Golf Community Reviews

        A golf course slope rating measures the difficulty of a layout for the typical bogey golfer, one who shoots around 90 over 18 holes.  A course of average difficulty has a slope rating of 113; the highest possible slope rating is 155, at the famed Pine Valley in New Jersey.  Although not always the case, the longer a golf course, the more difficult for a bogey golfer who, almost by definition, either doesn’t hit the ball very far off the tee or does not hit it straight, thereby bringing lots of trouble into play.

        Golf courses of less than 6,500 yards and slope ratings in the mid-130s are rare, and those brutes that seem fair and fun to play for the bogey golfer are rarer still.  I played one of those earlier this week at Bay Creek Resort and Club in Cape Charles, Virginia.

        The slope rating from the white tees at the Nicklaus course at Bay Creek -- total length 6,456 yards -- is a whopping 138.  The raters took note, I am sure, of the winds coming in off the Chesapeake Bay combined with the smallish but undulating greens, the many in-play fairway bunkers and the possibility for nasty pin positions just over steep faced bunkers that guard the mostly elevated greens.

The approach to the 16th at Bay Creek Nicklaus.  While the front nine plays near and along the Chesapeake Bay, much of the back nine takes advantage of pine forests and adds a little touch of white here and there.

 

        I played bogey golf, barely breaking 90, but at no time did I scratch my head because the course seemed unfair or unnecessarily difficult.  I scratched my head a lot, but it was always over decision-making.  This is a thinking man’s course that can best be summed up by consideration of one of its many interesting holes, the very short par 4 8^th where, on the tee box, your hand is likely to bounce between driver and long iron before you finally make a selection.  I was playing by myself so, for kicks, I played two balls off the tee of the intriguing hole, just 291 yards into the wind from the white tees (6,456 yards total).  A lake protects the right side of the fairway almost to the green, and bunkers lay horizontally in the fairway about 225 yards from the tee.  The positioning of the water and bunkers gives the hole a left to right dogleg orientation. 

        I hit a good drive out along the water’s edge, mindful the wind was blowing pretty hard back toward the fairway.  The ball wound up on the far right side of the fairway, a mere 90 yards from the center of the green, the pin just beyond a greenside bunker.  I hit a three-iron from the tee to just inside the 150-yard pole but, from there, I had more or less a direct line at the pin.  Any designer who makes you think about the tradeoffs on the tee box –- risky driver to leave a short approach over a bunker or safe iron to leave a longer but more direct shot -– has accomplished one trademark of excellent golf course design -- appeal to the mental more than the physical aspects of the game.

Pick your poison:  At the short par 4 #8, your choice of shots from the tee will leave you with a short but tricky approach or a longer but more direct shot.

 

        For the average bogey golfer, the most daunting feature of the Nicklaus course will be the wind coming off the bay.  On the front nine, the four holes along the bay play in four different directions providing three different experiences with the breezes –- into the teeth of it on the very short par 4^th, hard right to left on the par 4 5^th and back into it again on the par 4 6^th.  As you move back inland, your drive on the long par 5 7^th is straight downwind; I found the bunker on the far side of the fairway after hitting my best drive of the day.  On the back nine, it seemed the

prevailing winds were sweeping across most of the fairways, rather than from behind or in front.  Whereas on most of the front nine hole, club selection was paramount, on the back nine picking your correct aiming line was more a factor.

        I was not striking the ball very well and found six fairway bunkers, as well as four greenside bunkers.  Many of the greens at Bay Creek are elevated, and if you don’t carry above the false-front edge, you bounce right or left.  On most other 6,400-yard courses, my poor approach shots would have resulted in routine greenside chips, but at Bay Creek Nicklaus, they were bunker shots.

        Oddly for a course with such windy conditions, I found the par 5s the easiest of the groupings.  The fairways were at their most generous on the three-shotters.  The par 3s showed great variety, from the 12^th (185 yards into the wind and 238 from the tips) to the 131 yard 4^th that plays toward the bay and directly into the wind.

