Golf Community Reviews

    I'm heading for the golf course today with a friend, but I had enough time this morning to read a short, savvy piece at the Wall Street Journal online about playing the current housing market.  Reporter Jonathan Clements provides his take on some approaches.  Enjoy.
    If you would like help identifying that perfect golf community for you and your significant other, let me know (see contact button at top of page).  There is no cost or obligation to you whatsoever.

The Grand National Lake course opens with a beautifully designed par 4 dogleg left that brings all the Robert Trent Jones elements into play -- sand, water, and an elevated, sloping green.   

 

    A resident of Atlanta can leave his home after breakfast, play 18 holes of golf at the excellent Grand National complex in eastern Alabama, then nine at Grand National's fine Short Course, and still be home for dinner.  
    Lucky Atlantans.  The rest of us will just have to settle for flying into Atlanta and then taking the no-stress drive to Grand National and its 54 holes of golf.
    Grand National, located between Auburn and Opelika, is at about the midpoint on the Robert Trent Jones Trail, which runs 380 miles from one end of the state to the other.  Grand National is a 90-minute drive from Atlanta, a straight shot down Interstate 85.  Those who make the journey will find a taste of the consistent quality I found at the three multi-course complexes I visited on the Trail a week ago.  On the other hand,

housing to attract the valued retirement crowd still has a ways to go.
    Grand National's Lake Course was the first I played on the Trail.  It turned out to be in the best condition of all, which is not a slam on the others but rather is praise for Grand National.  Like the other courses, the fairways were over-seeded to a vibrant green, a nice contrast with the brown rough.  The fairway grass was tight, and I found myself rolling the ball over just once during my 18 holes (I landed in someone's unfilled divot, and since I wasn't playing a match, what the heck).  The greens, the only ones during the week that did not show evidence of recent aeration, were firm and fast, and when pins were up front they were impossible to get close to. 

    Like other greens on the three courses I played, these were elevated, some significantly so, and the firm surfaces made me play cautiously to avoid too many lob wedges up too many steep slopes.  The greens were large, sloped and well protected by steep bunkers, as well as the slopes.  Grand National and the other courses I played are all about positioning on the approach shot.  Landing zones off the tees were generous, although some sported the traditional Jones bunkers -- not huge, like a Palmer's or Fazio's, but definitely in play.
    The 600-acre Lake Saugahatchee dominates the 54 holes at Grand National and comes into play or into view on 32 of them.  Unlike Oxmoor Valley, near Birmingham, which I also played and enjoyed greatly, the terrain at Grand National is kindler and gentler and a lot easier walk from the cart paths to my errant shots (because of recent rains, I played cart path only the entire week).  Grand National is a course you could grow old playing,

shifting tees every few years as length off the tees begins to fade.  Indeed, all the Jones courses offer those multiple teeing options.
    I chose the mid-level orange tees for my round at Grand National's Lake Course, a pleasurable 6,500 yards that plays a little shorter than that if you snuggle some of your drives near the crooks of the 10 doglegs.  The back tees, at over 7,100 yards, are only for the low-single-digit player.  The white tees, at less than 6,000 yards, will appeal to the 15-handicap player and higher, as well as to those who can't bang the ball 200 off the tee.  
    The opening hole at the Lake Course is a stunningly good starter, visually beautiful and a faithful introduction to a thoughtfully designed and challenging layout.  At just 364 yards, the hole is short but demands strategy; a large fairway bunker guards the left crook of the dogleg 220 yards from the tee box, and a drive just short of the sand leaves an approach of 130 yards to an immense, double green that is shared with the 6th hole.  You can take advantage of some generous fairway to the right of the fairway bunker, but the following wedge shot will have to carry almost entirely over water to a firm and fast green.  The two-tiered green is protected by a bunker at front left and by water at front right.  
    The par 3 3rd brings the lake directly into play.  The 175-yard tee shot is all carry over water to another large green protected by the water front and left and pot bunkers at front right and back right.  Hidden from the tee is a severe slope between the two pot bunkers on the right side; any chip shot from there, especially on the firm greens, risks rolling off the other side and down toward the water.  The hole provides just a hint in advance of the par 3 15th, the Lake Course's signature hole, which is do or die over water to an island green from more than 190 yards away.
    A Marriott Hotel and Conference Center is a magnet for visiting golfers and built in marketing to those who might want to live permanently near 54 holes of golf.  For those planning to stick around for a couple of days of golf, there really is no other good alternative within 15 or 20 minutes; and if you and the guys plan to go into Auburn and hang out of an evening at one of the local bars, make sure you have a designated driver. (Better to just hang out in the Marriott's own ample watering hole and leave the Auburn pubs to the older university kids.)  The room rates at the hotel start at $109, but golf packages are available.
    Before my round at Grand National, I stopped at the brand new community called National Village, inside the gates of the 1,300-acre Trail property but about a mile from the golf course.  The community is a joint project between a local developer and the Retirement Systems of Alabama, which manages more than $20 billion in assets for the state's employees and teachers.  The RSA funded the construction of the 26 courses on the Trail with an idea to attract not only golfing tourists but also retirees (I'll have more to say about the history of the Trail in a few days). 

