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One way to create your own "destination" club |
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Monday, 02 June 2008 |
For nearly a decade, I have been a member of HomeLink International, a service that facilitates the exchange of homes on a short-term basis, typically a week or two. There are a number of firms that provide similar services. Every year, I have searched the scores of international listings at HomeLink looking at listings by folks in Greece, Scotland, France and other dreamy sounding places who indicated they were interested in staying in South Carolina, where we have a vacation home. Partly from fear of having "strangers" stay in our home, we never took the leap. But our condo is a We will drop our names in the ballot box at the Old Course a few times and take our chances.
Late last year, we received a note from a couple in Scotland asking if we would like to exchange homes. The timing was perfect as my son and I were planning a trip to the Old Sod and I was obsessing about the costs, given the international currency fluctuations. After the exchange of a handful of emails, the Scottish couple and I arranged for a "non-simultaneous" exchange of our place in Pawleys Island, SC, for theirs in Crail, Scotland. Although most such exchanges coincide with each other - you stay at their place at the same time they stay at yours - we are fortunate to have a second home and to have found a couple in Scotland in a similar situation (they live in Glasgow but have a cottage in Crail, just nine miles from St. Andrews). It made the arrangements much easier than if we were in different countires during the exchanges.
In April, our new friends from Scotland stayed in Pawleys Island for 12 days, had a great time, and left the place cleaner than they found it (and left behind some paperback novels I look forward to reading). This weekend, we head to Scotland and, after a few days in Edinburgh, are off to Crail where we will meet our hosts in person for the first time (they are going to help us get settled in their home). Crail, a charming small fishing village with two famed seaside links courses in town, will be our home base for a week of golfing throughout the county of Fife. On our rotation are the links at Elie, Lundin and Crail, as well as Kingsbarn and the New Course (circa 1895) at St. Andrews. We will drop our names in the ballot box at the Old Course a few times and take our chances.
I calculate we are saving more than $1,500 on the lodging for the week in Scotland (less the modest $90 annual charge to list your home at HomeLink). More importantly, with a successful swap behind us, my wife and I will now join the growing legion of home exchangers who have created their own little destination clubs. The ability to swap our vacation home for someone else's adds some welcome value to our condo, a little extra leverage that anyone with a vacation property might want to consider. If this idea appeals to those currently looking for a vacation or retirement place, consider that Europeans are drawn to the east coast of the U.S. and especially Florida.
Although Internet service will be a little spotty in and around Crail, I intend to file stories in mid June from some of the oldest golf "communities" in the world. If you have played the courses on our list above, I would welcome any advice or comments in advance.
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A short sermon on the mountains |
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Sunday, 01 June 2008 |
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The best view of the mountains at Connestee Falls is on the practice range.
I just finished a three-day visit to communities in the western Carolinas area, with rounds of golf at Cherokee Valley (Travelers Rest, SC) and Connestee Falls (just south of Brevard, NC), as well as a tour of the brand new, nine-hole layout at Bear Lake Reserve near Sylva, NC.
I'll have full reviews of the communites and their golf courses in the coming days, but I will offer one quick observation here. Mountain communities with golf courses sometimes do a lousy job - or no job, really -- of using mountain vistas as backdrops to their golf courses. But for an occasional peek at a peak, I played 36 holes in the mountains and saw no mountains. At the P. B. Dye-designed Cherokee Valley, for example, the mountains are at your back for the few holes where you can see them at all. Only on the 6th, a brawny, downhill par three of 200 yards, do you have that classic high-altitude moment where your ball floats in the air off the tee against a mountain backdrop.
At Connestee Falls, the best views are from the practice range and the unique deck in front of the pro shop. The deck, which doubles as a cart return after your round and the place to stop after nine for a drink or bathroom break, looks to the practice green below and toward the Smoky Mountains in the distance. You drive up a concrete ramp to the deck on the third level of the clubhouse; from there the views are spectacular, but they are the only ones of the day, unless you use the club's practice range, which looks straight out to dramatic peaks in the distance. The assumption, of course, is that those views will carry over to the course. Forget it.
