnership between Brevard County Parks and Recreation and the UF/IFAS Extension office. It's producer-only, accepts SNAP, and charges nothing for admission or parking.
That move from the stables to the pavilion isn't a footnote. It's another change in how the park's amenities use its space.
What This Means If You Actually Use the Park
If you're a regular at Wickham Park, the practical takeaway is simple. Check the course status before you drive over, especially on a Thursday afternoon or during one of the park's bigger festival weekends. If events affect the main course, the new nine-hole wooded course on the far side of the property is another place to play.
If you camp, walk dogs, ride horses, or just use the pedway for exercise, none of this changes your routine. But it's worth knowing that the park continues to evolve across its different uses, one section at a time. The disc golf expansion is its most recent and most visible example.
A Park That Keeps Evolving
Most people who live near Wickham Park describe it in shorthand: it's the dog park, or the disc golf place, or where the farmers market is. That shorthand made more sense a decade ago than it does now. A 391-acre park with a two-section dog run, a farmers market at a larger pavilion, and two disc golf courses isn't just one thing anymore. It's a set of overlapping, heavily used amenities that share the park's space.
That's usually a sign of a neighborhood amenity that's working exactly as intended, even when it means rerouting a tee pad on a Thursday afternoon.
If you're already living near Wickham Park and thinking about what comes next, whether that's more space for the dog, a shorter drive to the pedway, or just a better sense of how this part of Melbourne actually functions day to day, Angélica Garcia Realtor knows this park and this neighborhood well. Drop us a line, let's talk about your next move.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.