        Greens on the Nicklaus course had recovered nicely from aeration two weeks earlier and putted true if not fast.  In two weeks they should be outstanding.  I did not have a bad lie in the fairways or rough, although as the temperatures go up at night the balls that find the rough will begin to sit down.

        Golf carts with GPS are on order at Bay Creek.   That will be a big plus as first-time players on both the Palmer and Nicklaus courses need all the guidance they can get (yardage books are not available because of

the impending GPS).  Another slight nit:  Slightly raised stone curbs line most of the cart paths, and although they are beautiful to look at, they can give your back a jolt as you exit and enter the fairways at certain points.  Also, Bay Creek should be commended for not polluting the area 40 yards in front of the greens with “Carts This Way” signs; instead they use small dark green poles on each side of the fairway to show the exit area.  But the large barber-pole striped 150-yard stakes at dead center in the fairways pollute the beautiful, sweeping vistas.  Once the new GPS carts arrive, Bay Creek would do well to send the poles to the scrap heap.

        The Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus courses at Bay Creek are among the best on the east coast and worthy of being played at least twice each during a long golfing weekend or week.  The real estate is reasonably priced, the nearby town of Cape Charles is charming, and those with a yen for some extra action will find Norfolk just 30 minutes away.  Footnote for New Yorkers and New Englanders:  Bay Creek is about halfway to Myrtle Beach.  You could leave home early in the morning, take the ferry from Cape May, NJ, and get in a quick nine before the sun goes down on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay.

        If Bay Creek sounds like a place you might want to investigate, contact me and I will provide more information and help arrange a visit for you.

The 15th is just one of the interesting par 3s on the Nicklaus course.

        I played two fine golf community courses the last two days –- Jack Nicklaus’ at Bay Creek in Cape Charles, VA, and the Arnold Palmer layout at Scotch Hall Preserve in Merry Hill, NC.  (The Palmer layout is actually credited to Harrison Minchew, one of Palmer’s designers).

        I will review both golf courses in the coming days but below are two of the more picturesque par 3 holes on each course.  At top is Bay Creek #4, a par three that plays west toward an extension of the Chesapeake Bay and into a prevailing wind.  The hole is played from two distinctly different angles; three additional tee boxes sit well to the right of the tee box below, giving the wind a more right to left orientation.  It is a short hole, playing about 135 yards from the middle tees, but devilish.

        The Palmer hole is #17 at Scotch Hall and plays toward the Albemarle Sound.  The wind wasn’t blowing today but at 180+ yards from the middle tees, the hole was challenging enough.

        No highway east of the Mississippi and, perhaps, in all of America is more chock-a-block with golf communities than is U.S. Highway 17, which begins somewhere around Winchester, VA, and runs out of macadam in Punta Gorda, FL.  For most of its length, the highway hugs the coast, breezing through or brushing against such popular golfing destinations as Wilmington, Myrtle Beach, Charleston, and Savannah.  A couple searching for any type of golf community on the coast can pretty much stay on U.S. 17 for a few weeks worth of visits.

        South of Norfolk, U.S. 17 makes its way through the Albemarle Sound area.  The Albemarle, located on the northeast coast of North Carolina, was a little late to develop golf communities.  The towns of Hertford, Edenton and Elizabeth City did not provide the lure of, say, a Myrtle Beach, for northerners seeking entertainment and other attractions to go with their golf course living.  For peace and quiet, though, it is hard to beat.

        Until recently, Albemarle Plantation, with its Dan Maples course Sound Links, could lay claim to being the only golf community of note in the area.  But now it has some competition in Scotch Hall Preserve, a fledgling community that will be built around an already opened and well-reviewed Arnold Palmer golf course about a half hour south of Albemarle Plantation and just a couple of miles off U.S. Highway 17.  I am making my first trip to Scotch Hall tomorrow to play the golf course and talk with the developers; I visited Albemarle Plantation a few years ago and was impressed with its location and its golf course.

