Golf Community Reviews

Here's where they are playing golf today, and where they are not:


You are playing today if you live in…

Panama City, FL       Partly sunny, Hi 64 degrees

Savannah, GA           Partly cloudy, 60

Aiken, SC                   Mostly sunny, 58

Jacksonville, FL        Partly cloudy, 62

Myrtle Beach, SC      Partly cloudy, 55

Rocky Mount, NC      Partly cloudy, 53

Wilmington, NC         Partly cloudy, 55

Scottsdale, AZ           Sunny, 75

Austin, TX                  Sunny, 64

Las Vegas, NV          Sunny, 67


Where you should not be playing today…

Wintergreen, VA       Partly cloudy, 38, winds to 20 mph

Rehoboth, DE           Partly cloudy, 33, winds to 25 mph

Nashville, TN            Possible snow, 33

Charlottesville, VA   Partly cloudy, 38, winds to 25 mph


If you really must…

Santa Fe, NM            Mostly sunny, 40

Jonesboro, GA          Mostly sunny, 49, winds to 20 mph

    As a competitor, Greg Norman went for broke on every shot, the advice of his caddie or cooler heads be damned.  The results were sometimes glorious, and sometimes painful to watch.  But there was never a doubt that he was trying his hardest every time he swung.  At the recently opened $500 million Tennessee National community near Knoxville, golf course designer Norman is firmly in control of his game. 
    The golf course will be noticed for its bold design as well as its bold designer.  A shark can’t live without water, and on the Tennessee National club’s 240-acre canvas, this Shark has painted in a lot of blue.  Manmade and natural lakes come into play on 11 holes, and the Tennessee River is a factor on five of them.  Yet the course’s sand traps may generate the most conversation.  They reflect an obvious soft spot Norman has for the only major golf championship he ever won, The Open (what jingo Americans refer to as The British Open).  At Tennessee National, he has designed more than 75 stacked sod bunkers (of the total 105 bunkers) echoing those at Turnberry, where he first secured the claret jug. (His other Open victory was at Royal St. Georges.)  The bunkers give the design an extra jolt of eye candy and ensure that the steep faces of the mostly deep traps neither cave in nor embed Titleists (they are held together with a special epoxy compound).  At 7,400 yards from the tips, the course provides a stiff challenge for the accomplished golfer, its four other tees providing less exhausting routings.
    Visually, the course puts most emphasis around the greens, which are framed by some fierce looking deep traps with those sod walls. The par 3 12th (below) is a signature hole in the making, combining both the traps and river into a beautifully intimidating tableau.  At 209 yards from the back tees, you face a downhill shot with six deep sod bunkers built into a hill in front, another one left and another at left rear, and the river immediately on the right.  There is little room for a bail out, and if you come up short and land between the traps, the slope will take you down to wetlands.  It is the kind of hole that makes you sigh deeply on the tee box for its beauty and difficulty. 
    The initial few “spec” houses at Tennessee National are of the “mountain craftsman” style that we’ve seen elsewhere in the Blue Ridge and Smoky Mountains, which is to say lots of stacked stone and indigenous timber, very rustic.  Prices begin around $375,000 for amply sized “cottages,” and villas will range from $500,000 and up. Tennessee National includes all the customary amenities expected of a high-end community, plus a planned marina and adjacent village that will accommodate residents bearing boats, as well as golf clubs.  Golf memberships are $30,000 with dues pegged at $385 per month.  Tennessee National’s web site is www.tennesseenational.com.

    More than 150 golf clubs across the land, including my own Hop Meadow Country Club in Simsbury, CT, have signed on to the Private Club Network, making these otherwise private clubs accessible to each other's members.  The Network is the invention of Creative Golf Marketing, a Manhattan, Kansas firm that helps private clubs increase membership.  If I am traveling to, say, Nashville, as I will soon, I can arrange for a round of golf at the private Brentwood Country Club; all I pay is the mandatory $25 cart fee.
    The web site for the Private Club Network is www.privateclubnetwork.com.  Unless you belong to a private club, it may be a little tricky to register to see the Network's list of private clubs.  But they do have an 800 number and offer email contact as well. 
    If you live in the area of one of the Network's clubs and do a lot of traveling, you might want to consider membership in the local club.

    Just as I was checking out of a bed and breakfast in Wilmington, NC, recently after a research trip that included enjoyable rounds of golf at Porter's Neck and the Nicklaus course at Landfall, the proprietor asked me if I had visited Eagle Pointe.  I hadn't, nor had I even heard of it.  He indicated it was "super private" and built five years ago by a few equities traders from "up north" who wanted a course where they knew they could always get a tee time, even at the last minute.  So they built Eagle Pointe.
    Internet searches have turned up only cursory information -- the course was designed by Tom Fazio and plays up to 7,170 yards -- but the club remains shrouded in a little mystery.  Anyone played it?  Anyone know anything more about it?  Please post any comments below, and thanks.

