In August 1963, President John F. Kennedy walked into the pro shop at the Hyannisport Club, where his family had been longtime members, and asked head golf professional Tom Niblet if he was busy.

He said “get your sticks and we’ll knock it around for a few holes,’’ Mr. Niblet wrote in an unpublished memoir. “We headed for the first tee and the president said, ‘Tom, you have the honor.’ ’’

During the round, Kennedy asked what he could do to improve his game, and Mr. Niblet encouraged him not to change anything because “his swing was smooth and rhythmic and you could tell he knew how to execute the golf shots.’’

Mr. Niblet, who also gave golf lessons to Kennedy’s wife, Jacqueline, and the president’s mother, Rose, died of heart complications Aug. 7 in Massachusetts General Hospital. He was 86 and lived in Centerville.

A founding director of the New England PGA’s Cape Cod Section, Mr. Niblet had built and owned Holly Ridge Golf Club and originally developed The Ridge Club, both of which are in Sandwich.

In 1997, Senator Edward M. Kennedy asked Mr. Niblet to include his recollections of Rose in a family memory book because, he said in the precede, Mr. Niblet “kept a seasoned eye on Mother’s golf game.’’

Mr. Niblet recalled for the senator that Rose was “upbeat and a joy to be around. During that first lesson, we spent a lot of time talking about family, hers and mine. She urged me to spend as much time with family as I could. I took her advice and have been thankful for it.’’

He also wrote: “I can still picture her, walking the back holes. . . . I’m not sure if it was the golf itself that attracted her or the solitude and tranquillity of that beautiful place. Whatever it was, she seemed so much at peace with the world.’’

Mr. Niblet, who had a passion for writing, wrote in his book “Recollection of Hyannisport’’ that in July 1961 he received a telephone call from Jacqueline Kennedy seeking a lesson. The Kennedy compound was within walking distance of the course.

“I was a nervous wreck before she arrived,’’ he wrote.

Mr. Niblet recalled that the first lady said,“Tom you have your work cut out for you,’’ and that when he asked what her objectives were, she replied, “to beat my sisters-in-law.’’ Mr. Niblet called it “an exhilarating experience . . . one that I’ll never forget.’’

The youngest of 10 siblings, Thomas Francis Niblet was a son of Samuel Niblett and the former Margaret Glynn. In 1948, he graduated from Dover High School in New Hampshire, where he was a member of the glee club, fishing club, and hockey team.

Though his correct last name was Niblett, when he presented his birth certificate to the Marine Corps, he noticed the last ‘t’ was mistakenly omitted, and he never changed it.

He had caddied as a youth at Kingswood Golf Club in Wolfeboro, N.H., but didn’t play golf seriously until he was a Marine stationed at Cherry Point, N.C.

After Mr. Niblet was discharged in 1952, he attended what is now the Stockbridge School of Agriculture at the University of Massachusetts. While a student there, he was a summer intern at Weston Golf Club. The club’s head pro recommended Mr. Niblet in 1954 for the job as professional and superintendent at Scituate Country Club.

In 1950, Mr. Niblet married Pauline Moutevelis, whom he met while in junior high.

“We began to raise our family while living in the greenskeeper’s house on the second fairway at Scituate Country Club, and I really didn’t know he had applied for the job at Hyannisport until Tom told me he was hired,’’ recalled his wife, who is known as Polly.

He left the Hyannisport Club in 1966 because he and his friend Dave McCarthy were building the par-3 Holly Ridge Club layout. Mr. Niblet and a Marine buddy, Alex Ohlson, had also built and designed Norton Golf Club in 1955.

Mr. Niblet was head pro at Thorny Lea Golf Club in Brockton from 1966 to 1970 before moving on to Holly Ridge as a fulltime owner. He began buying parcels of land adjacent to Holly Ridge for what was to become The Ridge Club, an upscale course and gated community.

The club opened in 1989, and within a couple of years he brought in a new investor because of a downturn in the economy and competition from new and similar clubs on the Cape. By 1994, he had sold his interests in Norton, Holly Ridge, and the Ridge Club.

“Tommy was always on the go, personable and a hard worker,’’ said Arthur Harris, a New England PGA Hall of Famer and former longtime professional at Mount Pleasant Country Club in Boylston. “We once asked if he was interested in being NEPGA president, but he said his job at Holly Ridge kept him too busy.’’

A nearly 56-year PGA member, Mr. Niblet was a close friend of Fred Cusick, the longtime Bruins television play-by-play announcer, who often invited Mr. Niblet to join him at Boston Garden.

Cusick produced golf shows for Channel 38 and then NESN, featuring competition between local club players at the Holly Ridge Club and The Ridge Club.

A skier who took to the slopes as far away as Switzerland, Mr. Niblet also loved to sing, especially Frank Sinatra tunes, which he collected.

“Dad could be headstrong, but he fulfilled a dream to build something meaningful,’’ said his daughter Kimberly Mee of Centerville. “He never quit, and one of his favorite inspirational poems, which he often read to us, was ‘If—’ by Rudyard Kipling.’’

In addition to his wife and daughter, Mr. Niblet leaves a son, Gregory, of Centerville; another daughter, Gail Yagle of Amesbury; four grandchildren; and a great-granddaughter.

A celebration of Mr. Niblet’s life will be held at a later date. At Mr. Niblet’s request, his body was donated to Harvard Medical School.

Mr. Niblet, who cherished a photograph from President Kennedy signed “with appreciation and warm regards,’’ wrote that as they walked the 18th fairway that summer day in 1963, he thanked Kennedy for inviting him along.

“He said, ‘I enjoyed it also Tom; we’ll do it many more times,’ ’’ Mr. Niblet wrote. “Unfortunately we never did. Three months later he was assassinated. . . . When he died, so did a little bit of me.’’

Marvin Pave can be reached at marvin.pave@rcn.com.