There are no such height restrictions at Bear Lake Reserve, a four-year old sprawling community that arcs around and above a sylvan lake near Sylva, NC. Centex, the original developers of Bear Lake (they sold to Terremesa Development recently), engaged Nicklaus Design to plan out a nine-hole, par 29 routing. The architects insisted that if they were going to sign up to design a short layout, it would have to be on a piece of land of their choosing. Centex gave way, and Nicklaus chose the highest spot on the property, carving out what could very well turn out to be the most dramatic, and toughest, stretch of holes in the mountains. At 3,800 feet, there is no problem at all with distant mountain views from Bear Lake Reserve's course, which opens for play July 1.
The 8th hole at Bear Lake Reserve's soon-to-open nine hole layout maximizes the mountains as backdrop. The rest of the course has similar views and some challenging holes.
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Cart blanche: Playing with the 90-degree rule |
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Friday, 30 May 2008 |
I teed off at Cherokee Valley yesterday without the customary run through of the rules by the starter. The starter at the Traveler's Rest, SC, course was off somewhere, but a sign was posted indicating that I should observe the 90-degree cart rule.
The 90-degree cart rule, which is a lot better than cart path only and only slightly worse than driving wherever you damn well please, splits the difference between a course's need to dry out after rain and the out-of-shape player's need to finish a round without collapsing.
But just as people have different interpretations of barbecue - you can tell I am in the Carolinas - they interpret 90-degree rules a little differently. My first experience with the rule was in New England a couple of decades ago. There, the 90-degree rule means you leave the cart path directly across from your ball in the fairway, drive to the ball, hit the ball and then drive back to the cart path along the same route. Then you proceed down the cart path until, again, you arrive at the 90-degree line across from your ball and repeat the process.
When I tried this on a 90-degree cart day at Pawleys Plantation many years ago, the starter caught up with me and asked what I was doing. He explained that 90 degrees in the Carolinas meant you drive to your ball at 90 degrees to the cart path but then proceed down the fairway, hit your ball, and continue down the fairway until, basically, you run out of short grass and are within 30 yards or so of the green.
The difference, those of you who are turf experts realize, is that the long roughs in New England can handle the traffic a lot better than the delicate Bermuda rough of the south can. In the south, for whatever agronomical reason, you can turn cartwheels without doing much damage to the fairways.
That said, Cherokee Valley's fairways and rough seemed to be covered in Bent grass. In the absence of the starter, I made a command decision. Even if I wasn't driving the ball straight, I could at least drive the cart straight.
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Ochoa bails on Ginn: Symbolic of trouble in paradise? |
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Thursday, 29 May 2008 |
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Lorena Ochoa, the phenomenal women's golf pro, has taken great pains to heap praise on Annika Sorenstam during the Swedish star's victory lap prior to retirement at the end of the LPGA season. It is a little surprising, therefore, to find Ms. Ochoa bailing out of this weekend's tournament in Mt. Pleasant that is hosted by her idol (Ms. Ochoa indicated an uncle is ailing in Mexico and she wants to spend time with him).
The Sorenstam-sponsored tournament is the Ginn Tribute, co-hosted by Bobby Ginn, the developer cum race car owner cum egotist (by reputation, never met the man) whose high-end, lushly amenitized communities spread from the mountains of South Carolina to the shores of the Bahamas. But over the last year, a great hue and cry has been growing from residents and investors alike regarding Mr. Ginn's properties and, specifically, promises made but not kept. We first heard from a real estate friend a few months ago that there could be trouble in paradise. In the coming days, we will try to ferret out a little more detail and try to determine if Ginn residents at places like Cobblestone near Columbia, SC, and in the Bahamas have something to worry about.
By the way, we reviewed Ginn's Rivertowne Golf Club, site of the Ginn Tribute this weekend. You can read it by clicking here.
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USA TODAY's edition has a little graphic on page 1 about which cities have the least courteous drivers. Leading by a wide margin is Miami, where the spread between those who say Miami drives are less courteous and those who say they are more courteous than in other cities is a whopping 46 points. Boston is second at 30 points. We would love to see a study that correlates the housing market with courteous driving. Here's betting that drivers in Charlotte, the only market again to show a median house price increase last month, are more courteous than others (although we have driven in Charlotte, and the street layouts and signage are mesmerizingly confusing).
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