Whether it starts out that way or not, a golf vacation can end up with the purchase of a home in a golf community -- maybe not right away, maybe not for a few years, but eventually the hook is set.
        Think about it. When are you more relaxed than on a buddy golf trip, and when are you more aware of your surroundings, especially if you love golf? The golf vacation is a time to dream, not only of a perfectly struck approach shot or a long putt for birdie, but of what life could be like if every day were a golf vacation.

The 14th hole on the Nicklaus Course at Reunion is a shortish par 4 (372 from men's tees), packed with plenty of hazards.

        This was brought home to me – literally – a couple of weeks ago while playing my home course, Pawleys Plantation in Pawleys Island, SC. March is the month when the 70-mile-long Grand Strand of Myrtle Beach, of which Pawleys anchors the southern end, plays host to many vacationing Canadians. My two playing partners were teenagers, followed around the tough Jack Nicklaus layouts by their dads. Once the parents knew I lived in the community and knew something about its real estate, the questions came: “How much would a condo like that go for?” “What are Property Owner Association fees like?” “How far are you from the beach?” These are all good questions, the kind a serious prospect would ask, even if a potential purchase were a few years off.
        I was on a buddy trip of my own a couple of days later, outside Orlando, FL, at the Reunion Resort. Ostensibly, I was there for our annual fantasy baseball league draft with four other participants, one of whom lives in Bonita Springs, FL. I hadn’t seen Stan since the day we were graduated from high school, nearly 52 years ago, and I was pleased to learn he has played lots of golf since. We were half of a foursome at the expansive Orange County National Golf complex north of Orlando, where the PGA Annual Show holds its Demo Day every year; among other highlights, the club has a huge round driving range, big enough to handle drives from one edge of the circle to the other. The rest of our foursome was made up of my son Tim, who writes for Golf Advisor, a division of Golf Channel; and my friend Bill, who is a resident of The Landings in Savannah, GA.

It's Florida, after all, and so there must be sand (on the 15th, a reachable par 5).

        As first rounds of the year go, the 18 at Orange National was a good warm-up for the following day’s round on the Nicklaus course at the Reunion Resort. While the Reunion’s course’s greens were a tad slower, the layout was vintage mid-career Nicklaus, with large bunkers, generous fairways and tough approaches to the greens -– the higher the approach the better, although the greens had been watered enough that they were generously receptive. (See a few attached photos for hole examples.)
        The three of us stayed in a beautiful house that featured five bedrooms, with an en suite bathroom for each. The living space was overly generous and included a wonderful eat-in kitchen (with built-in espresso unit, cool), a wet bar area, large dining room, a great room with large screen TV and a view of the Tom Watson course at Reunion just past the pool behind the house. I was told the house rents for around $500 per night which, on the face of it, seems expensive, but if it is being split four ways, it comes out to less than a Holiday Inn Express for each member of the foursome. Trust me, it is much more comfortable –- and a lot closer to some outstanding golf -– than most Holiday Inns. And you can cook your own meals and store as much beer as you need for the week.
        Here is a link to the house we stayed in: Click here.  It is a beauty, but there are plenty of others you can tour during your buddy trip.

        From restaurants to airline flights to certain breeds of purebred dogs, waiting lists are the pits. You want to spend your money but so do others. Therefore, you wait, and in the case of a standby waiting list at an airport, that wait could shove you to a following day’s flight. Yuck.
        But some things are worth waiting for, and I count among them Ballyhack, the brilliant, eye-popping Lester George layout located just outside the city of Roanoke, VA. It has a waiting list for local residents looking to join a unique golf course. In contrast, those who live outside a 30-mile radius can join right away. Not only are Ballyhack’s fees comparably reasonable (see below) when you consider the stature of the golf course, but the club has also joined the Dormie Network, a tidy group of clubs anchored by the widely hailed Coore/Crenshaw design at the Dormie Club, outside Pinehurst. (Other clubs in the Dormie Network include Briggs Ranch in San Antonio and Arbor Links in Nebraska City, NE.)


        The Dormie Club could not have debuted at a worse time. just before the 2009 recession which dried up all discretionary income, especially the kind used to join a golf club. Since then, Dormie has floundered around despite the quality of the golf, giving up its plans (temporarily) to be one of the relatively few private clubs in the Pinehurst area. But now under new management with big plans to upgrade conditions at the course and build some long-awaited infrastructure, including a clubhouse, Dormie seems back on track, and the expectation is that the club will go fully private in a year or two.
        Ballyhack also had the bad fortune to open into the teeth of the recession, and it has struggled since, although it was able to build a nice clubhouse of about 12,000 square feet and 28 cottages to house its national members. (Roanoke is not exactly on many people’s destination lists, although the city features good restaurants and a well-regarded medical center.) But there is no denying that Ballyhack’s problem was not in the golf course itself. After I first laid eyes on the layout, a couple of months before it officially opened, I wrote that it was a “drama queen of a golf course” for its rolling landscape, swirling greens and bunkering that appeared inspired by a mad genius. When I finally played it a couple of years later, my opinion was unchanged. The immense fairways were the only relief of the round. You still needed to choose the proper location of your drive lest the bunkers at greenside block your approaches to the pins.
        Ballyhack is a wild ride of a golf course, one you don’t forget easily. There are so many ways to play the course that a member would never become bored.


        The reason for a waiting list for local residents and none for those living outside the 30 miles is that the club’s mission is to appeal to a “national” group of members. In effect, it discourages local members, but if you could see yourself living in an up and coming city like Roanoke, you would be well advised to ignore the discouragement and join the waiting list.
        Of course, the best strategy might be to find a home 31 miles from Ballyhack and make the one-hour round trip a few times a week to play an outstanding and, in some ways, astounding golf course.

Ballyhack’s Membership Options

Local Resident Membership (inside 30 miles)
Waitlist deposit: $1,000

Initiation fee: $10,000
$2,000 due at membership activation. Balance billed 24 months after join date.
Annual dues: $5,400 (billed quarterly)

National Membership
Primary residence outside 30-mile radius of the club
Initiation fee: $7,000
$1,000 due at membership activation. Balance reduced by expenditures over the dues line over two-year period after joining. Remaining initiation fee balance billed 24 months after join date.
Annual dues: $3,150 (billed 50% in March and 50% in September) 

Complimentary golf cart usage included 

Includes one cottage stay at any course in Dormie Network annually