Golf Community Reviews

    I wrote here some months ago that developers and others interested in propping up sales in the current weak market would do well to focus overseas, where most currencies are strong against the weak U.S. dollar.  Now, without

even trying, the CFO of Zillow.com, the real estate web site that features estimates (they call them "zestimates") for more than 80 million U.S. homes, says his company's site has seen a 50% bump in traffic from overseas during the last year.  And more than 8% of those checking out prices of real estate in Florida are from outside the U.S., as are more than 4% of those looking at Las Vegas properties.  Bottom fishing is not just an American sport.  However, some one needs to warn all our Euro friends that, by the time they get here, gas at the pump in Las Vegas might be more expensive than in Liverpool.
    The Zillow exec says all this overseas traffic has come without the company doing any brand awareness advertising at all.  They don't really have to in this Internet Age.  When I plugged into Google the search terms "U.S. real estate prices," Zillow.com came up second on the list of places to check.  It came up third when the terms were "U.S. home prices."
    Zillow, and its rival Trulia, are still not perfect, but they continue to refine their algorithms to come a little closer to true market value in their estimates.  And, according to the Zillow exec whose interview with the Wall Street Journal online you can watch by clicking here, his company now permits homeowners to edit and update information about their own houses.  I just added an update about a kitchen remodeling we did a few years ago and it automatically changed the estimated range of our home's value. 

    However, don't go adding too much to your estimate just to pump up your home's value; you never want to be the most expensive house in the neighborhood, and at Zillow, the world can see not only what your house is worth, but what your neighbors' houses are worth as well.

    Note:  In yesterday's article, we described the wide variety of golf at Ocean Ridge, with more on the way in 2009.  We finish our review of the community today with a discussion of its location and profile.

 

    Ocean Ridge will appeal to those who don't want to be pigeonholed into a homogeneous community.  The community's residents comprise retirees, young professionals and a mix of others, including a number of second home owners who don't want to be tied to private golf club membership and like the proximity to the ocean.  Ocean Ridge residents have a choice between two nice beaches,

Ocean Isle and Sunset, both about five minutes away.  The community maintains a private oceanfront club at Sunset Beach which can accommodate a few dozen cars at a time.  If too many residents show up, which is what happens on holidays and busy weekends, public access points up and down the beach are plentiful (and the sand is exactly the same).
    At a point between Myrtle Beach and Wilmington, closer to Myrtle Beach by 15 minutes, and with an entrance on the main north/south route along the coast, Highway 17, Ocean Ridge residents have a choice between two entirely different cities for their shopping, entertainment and transportation needs.  Tourist mecca Myrtle Beach is the lure for loud entertainment options, a little bit honky tonk if you like that sort of thing.  And with another few dozen golf courses within a half hour, any Ocean Ridge resident who tires of his own five courses certainly has a wide variety a half a gas tank or so away.

    Wilmington, on the other hand, offers a more classic southern environment, with a more sedate vibe than the neon, tourist-invested Myrtle Beach.  The essentials of health care and food shopping are within 10 or 15 minutes of Ocean Ridge, although any serious medical issues might require a trip to Wilmington, about an hour away.
    Ocean Ridge provides mostly all the check-the-box amenities you expect from a community of its size, including tennis, indoor and outdoor pools, fitness centers, nature trails and two clubhouses with two more in the works.  For boaters, marinas are off property but nearby; Pelican Pointe Marina, for example, is just three

minutes from Ocean Ridge's gate and on the Intra-coastal Waterway.  The entrance to the community off of Highway 17 is gated and manned, but I had to wonder about security since I drove through an un-gated side entrance that featured neither guard nor guardhouse.  It was mid morning but it still made me wonder what the "Round the clock security services" in their marketing materials actually meant and how many other claims might be overstated.
    The community is divided into neighborhoods that are separate, if not distinct.  I saw a lot of brick exteriors one neighborhood to the next, very appealing if not very "beach house."  I expected to see more of the Charleston style homes that feature two stories and a wide front porch.  The few I noticed stood out as noteworthy.  Ocean Ridge has been open for over a decade and most of the community has a grown in, mature feel about it, although a number of home sites (beginning in the $200s) are still available, with many more to come adjacent to the Jaguar's Lair course.  Homes generally begin in the low $400s and proceed up to over $1 million. 
    Summary:  Ocean Ridge will appeal to those looking for a diverse community near a beach and just close enough to centers of entertainment and all necessary services, without being stifled by a nearby urban atmosphere.  The confusing array of golf membership programs may appeal only to math majors, but the variety of golf on property and off will appeal to anyone who swings a club, no matter their handicap.  Ocean Ridge's golf courses are very popular, and I strongly recommend that anyone interested in such a community with public courses spend some time there to determine if outside play will affect your own experience.  
    Final note:  Large developments like Ocean Ridge that have remaining lots to sell are in natural competition with local real estate agents.  If you deal only with the on-site real estate office, you may not see all (or any) of the resale lots that are for sale on the property.  Contact me and I can connect you with a local real estate agent I have personally qualified and worked with and who will open up the entire Multiple Listing Service to you.  There is no cost or obligation to you for this service, ever.