    More than two-dozen single-family homes were in various stages of construction at National Village, including a few that are just about ready for occupancy, but it was hard to see how the community fits the strategy to attract retirees.  Wonderfully appointed yet close to each other on quarter acre tracts, at $600,000 to $800,000 they seemed overpriced for the Auburn/Opelika area.  Elsewhere in the southeast, such prices will fetch a home on a ½ acre with nice views of a golf course, if not water or mountains, in a gated community with a private golf club.  The RSA and the developer do have plans for lower-priced homes closer to the golf course and for a town center, with villas, near the hotel and conference center.  That could be the spur to attract more golfing retirees to the area.  
    For now, the developers might want to consider lowering the prices at National Village to encourage some quick return on their investment in the already-built homes (none had been sold by the time of my visit).  With a university town nearby, a no-hassle drive from Atlanta, and 54 holes of excellent golf just down the road, their community has the ingredients for success.  

Ratings for Grand National Lake Course
    I rate elements of the courses I play on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being "perfection" and 1 "avoid at all costs."  "Playability" is my assessment of how players of all capabilities might enjoy the course.

Layout         8    Fun and challenging.
Condition     7    Elevated greens almost too firm.
Playability    8    Multi-tee options typical of thoughtfulness on entire Trail.    
Aesthetics    8    Lake in view and in play on most holes.    
Amenities     6    Excellent for daily fee; a few day lockers for rent.
Overall         8    Private club conditions and staff.

 

The Lake Course's signature hole is the par 3 15th with its island green and no bailout.

    You might have read here a few weeks ago [click here for article] that one of our faithful readers was trying to build an environmentally sensitive, or "green," home in South Carolina but was running into something called a "preferred builders" program.  Developers use such programs to control the number of builders on property and, some believe, as part of an "old boys network."
    But practical good sense has trumped the traditional arrangement and our reader has just received the go-ahead to bring in his own experienced builder to develop a green home.  Good for him, good for the developer and good for the planet.

    This is not directly about golf communities, although it involves the resident of one.  It is a cautionary note.  I read this morning about a recent accident between car and motorcycle near my home in Pawleys Island, SC.  A 37-year-old woman was returning to her home at the DeBordieu Colony just south of Pawleys Island after a night out.  I know well the road she traveled, Highway 17, the main north/south route along the coast in the Carolinas.  At night it is lightly traveled near our home, and I have never thought twice about making the few-mile drive home from a local restaurant, even after a few drinks.
    On a night in January, the woman did not see the oncoming motorcyclist, a 47-year old local husband and father of two returning who was returning home from a birthday party.  His blood alcohol level was at the legal limit, but hers was twice that.  She turned into his path, he died, and just last week, in a courtroom filled with heartrending tears for both the living and the dead, the local judge sentenced the woman to five years in jail.  The newspaper reports indicated that the prosecuting attorney broke down while reading a letter from the father of the deceased.
    The woman, who had left the scene of the accident and returned later, will be required to serve a minimum of more than four years of the sentence. 

    I'm catching up on some reading.  John Paul Newport reported in Saturday's Wall Street Journal about two new software programs that provide overhead views of most golf courses in America.  Since one does not run on Apple computers, at least not yet, and I'm an Apple owner, I'll confine myself here to GolfFlyOver.com, a neat little way to preview course layouts before you play them (or check out holes your favorite golfers might be playing on TV, as they play them).  You can read Newport's full article, including his notes on the other program, Never-Search, which costs $20, by clicking here.
    GolfFlyOver is free and uses Google's technology GoogleEarth, which provides views in map form, satellite form or a hybrid (roads overlaid on photos) from a satellite hovering over the planet.  You provide GolfFlyOver the name of the course in which you are interested - you can search by state or course name - and that's it.  As with all Google Maps, you can zoom in if you want a closer look at a particular hole or zoom out if you want to check out distances to the nearest town or what the surrounding community looks like. 