        Unlike in places like Myrtle Beach, where there are so many golf communities that any attempt to stand out is an expensive and potentially futile exercise, the Albemarle Sound area is different, with just these two players.  I noted on my drive south today that the marketing skirmishes between the two communities have begun in the trenches, literally, alongside U.S. 17.   The dueling billboards reminded me of the gas wars of the 1960s.  Customers looking for the type of lifestyle the Albemarle Sound can provide should be the beneficiaries of the added competition.

        If you are interested in more information about either of these communities, or in arranging for a visit, please contact me.

Real estate taxes on million dollar homes in The Landings near Savannah, GA, run about $12,000 a year, one-third of the assessment on similar homes in many northern metro areas.

 

        For legal reasons too convoluted to get into here, property taxes in the already overburdened state of New Jersey may continue their straight line up, according to an article today in the Wall Street Journal.  A string of state supreme court rulings have resulted in suburban New Jersey taxpayers paying not only for their local schools but also for under-funded urban schools.  Few dispute the urban schools needs for the extra help, but plenty of folks believe that suburbanites are paying an unfair share of the burden.  One West Orange owner of a “four-bedroom home on a small lot” estimates, for example, that his annual property tax of $26,000 will soon increase a couple thousand dollars.

        New Jersey’s property tax increases are not unusual among northeastern states as they all scramble to find a way out of their budget crises and to comply with court rulings.  Those baby boomer home owners waiting for the values of their homes to return to pre-2005 levels might do well to compare their tax burden with property tax bills in highly livable areas of the south.  If you can save $10,000 or more a year on taxes by moving, that could be an encouragement to sharpen the listing price on your primary home.

        Based on his tax bill, that West Orange owner’s home is valued between $800,000 and $900,000.  Here are some current assessed annual tax rates (and fees) on homes valued in that same range in a few of our favorite golf communities in the southern U.S. (golf course designers indicated)

 

Asheville, NC (Hendersonville)

Champion Hills (Fazio)

3,800 square feet, 3 BR, 3 1/2 BA, offered at $825,000

Taxes:  $3,210.  Fees:  $2,556.  Total:  $5,766

 

Charlottesville, VA (Keswick)

Glenmore (LaFoy)

6,057 square feet, 5 BR, 5 BA, offered at $829,000

Taxes:  $5,443.  Fees:  $797

 

Greenville, SC (Greer)

Thornblade Club neighborhood (Fazio)

6,100 square feet, 5 BR, 4 BA, 2 1/2 BA, offered at $899,000

Taxes: $6,523   Fees:  $560

 

Skidaway Island, GA (Savannah)

The Landings (Fazio, Palmer, Hills, Byrd)

3,700 square feet, 3 BR, 4 1/2 BA, offered at $825,000

Taxes: $9,600    Fees:  $1,460

 

Chapel Hill, NC

Governors Club (Nicklaus)

5,749 square feet, 5 BR, 5 1/2 BA, offered at $799,000

Taxes:  $4,862.  Fees:  $1,900

This is the second and final part of our review of Bay Creek Resort & Club in Cape Charles, VA.  Part one is available by clicking here.

 

The cart path on Bay Creek's Jack Nicklaus course moves through a replica of a lighthouse on the resort's Arnold Palmer course.

 

        Retirees looking for consistently warm days in winter will head south on Highway 13 right past Bay Creek and keep going about 10 hours more.  But anyone who can handle, say, the four seasons of Asheville, NC, will be quite comfortable in Cape Charles, which is one degree warmer in the dead of winter than is Asheville (average Cape Charles high temperature in January is 47 degrees Fahrenheit) and just two degrees warmer in July (86 degrees average).  Bay Creek’s golf courses are open all winter, and the pro shop has a nice selection of sweaters, windbreakers and everything else you might need to play in the 40s.  Those used to northern winters should not find this part of the south particularly daunting in January or overly oppressive in July.