    The housing market is no great shakes anywhere at the moment, and those who have been sitting on the sidelines waiting for prices to moderate in retirement friendly places like Florida and the rest of the southeast may feel their time is coming...unless they live, say, in the northeast.
    We are quite familar with a number of golfing communities in the southeast, and annual price appreciations in some locations in the Carolinas and Georgia, for example, remain in the mid-to-high single digits.  Those near-retirees in the northeast who see a future life in the south may want to consider fast-forwarding their plans.  According to the New England Economic Partnership, a forecast organization, housing prices are essentially going nowhere fast in the northeast over the next four to five years. 
    Prices in Massachusetts, which had fallen for six straight months as of the end of November, will continue to fall into 2008 before leveling off into the end of the decade, according to the NEEP.  No other state in New England is expected so see home appreciations of more than 2.7% annually between now and 2010.   If you consider that your house provides a roof over your head, then a 1% or 2% annual appreciation is not so bad.  But consider that prices in retirement magnets like Charleston, SC, and Albuquerque, NM, appreciated 4% and 5% respectively in just the 2nd quarter of 2006, buoyed not only by boomers moving south but also by some Floridians who were tired of traffic and longing for a short but palpable winter. 
    In short, every year a northerner defers selling her home and buying one in the south means an erosion of buying power and eventually settling for less house.  Stated another way, today the waterfront view, next year the golf course, the year after that the woods.

During our research trips, we not only review golf courses in communities but also some of the better free-standing private clubs.  They are a viable alternative for those who do not wish to live in a planned community or pay for certain amenities they don't use.


Fox Den's par 3 2nd hole is a sleek introduction to a sophisticated round.


   Some golf clubs just go about their business, attracting new members by word of mouth rather than elaborate marketing, building their reputation by taking good care of their golf course and their members and letting the members do the advertising for them.
    That’s the way it is at the Fox Den Country Club, which includes an eclectic private golf course 15 miles southwest of Knoxville and, by all reckoning, an exceedingly well-managed club.  Atlanta architect Bill Bergin renovated the 1968 Willard Byrd design in 2004, resurfacing all the greens, reshaping most, and adding new bunkers, a modern drainage system and new cart paths.  The work cost more than $1 million, all paid from club funds without the need for an extra assessment.  Rather than scheduling the projects one at a time, thereby affecting play for up to 18 months, members were persuaded to close the course for six months and do all the work at one time.
Members run the gamut and include young couples, retirees, a few singles and many local professionals.  The first impression of Fox Den on a hot July day was the squeals coming from the swimming pool, confirming that one-third of the club’s members have children living at home.  But out on the golf course, the pace was leisurely as we played behind a number of 70-somethings; on a 100-degree day, we weren’t in any great hurry either.  The average age of the membership is currently around 60 but getting younger every year.
    The parkland course, which is good enough to have hosted the Nationwide Tour’s Knoxville Open the last nine years, employs just about every design element.  Sand bunkers are well placed within range of tee shots and approaches to the well-contoured, not overly large greens.  Holes without bunkers usually feature elevated greens and/or water on the approaches.  One of our favorite holes (below right), the par 4 15th, had it all.  The dogleg right was guarded by sand traps at the elbow and trees on the right, requiring either a faded drive at the corner or a safe three wood to land short of the bunkers.  A lake protected the left side of the green, ready to gobble any overcooked draws.  The hole is beautifully designed, everything a good-sized (417 yards) dogleg hole should be.
The course was in great shape, with modestly fast and smooth greens and fairways that propped the ball up a little.  There was evidence of irrigation work on one hole where a rope ran pretty much the length of mid-fairway, but the grass in the fairway appeared just about ready for unimpeded play.  Fox Den is a course that should be enjoyable to play every day; given the placement of traps and water at greenside, simple changes of pin positions will present a variety of approaches.  It certainly is not an easy course, with the short men's tees of just over 6,100 yards carrying a slope of 131, high for that kind of yardage (it is 138 from the tips at 7,100 yards).  Best of all, a good walk is rarely spoiled at Fox Den, and 50% of the members carry their bags.
    Fox Den, which is open for play year round, is in the middle of a mature housing development that was built in 1969, a year after the course opened.  The homes rarely encroach.  Most are large and well maintained, but there are a few small ones that could stand major overhauls (or tear down).  Prices are relatively modest, as they are in the entire Knoxville area (for now), with nice homes of about 3,000 square feet, when available, selling for about $500,000 and up.  About half the members of Fox Den come from the immediate surrounding community.
    Membership fees for Fox Den are reasonable given the quality of the golf course, the amenities and the high level of country club attention given to members.  Initiation fees are $15,000 with monthly dues of $390 for full golf membership.  Membership is of the non-equity variety, but all members get to vote on club business.  Late last year, the club's membership rolls were close to being filled.
    Fox Den is not at all a snooty private club, as the membership process implies.  According to Membership Director Jason Hull, an applicant requires the signatures of two full-time members, but for those new to the area, introductions are made.  The club also asks that prospective members attend a "welcom lunch."  All that remains is a credit check and approval at one of the board’s monthly meetings, and you are in.  Hull says he does not ever recall anyone being rejected.
    For more information, contact Membership Director Jason Hull at (865) 966-9771 or foxdencc@aol.com.  Web site:  www.FoxDenCountryClub.com.


Fox Den's finisher is charming but treacherous.


The homes adjacent to Fox Den are an eclectic mix of new and old, but they do not encroach on the course.