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  Arthur Hills' Palmetto Course often invites you to take the short way home, but beware.

    We had dropped into the golf community version of Apocalypse Now.  The daily cart invasion along the roads of The Landings at Skidaway Island, GA, reaches its peak around 8:30 a.m., as residents scramble to make their tee times at one of the community's six golf courses.  As the golf carts rose up and down the swales of streets and cart paths, we almost dove for cover.
    Except for the sheer number of golf carts, we experienced little of the high-density we had anticipated before our two days in The Landings community, although with 1,900 members for the six courses available, we would hate to see them all decide to play at the same time.  Overall, The Landings developers planned well.  We drove a few times from the community to Savannah, 12 miles to the west, and never hit traffic of any consequence.
    The Landings golf courses appeal to the widest range of golfers, from the least difficult, wide open and nicely groomed Arthur Hills track (Oak Ridge) to the complex's most difficult layout, the Palmetto Course, also an Arthur Hills design, which we played and loved (see notes tomorrow at this site).  Rounding out the rotation are two Arnold Palmer courses, a Willard Byrd design, and the Tom Fazio Deer Creek course, which we also played and found less challenging than some of the designer's more notorious layouts.  With all the traffic the courses get, we were amazed at the speed of play.  Our two rounds took less than four hours each.     

    The clubs at The Landings exhibit styles somewhere between private club and daily fee course.  Because everyone seems to own a golf cart, there is no need for locker rooms; members keep their clubs on the carts in their garages and change into their golf shoes at home.  For our two rounds, there was no greeting at the bag drops, and when we signed in at the pro shop, our instructions were to "take any cart available," meaning we hoisted our clubs onto the cart.  At the end of the round, no attendant waited with a rag to clean our clubs.  We don't consider ourselves country club prima donnas, but those looking for a little more in the way of private club amenities for a $55,000 (equity) initiation fee might be put off.  On the other hand, maybe we just caught them on a bad day. 100_1174savb

    By the way, when you give up your membership, $25,000 of your equity comes back to you, a little lower than many other private clubs.  Monthly dues for golf, which also includes tennis and social memberships, is $483, which seems reasonable for access to six good courses and their clubs' facilities as well as other amenities.     

    Housing options at The Landings run the gamut, from condominiums that begin at $275K and end beyond $1 million for a 3,000 square foot unit with a marsh view; to patio homes (on ¼ acre lots) from $350K to $1 million; to single family homes that range up to a $2.5 million.  There are only a few original developer lots still available.  Almost 90 percent of the community's 4,300 lots have been built on, and the lot-resale market is tight (about 25 lots on the market at any given time).  Available lots range from $250,000 to $1.4 million for the choicest (large and on the marsh).  Once you buy a lot, you can count on construction costs of about $175 to $200 per square foot.

    I have never watched an entire episode of American Idol, but it has been hard to avoid Taylor Hicks, who won the competition last year.  Before, during and after the Super Bowl, he was all over television hawking automobiles for a company whose name I have forgotten.

    Now, according to a flyer we received this week, he is hawking a community in Alabama, not far from the Tennessee border.  The Oaks at Goose Pond Island advertises home sites from $49,900, including lake access, and dockable waterfront sites from $194,900.  A few hours away in the Knoxville, TN, area, similar dockable sites can approach $1 million. 

    This is a lake-oriented community, the lake being the 70,000 acre Lake Guntersville.  Down the road is the Goose Pond Colony Golf Club and 36 holes of lakeside golf.  George Cobb, a respected architect, designed the Colony course in 1971; the Plantation course is the work of Don Croft and Phillip Green.

    Taylor Hicks has bought property at The Oaks and will be on hand May 19 when the developers release sites in the next phase.  Mindful that fame is fleeting, Mr. Hicks is keeping a close watch on his investment.  For more information, see The Oaks web site at http://www.theoaks-gpi.com.