        If a community were judged on its flora alone, Bay Creek would be The Cliffs Communities, Kiawah Island Resort and Boca Raton Club all rolled into one.  Developer Dickie Foster’s obsession with landscaping shows in the sheer numbers of rose bushes, azaleas and other plantings that festoon the golf community.  Indeed, Bay Creek predicts a million roses will bloom this year, many of them lining streams and ponds on the golf courses.  Off both sides of a wooden bridge that leads to the 3^rd green on the Palmer course, for example, huge wooden planters hold multiple rose bushes.  On the 18^th hole, a stream that crosses the fairway at a strategic point is literally hidden from view by a solid row of rose bushes that look as if they would stop a too-strong tee shot (but don’t test the theory; lay up).

        Although Foster does not play golf, he is attached to the seat of his golf cart, members say, touring the property on an almost-daily basis, filling the visual gaps in the landscape with rose bushes dancing in his head.  Real estate sales director Linda Buskey told me that Foster once called her excitedly to say that he had scored a great deal on truckloads of rose bushes.

        “’Dickie,’ I told him,” said Buskey, “‘you got a great deal because you bought so many.’”

        In all, according to Buskey, more than 50,000 rose, azalea and hydrangea plants are positioned throughout the Bay Creek property.

        Foster surely hopes the empty lots at Bay Creek will fill in as quickly as the rose beds.  Sales, which never really hit a growth spurt in the 2000 to 2005 time period, ground almost to a halt after the recession started.  With 2,500 owners expected at full build out, Bay Creek has just 700 owners today, slightly more than 25%.  That is likely why Foster took on equity partners Kaiser Financial in 2008 to help fund the next phases of development at Bay Creek.  Except for empty plots out near the bay, no signs of a cash drain at Bay Creek are visible.  Dozens of workers were out tending to the course during my recent visit; I watched a line of 20 of them with shovels on one of the practice greens scooping up the plugs generated by the aeration machines.  The clubhouse and pro shop, which will be supplemented in a few years by a larger building adjacent to the club’s current parking lot, were well staffed.

        The golf courses, which are managed by the Billy Casper Company and have been “semi-private” since they opened, won’t go private until membership reaches 350.  They are about halfway there.  Each day, the club closes one course to outside play for the exclusive benefit of members, a creative and smart touch.  Initiation fees are not cheap, at $39,000, but that is a “deposit,” fully refundable at resignation after enough new members join (four for every one member on the refund list).  A special non-refundable “masters” membership is also available for $5,000.  Dues for a golfing couple run $310 per month on both plans.  For those who live 100 miles from the community, dues are about $100 less per month.

        Geographic location drives real estate pricing more than designer golf does, and Bay Creek offers reasonably priced real estate consistent with its off-the-beaten-path location.  Three-bedroom condos in the attractively designed Fairways section along the 11^th fairway of the Palmer course are spacious and fine as weekend or even summer getaways; they are priced beginning at just $250,000.  Other, larger units in The Fairways top out at $350,000, the price at which smaller single-family homes begin in a section called The Hollies.  Lots with water views seem especially reasonable at Bay Creek; one home site that looks out along the scenic 2^nd hole on the Palmer course and out to the bay beyond is priced at $200,000. I’ve seen comparable water view lots in other communities priced at double or triple that.  Construction costs in Bay Creek typically run at $200 per square foot, which includes hardi-plank exteriors, hardwood floors and granite counters.

        With all that the Bay Creek Resort & Club has going for it -– its reasonable prices, proximity to densely populated areas in the middle-Atlantic states, and far but yet so near access to Norfolk, VA –- why isn’t it as well known as some of its eastern seaboard competitors, like Landfall (Wilmington), The Landings (Savannah), and St. James Plantation (Southport, NC)?  Unlike those others, Bay Creek is a resort as well as a residential community, and it is a challenge to convince potential year round residents that the vacationers won’t impose on their golf courses and their lifestyles.  If Bay Creek can find a way to attract and appeal to both its permanent and transient residents, it stands a good chance of being mentioned in the same breath as its more southerly competitors.  A slightly more aggressive marketing approach could help New England and metro New York golfers understand they have a viable alternative to the more honky tonk Myrtle Beach golf vacation.