    GolfFlyOver is a handy tool that I intend to use with future course reviews I post here so that my readers can get the lay of the land.  It is almost like owning a yardage book for each course, minus the typical $5 charge.   

A new complex next to the Oxmoor Valley course features well appointed condos.  You will be hard pressed to spend more than $350,000.

 

    With six fine, designer courses in play, and two more on the way, including America's first by Tiger Woods, The Cliffs Communities offers more private club golf and amenities than any other set of communities I have visited.  Despite the dubious source, The Cliffs' own marketing firm might be accurate when it praises its client for having "the most comprehensive and impressive club membership in the world."

    But the world is a big place, and "comprehensive" and "impressive" are subjective assessments.  For those

who want their high-quality golf without the burdens of a big buy-in fee and are willing to give up extra amenities, exclusivity and a little bit of luxe, look to the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail in Alabama.  Compared with The Cliffs, for example, you could save $125,000 on initiation fees, more than $3,000 a year in dues, and more than $600,000 on a home.  And with access to 18 more courses than at The Cliffs, the Trail's comprehensive membership is pretty impressive too.
    The RTJ Trail, which never strays too far from the Interstates, runs from the northernmost parts of Alabama - Muscle Shoals and Huntsville - to the Gulf Coast resort town of Point Clear, about 380 miles.  Along the way, no two golf complexes are more than two hours from the next closest, and most locations feature up to 54 holes of golf, including spectacular short courses that Jones Sr. patterned after his best par 3s elsewhere.  I drove the nine-hole short course at the Silver Lakes complex and was impressed with how challenging each hole was; eight of the holes play over water, including the signature 6th with its greenside waterfalls.  The short courses along the Trail are a great resource for any dedicated golfer who understands the importance of working on the short game.
    Many of the Trail's courses are clustered near Alabama's urban centers.  In the Auburn to Montgomery corridor, for example, you will find 108 holes within a one-hour radius.  In and around Birmingham, 108 holes are within 90 minutes, and another 90 holes are in the Mobile/Point Clear area.  Good sized hotels and conference centers have been built at eight locations adjacent to courses along the Trail.
    The annual Trail Pass is just $1,360 for an individual, $2,040 for a couple, which provides free access to all 26 courses; all you pay is the cart fee.  For those who live near the 36-hole Silver Lakes complex between Anniston and Gadsden, a $1,860 annual fee not only buys you full Trail access, but also no cart fees at Silver Lakes.  (In other words, you pay $500 for 12 months use of a cart; about 30 rounds is the break even point.)
    I played three courses on the Trail last week, including two nines at Silver Lakes and, suffice to say for now, they are all what you would expect from a heralded and classic designer like Jones Sr., who came out of retirement to design all the Trail's courses.  The properties he was handed were virgin, and his respect for the land is evident.  Surely he pushed some dirt around to elevate the greens and tees, but not many other disturbances are evident.  The conditions of the courses in early March were what you would expect for late winter, but the turf gave evidence that a month from now, they will be up to private club standards. 

    Housing along the Trail is evolving.  As I mentioned here last week, I stopped by one house for sale at Silver Lakes that featured four bedrooms, three baths and a view of the course for a shockingly low $329,000, or about $600,000 less than a comparably sized home at The Cliffs.  Yes, I know the Jones courses are not private and the local mountains aren't that big and there is no equestrian center or nature trail carved into the adjacent countryside.  But for those who want just quality golf at a reasonable price, the advice here is to consider keeping up with Jones, not the Joneses.  
    I'll have more to say in the coming days about the Trail courses I visited, including some words on the origin of The Trail.  It is quite an interesting story.

The Jones Trail features seven "Short" courses varying from nine to 18 holes, including the signature "falls" hole at Silver Lakes, between Gadsden and Anniston, AL

    I just discovered a new web site produced by the North Carolina Division of Tourism that features information about 400 golf courses in the state.  It also includes information on dining and lodging, making it a great source for those who might be visiting the state to look for property.  I searched by barbecue restaurants and the list was long and included a number of favorites I've visited.
    The site is at golf.visitnc.com.  Enjoy.

