Money magazine's latest issue (and web site) includes its list of the best places to live in the U.S.  Only two southeastern towns - Lake Mary, FL (#4) and Suwanee, GA (#10) - make the top 10, but both offer outstanding golfing options.
    Lake Mary's position just 30 minutes from Orlando and 45 from Daytona Beach puts it close enough to the hustle, bustle and advantages of big city conveniences and the beach, but far enough away so as not to suffer many of the consequences (traffic, pollution, crime).  The area is chock a block with golf courses, and the article in Money is embellished by a photo of a hole at Timacuan Golf Club, which was built in the center of the town.  The green in the photo is surrounded by sand.  Membership in the semi-private club seems reasonable at $5,500 for full family golf, and $275 a month for dues.  Timacuan was designed by Ron Garl and Bobby Weed, two respected, if not first-rank, architects.  Money writes that the best things about Lake Mary are its small town nature, a robust economy and zero state income tax.  The worst, as you might guess, are the hot summers and threats of hurricanes coming across the Gulf of Mexico.
    Suwanee, which is located along the Chattahoochee River about 40 minutes northeast of Atlanta, also boasts a range of fine private and public golf courses, including some inside the gates of communities.  Home prices in River Club, for example, with its private Greg Norman course, begin above $1 million.  The Arthur Hills' Olde Atlanta Club is also located in Suwanee and is one of 18 clubs in the greater Atlanta area managed by the Canongate organization.  Membership in one club makes the 17 others accessible for a modest payment of greens fees (although as a full golf member, you will not pay fees at your "home" club). Bear's Best, a compilation of 18 of Jack Nicklaus' holes from other courses he has designed, is also inside Suwanee's city limits.  We are not sure about the flow of a course that borrows the individual holes from elsewhere, but Nicklaus himself designed Bear's Best, and he is fussy about the quality of his work.  The course is open to the public.
    Only two other towns in the southeast made Money's top 25 best places to live:  Apex, NC, and Holly Springs, NC.  Both are just at the fringe of the popular city of Raleigh.  Best of all for the golf obsessed, the two towns are a straight 45 minute shot down U.S. Highway 1 to some of the best golf in America, at Pinehurst.
    Money's web site has data on all its top 100 places.

   The city and county fathers and mothers in Myrtle Beach have been squabbling for years over whether to build a badly needed new terminal.  The only thing everyone seems to agree on is that an expanded airport is necessary to compete with other tourist destinations and to accommodate the unabated migration from north to south, but politics has gotten in the way of any forward movement.  Now it appears the debate is over, with no consensus.
    Panama City, FL, a town that has an almost single-minded orientation toward expansion, is applying for the $48 million federal airport grant money Myrtle Beach is forfeiting.  As frequent fliers into Myrtle Beach in the past, we have seen one airline after another either eliminate or cut back on service.  Prices for flights from our home in Connecticut to the Grand Strand have risen steadily to the point that we drive the 16 hours to our vacation home 40 minutes south of the airport.
    Some cities in the south are not ready for prime time, incapable of building the infrastructure (roads, airports, hospitals) to accommodate the population expansion that has been predicted for years.  Put Myrtle Beach in that category when you are considering a home in a golf community.  There is still much to like about the area - the assortment of golf courses is second to no 100-mile stretch in the nation - and new hospitals and shopping centers have filled a prior need in recent years.  But until the city and county officials can reach an accord to solve the airport issue, local part-time residents may find the car a much better option than the plane.
    You can read the details of the airport fiasco in a Myrtle Beach Sun News editorial today.