        In early May, one million rosebuds, azaleas and other plantings will explode with color at Bay Creek.  The developer and earliest residents have been waiting 10 years for real estate sales in the community to blossom.  With a revitalized market and some of the fairest prices on the east coast, there is no reason why Bay Creek cannot begin to reap what it has sown.

 

        Bay Creek Resort & Club, Cape Charles, VA.  Web:  www.baycreek.net.  For more information or to arrange a visit, contact us by clicking on the "Contact Us" tab at the top of the page.

The finishing hole on the Palmer course demands three precise shots to reach the green -- or two, if your guts and your placement off the tee are up to it.

        We are constantly impressed with the extent to which copywriters will go to distinguish their golf community or golf course from the rest of the pack.  With thousands of courses vying for attention, the descriptions can range from the sophomoric to the overheated.  But rarely have we read a steamier pile of bad writing than the description of the Wolf Creek Golf Club in Mesquite, NV, near Las Vegas.

        Here is the description of the Wolf Creek golf course posted at its web site:

        “The course -– tucked into the northeast corner in Mesquite -– is carved beautifully out of the desert. The layout will test your game with its stunning layout, overwhelm you with its dazzling beauty and overwhelm you with its breath-taking (sic) views…all at the same time.”

        It is enough to take your breath away.

 

        Heading for his next tournament stop in Charlotte, Tiger Woods makes a visit today to The Cliffs at High Carolina, site of his first American golf course design.  The golfer, no doubt buoyed almost as much as Cliffs founder and developer Jim Anthony by the $60 million property owners have provided for completion of the course and other amenities, has signed up to play in the Quail Hollow Championship this weekend, his second tour event since returning from a long layoff precipitated by his marital infidelities scandal.

        According to Anthony, and as s reported by the The State newspaper in Greenville, SC, heavy grading on the golf course should begin within a month.  You can read The State article by clicking here. 

The Arnold Palmer Course at Bay Creek opens with a stunning par 5 that moves toward the Chesapeake and a replica lighthouse.

 

        Bay Creek Resort & Club may be the best golf community you’ve never heard of.  Burdened by its location on the underappreciated Delmarva Peninsula (Delmarva for Delaware, Maryland and Virginia), Bay Creek’s positioning may not strike many folks as particularly southern in climate or temperament.  In spite of its Virginia address, it feels as much Mason as it does Dixon.  Its tiny historic town of Cape Charles is not exactly Williamsburg, the nearest hospital is 20 miles north, and the closest Walmart about a half hour.  Those barreling south on Highway 13 toward the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel would be hard pressed to imagine that 36 holes of stellar golf and a beautifully turned out waterfront community were a mere three minutes to the west.

        Yet, Bay Creek’s middle-of-no-place vibe is deceiving.  It is just six hours from New York City, thanks to modern ferry service from Cape May, NJ, to Lewes, DE.  Jersey residents and Philadelphians are hours closer, giving Bay Creek a proximity advantage, especially as a vacation home location, over Virginia Beach and points farther south.  And the remoteness issue is pretty much a figment since Norfolk, with its modern shopping and international airport, is just 35 minutes away.

 

Tiny town, big plans

        Not that vacationers or permanent residents will be encouraged to venture from Bay Creek too often.  Once inside the guarded gate, first time visitors will be amazed at the profusion of flora spread over the community’s 1,800 acres, a veritable botanical garden of 50,000 roses, azaleas and flowering trees.  Cape Charles, whose size could have inspired the line “Don’t blink, you might miss it,” nonetheless has just enough in the way of restaurants and other services, plus an honest to goodness old fashioned drugstore with a throwback soda fountain, to render it as useful as it is charming.  Seafood fans won’t have to go far for shrimp, oysters and clams plucked from nearby waters.