The Highlands Bar & Grill
    Over the last decade, my wife and I have bought a few dozen cookbooks, remodeled our kitchen at home, and tried to mimic the professional chefs' recipes, sometimes successfully, sometimes not.  If I have finished the Sunday crossword puzzle, which often takes me a week, or am not in the middle of an engaging novel, I'll curl up with a cookbook.  The best recipes are like great short stories.
    In Charleston last summer, while wandering through a cooking store, I spotted a large stack of cookbooks by Frank Stitt.  I had never heard of Chef Stitt, but the cookbook looked interesting.  I have one test on any cookbook by southern chefs; I turn immediately to the pork recipes, and if they sound good, I buy the book.  Chef Stitt's pork recipes made the bar, as did his recipe for corn pudding, which I successfully duplicated at home.  We have also been on a grits kick, and I wanted to try the chef's grits recipes.  (Believe it or not, I have found an excellent source of grits in Manchester, CT, of all places.)
    I had the chance to eat in the chef's famed Highlands Bar and Grill restaurant in Birmingham Thursday night (although the daily menu I was presented indicated that Mauricio Papapietro was chef de cuisine for the evening).  I sat at the crowded bar among a convivial group of people who clearly knew each other well.  The restaurant was almost full at 6 pm and would be full, with a small waiting line, when I left at 7:30.
    There wasn't a false note throughout the meal.  I was greeted promptly by one of the five bartenders whose movements during the evening were well choreographed and reminded me of hockey teams on a rush toward goal, weaving and passing and utterly coordinated.  The six components of my meal -- drink, bread, appetizer, entrée, dessert, coffee -- were served without hiccup by four different people (I thought just three until I noticed two of them were twins).  
    The daily menu presented many great choices for appetizer, but when I see Apalachicola oysters, nicely sized and briny beauties from the Florida Panhandle, I have no choice.  These half dozen ($9) were fresh, briny and so well shucked that I slurped them right from the shell.  The three guys to the left of me were too busy with business talk and their beers to notice my happy slurping, and the amusing and friendly lady of a certain age to my right, who spent the evening regaling her friends with funny stories, seemed to watch with amusement.  The restaurant thoughtfully provides small ramekins of vinegar sauce, fresh grated horseradish, and homemade cocktail sauce.  I experimented with the different combos, my fun-with-food moment.  I had to pace myself so, sadly, I could not indulge in the chef's renowned Stone Ground Baked Grits with country ham, mushrooms, fresh thyme and parmesan.
    I ordered the night's special soup, a Vidalia onion and sweet pea puree ($8) that was indeed sweet but without being cloying.  I am not a pea soup fan and I was pleased that the color of this pea soup was closer to Vidalia than to pea.  And the puree did not have a hint of graininess in it.  It was a sweet and refreshing pallet cleanser.
    The first main course listed was a "Fudge Farms Pork Shoulder and Belly" with "swamp cabbage" and collards, apples and bourbon ($28).  The other entrees never had a chance.  Pork and collards are as native as jazz and the blues, and I knew from the chef's cookbook that he had a way with the pig.  Fudge Farms pigs are crossbreeds (Durocs and Berkshires), and the result is extra marbling, tenderness and flavor (and no hormones).  The plate of food delivered to me was beautifully symmetric, featuring a circle of darkly burnished square pieces of pork belly, with the layers of meat separated by a thin vein of lustrous fat.  At center, was a mound of the best collards I have ever tasted, the sharp taste of collards tempered by a more sweet than sour braising liquid and smoked with so much hickory that the greens tasted as if they were made in someone's fireplace 100 years ago.  The dish was as good an example of southern cuisine as I have had in my 30 years of eating in the south.
    If the pork belly had not been on the menu, strong contenders for my order would have been the Jamison Farms Leg of Lamb with artichokes, sweet peas, bulb onions, sugar snaps and local carrots ($29) or the "Canard Nantais" North Carolina Duck with spoonbread, star anise and red wine ($28).
    After the pork belly, ordering dessert was more about my job as ersatz restaurant critic than having any room for it.  Frank's Favorite cake ($7.50) was excellent, a white cake with layers of a flavored whipped cream and topped with a fresh meringue, all clearly made in house.  Truth be told, I would have preferred just one more of those squares of pork belly for dessert.
    Highlands Bar & Grill, 2011 11th Avenue South, Birmingham, AL.  (205) 939-1400.  Web:  HighlandsBarandGrill.com.  The restaurant is about 15 minutes from the Robert Trent Jones golf courses at Oxmoor Valley and Ross Bridge.