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It has been a cold and long winter without golf, and I was looking forward to a March trip to South Carolina. But my wife, bless her heart, has convinced me to head south next week to attend the annual meetings of the property owner association and golf club at Pawleys Plantation, where we own a vacation condo. Along the way, I intend to visit and review a golf community each day and, if weather permits, play golf for the first time in three months. And I will still get to play golf in the Myrtle Beach area in March.
Here is the tentative list of golf communities I will review on my drive south:
Bayside Plantation, Shelbyville, DE
This will be my first visit to a Delaware golf community, and even though many people will not consider a community so far north as a place for retirement or a vacation home, the Jack Nicklaus Signature Course has received positive reviews and the community's proximity to the ocean makes it a solid summer vacation venue. Although New Jersey is an entire wide bay away, the ferry from Cape May, NJ, to the charming town of Lewes, DE, provides excellent and frequent service and cuts out more than hour of time and the many headaches of traveling the awful New Jersey Turnpike.
Kilmarlic Golf Club, Powell's Point, NC
In my 20s, I played Outer Banks golf for the first time, in Kill Devil Hills, site of the Wright Brothers first flight. It whet an appetite for coastal golf that is now four decades old. I don't know much about Tom Steele, Kilmarlic's architect, but I do know the course was good enough to host the North Carolina Open championship twice in the last five years. Being chosen for that honor in a state that boasts the Pinehurst courses and so many other great ones says something about Kilmarlic.
To be determined (Raleigh area)
I have asked a local real estate agent who specializes in golf real estate to suggest a location for me to visit on the east or south side of this growing metro area. There are many to choose among.
River Landing, Wallace, NC
This will be a return visit to the community, which was built and continues to be owned and developed by a local family. Against the tide, they have continued to add amenities including 18 more holes of golf in the last couple of years. Some of the 36 holes by respected architect Clyde Johnston roll along the Cape Fear River. River Landing's proximity (about an hour) to both Raleigh and Wilmington, two interesting but very different cities, is another plus.
I will be in the Myrtle Beach area next weekend. If anyone has a particular course or golf community they would like me to check out, send me a note.
These Guys Aren’t So Good: The PGA Tour and golf itself needs a new mantra
Tuesday, 02 February 2010 08:36
According to Golfweek magazine, a group of golf organizations have hired a high-profile lobbyist to buff the game’s image in Washington. According to Golfweek’s Gene Yasuda, the PGA of America,
Golf has been fortunate that the conduct of its principals has largely matched its principles of honesty and self-regulation.
National Golf Course Owners Association, Golf Course Superintendents Association of America and Club Managers Association of America have contributed a total of $200,000 to engage the firm Podesta Group to change lawmaker perceptions that “associating with golf is somehow a bad thing,” according to a Podesta principal.
The recent turn in golf’s reputation makes one nostalgic for the days when the game was mostly criticized for its mythical uniform -– white belts and shoes, lime green pants, etc. These have been rough months for golf, especially for the PGA: First Tiger Woods’ “accident” and then, this week, allegations by Scott McCarron that Phil Mickelson is a “cheater” because he is using a faux-legal square-grooved wedge in competition. Mickelson’s rejoinder that the club is not illegal and that three other players are using it (out of more than 140 on tour) doesn’t exactly elevate the sport’s honorable image, nor does the ungentlemanly dust-up between the tour’s #2 player and a journeyman.
Golf has been fortunate that the conduct of its principals has largely
Just three tour players, Mickelson included, use a faux-legal square groove club.
matched its principles of honesty and self-regulation. But Tiger’s wayward behavior, Phil’s taking advantage of a loophole, and the serial embarrassments of John Daly argue that the game’s marketing focus should shift away from its stars (unless it could figure out a way to make players like Jim Furyk and Stewart Cink interesting, which it can't).
The PGA Tour’s formerly clever ad line, “These Guys Are Good,” rings hollow; and with the disclosures about Woods, it is filled with unfortunate double entendres. Better the tour should start intensify its inconsisten emphasis on its contributions to charities. Perhaps start with a campaign under the banner “These Guys Do Good.”
Talking the walk: Boomers trending toward urban environments, like Daniel Island
Monday, 01 February 2010 18:42
Daniel Island features Tom Fazio and Rees Jones golf courses as well as a community that puts many houses within walking distance of all shopping and services.
For years, golf communities at a distance from urban areas have been a lure for retirees. Some folks are content with homes far from a bustling city and do not mind being totally reliant on a car to take them to where any action is, modest though that action may be in the boondocks.
Not me. Although I am resigned to live most of the year in a home on the South Carolina coast,
Paris sounds nice a few months a year, but I'll settle for New York or Boston.
which my wife favors, I am insistent that we spend at least a couple of months in some urban environment each year. Paris sounds nice, but I’ll settle for New York or Boston, any place where I can hang up the car keys for an extended period and let my feet (and public transportation) take me where I want to go.
I thought I might be a little odd in this regard, at least as far as baby boomers go. But according to a recent Urban Land Institute report, I’m actually going with the flow. The ULI reports that, “75% of retiring Boomers said that they want to live in mixed-age and mixed-use communities, i.e. in urban settings.”
The report went on to add that, “Not all will want to move to the central city, and walkable, urbanized suburban town centers will see an influx of aging Boomers.”