        In the 19^th and early 20^th Centuries, Cape Charles served as an important railroad terminus for cargo heading across the bay; and its many Victorian-styled homes are in various states of renovation, indicating that the town’s best days may lie ahead, and Bay Creek is doing its part.  Cape Charles' most modern housing lies just a few hundred yards beyond town, in Bay Creek’s Marina Villages, which looks back across the Chesapeake toward “mainland” Virginia, separated from its golf resort section by about two miles of coastline.  The two- and three-story homes in the Villages arc their way along the bay, with million dollar views of brilliant sunsets at home site prices that range from $300,000 to $600,000.  An adjacent marina accommodates up to 225 boats as large as 200 feet.  Upscale shops and Aqua, the best reviewed restaurant within 30 miles, serve the Villages' permanent residents and rental guests.

 

The 3rd hole on the Palmer is the toughest on the course, as beautiful as it is treacherous.

 

The King and Bear, together at last

        Bay Creek is the brainchild of Richard “Dickie” Foster, whose career as a developer tracks somewhat that of the more elaborately marketed Jim Anthony of Cliffs Communities fame.  Anthony, Cliffs fans will tell you even if you don’t ask, is a former lineman for the telephone company who went on to become one of the biggest landowners in the Carolinas.  Foster’s career started just as modestly.  In the early 1960s, he was part of the construction team on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, that engineering marvel that spans 20 miles of water from 10 miles south of Bay Creek to Norfolk, VA.  The job must have paid well, or 1,800 acres of land abutting the bay and Cape Charles must have come cheap in the 1990s, because Foster bought it all and conceived Bay Creek.

        Like The Cliffs’ Anthony, Foster is not a golfer -– “The sport bores me,” he once told a writer -- but he understood that golf courses helped sell dirt, and golf courses with big names attached to them could push up the price of the dirt for both vacationers and retirees.  He knew the names of only two golf designers, Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus, and was actually working with Palmer at The Signature, a course Foster had commissioned in Virginia Beach.  But he was unaware the two golf legends had never worked on the same property and had never showed an inclination to do so.  Foster would become something of a marriage broker, doling out space to each for nine holes along the bay and giving them the run of the rest of the land.  Palmer completed his course in 2001 and Nicklaus followed in 2005.  They are excellent complements to each other, courses you will want to play more than once during a golfing vacation and, therefore, probably need at least a week’s stay to do it.  Golf packages at Bay Creek are reasonably priced (e.g. 4 nights, 4 rounds of golf, $525 per person), and if you are serious about looking at property there, the price is even better (contact me and I can arrange a visit).

        Those who could not suppress a tear or a smile at the sight of Palmer

and Nicklaus together at Augusta National earlier this month will be impressed to learn the two are united at Bay Creek.  Palmer’s 18 holes meander up and down and left and right over a tract of land that surely was pretty flat before the bulldozers were called in.  The designers also trucked in a lot of sand, but this Palmer course does not feature the typical over-the-top bunkering of The King’s more steroidic designs.  Indeed, as he ages and turns more of the design responsibilities over to his capable staff architects, Palmer’s designs seem mellower, not the in-your-face layouts of yesteryear.  I walked the course for three days behind groups of good collegiate golfers and observed that the firm and fast greens and forced carries are a stern test for single-digit players.  I scratched my head over the design of only one or two holes, which is well below the quota of missteps on many Palmer courses.

        In virtually any multi-course golf community, this Palmer course would be the most challenging, but not at Bay Creek where Nicklaus’ layout is a brute, at least three or four strokes tougher, according to those who have played both.  After borrowing a cart and touring the Nicklaus layout -– it was being aerated –- the only relief I noted were the wide fairways on a couple of holes.  Natural grasses at the edge of play were abundant, and the greens were much smaller and narrower than on the Palmer course.   If they come back after aeration as firm and fast as those on the Palmer course, the 72.5 rating from 6,456 yards and slope of 135 will seem conservative, especially given the prevailing winds coming off the bay.

Coming next:  Bay Creek sales ready to burst forth?

The Nicklaus Course at Bay Creek was closed for aeration, but even without the flag whipping in the bay winds, the difficulty of the short par 3 4th hole was plain to see.