Near our home in Connecticut, nearly all condos in such a mixed-use development have sold, despite the extreme troubles in the condo market. Blue Back Square in West Hartford is like a mini-city,
“...once the Boomers can sell their homes and buy condos, these centers will thrive during the decade ahead.”
about a six-block square of retail stores, restaurants, shops, fitness centers, parking areas and apartments above it all. Some of the anchor tenants include a Cheesecake Factory restaurant, Whole Foods supermarket, a three-screen cinema, Barnes & Noble bookstore and Crate & Barrel furniture store. Town hall and a large library are within two blocks of Blue Back Square’s edge, and another two blocks takes you into the center of West Hartford, with dozens more restaurants and shops.
This kind of manufactured urban setting is not new, although the momentum has stalled somewhat during the last five years (hasn’t everything?) as the condo resale market has virtually collapsed. But, adds the Urban Land Institute, “once the Boomers can sell their homes and buy condos, these centers will thrive during the decade ahead.”
Few of these urban centers have the space to include golf courses within their perimeter, but one place that comes close is Daniel Island, outside of Charleston. Daniel Island is more or less self-contained, with many attractive Charleston style homes within walking distance of supermarket, offices, shops and restaurants. Two 18-hole golf courses (Tom Fazio and Rees Jones) are within the confines of Daniel Island but a short drive from most of the housing. Still, Daniel Island captures the spirit of what is often referred to as “new urbanism.”
If the demographers and sociologists are right, Daniel Island could be ahead of its time.
The clubhouse at Colleton River, where some property prices are as low as $20,000, looks out to the Pete Dye golf course and beyond to marsh and river. The community also includes a Jack Nicklaus Signature course.
Golf lot prices hit harder than homes. I was surprised to see a “foreclosure” golf-view lot for sale for just $49,900 in the upscale Colleton River community just off Hilton Head. At .59 acres, this is no patio lot. I figured the bank was desperate to cash out, but when I looked further at prices in Colleton River, they were as low as $20,000 (not foreclosures). “…lots in our golf communities have all taken a big hit,” says Bluffon, SC, area real estate agent Tom Jackson. “Great timing for someone who wants to build.” Figure $175 a square foot to build a home in keeping with those around it, and you could be all set for under $550,000 in one of the south’s best regarded golf communities. Most homes in Colleton River range from the high six figures to $1 million plus. The golf is excellent, featuring both Jack Nicklaus and Pete Dye golf courses that are studded with live oaks and marsh views.
Here we go again? Most economists point to minimal down payments and low interest loans as fundamental reasons for the current housing mess. My brother Bob, a San Francisco-based financial
"Curing a debt bubble with more debt" just doesn't work.
adviser, included a simple but compelling chart in his latest newsletter to clients that implies déjà vu all over again. It showed that the FHA (Federal Housing Authority) mortgage program requires just a 3.5% down payment for a home, or $7,000 on a $200,000 home. Figure in $1,500 in closing costs, and the total $8,500 cash needed by a buyer of modest means is totally covered by the current government homebuyer credit. “Curing a debt bubble with more debt,” Bob writes. He concludes that “zero down, courtesy of the government…will ensure that a whole generation of marginal borrowers will keep the housing recovery on shaky ground.” I hope the economic wizards in Washington know more than Bob, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
Cliffs Communities in UK press report. United Kingdom newspaper reporters love a good scandal, and they have probably written as much as U.S. papers have about Tiger Woods’ problems. This past week, the Guardian of London’s web site took a more business-oriented tone and looked at the
Tiger Woods used his family to help promote only one of his business dealings, his design for The Cliffs Communities.
prospects for Woods’ fledgling golf design business. “For all that was written about the hypocrisy of Tiger Woods,” wrote Guardian blogster Lawrence Donegan, ”…there was only one sponsorship deal in which he explicitly used his family as a selling point, and that was the deal he had with a golf course community in South Carolina called The Cliffs.” (See our earlier discussion of the Cliffs dilemma by clicking here.) Also last week, a Golfweek article speculated that “any route they [The Cliffs] take could be challenging, considering what has been an almost singular reliance on Woods.” The Cliffs ducked all Golfweek inquiries about their marketing plans regarding Woods. The longer Woods stays out of the public eye, the tougher it will be for The Cliffs to generate the property sales they need at High Carolina. And when Woods eventually returns, he may be embraced by the golf nuts who follow his every swing, but whether that translates into $1 million property sales remains to be seen.
Grape expectations. Homes in golf communities in Florida suffered some of the nation's worst price drops in the earliest days of the housing crisis. Since 2005, many homeowners associations and developers have been retrenching, cutting costs and staff to get by. The last thing they are spending money on is marketing, especially fancy brochures, but one Florida golf community is bucking that trend. I settled back in my recliner early one morning this week, opened up my copy of the Wall Street Journal, and a large, eight-panel, full-color brochure from Vineyards fell to the floor. Vineyards is located in Naples and features condos starting in the $400s and single-family homes from the $600,000s in an amenity-rich community. The Vineyards brochure declared the development is “debt free,” which is a very nice place to be these days. I will write more about Vineyards in coming weeks.
A robot comes out of its hole and sees its shadow… PETA, or People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, wants the organizers of the annual Groundhog Day in Punxsutawney, PA, to
The groundhog, an official said, "is treated better than the average child in Pennsylvania."
replace Punxsutawney Phil with a robot. PETA believes it is unfair to keep the animal in captivity and to subject it to bright lights and big crowds that gather at the annual celebration. The organizers of Groundhog Day, upon which a prediction of the spring season depends and one entertaining movie was made, counter that the animal lives in a climate-controlled enclosure that is inspected annually by the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture. A comment by Groundhog Day official William Deeley put everything in perspective and, perhaps, PETA in their place, when he said, “the groundhog is treated better than the average child in Pennsylvania.” We await additional comment from People for the Ethical Treatment of Children Organization (PETCO).
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