    Ocean Ridge Plantation, Highway 17, Sunset Beach, NC.  Web:  www.oceanridge.com.   Homesites from the $200s, homes from the $400s.

    I made a rookie mistake a week ago, a blunder unbecoming a veteran of golf playing on the Carolinas coast.  I assumed that, as a single, I would have no problem booking a tee time the day before I intended to play at one of the four courses at Ocean Ridge Plantation, the sprawling community about a half hour north of Myrtle Beach and near Sunset Beach, NC.  The earliest tee time available was 2 p.m., way too late for my schedule.
    You would think that on a property with four courses, a single could sneak out for a round in the morning.  But Ocean Ridge's layouts, all named for jungle cats, have been getting great buzz in Carolinas golfing circles and, more to the point, this was mid April, the single busiest golf week of the year near and along the Grand Strand.
    I did get a chance for a tour of Ocean Ridge with a preferred local real estate agent (let me know if you want to contact him) and the acquisition of about five pounds of marketing material, including a yardage book for the most recent course in the community, Leopard's Chase.  The course has received considerable publicity, including a top-10 designation for best new public course in Golf Digest.  That is why Leopard's Chase is currently commanding up to $173 for green fees, two to three times more than the community's other three courses.

    The par 72 Tim Cate design combines generous landing areas with forced carries and features the kind of sculpted scruffiness that provides a links land feel for those who dream of playing in Scotland.  Of course, at four miles from the ocean, Leopard's Chase can only claim to be a good representation, faux links.  But given $14 million to build the course, Cate, who is Ocean Ridge's "house designer" and was mentored by the respected Willard Byrd, had the tools he needed to approximate the feel of the Old Sod.
    Cate's other tracks at Ocean Ridge are well regarded and heavily trafficked.

I've played Tigers Eye a few times in past years and thought it did a good job of  combining challenging approach shots over large expanses of sand with the kind of open fairways almost mandatory in a course that appeals to daily fee resort players and members.  Cate also designed the slightly less regarded Panther's Run; the venerable Mr. Byrd, who has designed scores of courses up and down the east coast, contributed Lion's Paw.
    The big news in golf at Ocean Ridge, however, is the impending new 18-hole course called Jaguar's Lair, another Cate design.  The developers of Ocean Ridge purchased the former Angel's Trace course and its 36 holes, giving Cate the generous task of compressing two courses down to one and, of course, leaving some nice space for houses adjacent to the new track.  As is the case in any golf community, real estate sales pay for the golf course.  The course is slated to open in 2009.

    Although Ocean Ridge's golf courses are open to anyone, memberships are available but confusing in the way they are set up.  For example, you can join the original three courses (not the fourth, Leopard's Chase) for a $15,000 initiation fee.  Or, for $20,000, you can belong to all four, but you will need to be a property owner in certain neighborhoods within the community (the ones where the

developers still have a number of lots and homes for sale).  In terms of dues, they seem reasonable enough, the most expensive being a "family" program for all four courses at $4,535 per year, or less than $400 per month.  But that includes green fees for "one member and one qualifying family member."  I am not sure that meets most definitions of "family" membership.

    For those who intend to play a lot of golf, Ocean Ridge offers programs that include cart and green fees.  The most expensive plan of all is $8,300 annually but, again, pays for just two members from a family.  You can opt for special rates for additional "qualifying" family members if you want to pay additional annual charges (or you could just pay the daily fee when you need to).  Everything is way more confusing than it needs to be and any but the six-round-a-week player might want to compare membership costs against the daily fees, which range from $45 to $195 per round, depending on time of year and course.  It could save money and headaches.

   Coming Tomorrow:  The rest of the story on Ocean Ridge.
   

 

Jacksonville, FL, median home prices are down more than 10% in the last year.  Prices for homes in the golf and boating community of Queens Harbour begin in the $400s.

 

    Professor Robert Shiller, he of the noted and useful Standard & Poors Case-Shiller Index, gave a speech in New Haven, CT, the other day (story in Hartford Courant).  He predicted that home prices nationally could sink 30% before the current housing crisis abates.  Although many economists and certainly the Pollyannas at the National Association of Realtors do not agree with the good professor, his prediction is not to be trifled with.  The man was unerring in his prognostication of the dot.com bust in 2000 and the current housing meltdown.  When he talks, savvy people listen.
    His comments are more bad news, of course, for those who own homes they want to sell in the near future, and particularly rough on those psychologically bound to what their homes were worth three years ago.  If Professor Shiller and

other like-minded experts are right about the next few years, it could take a decade or longer for prices to move back to their former lofty levels.  And the longer that baby boomer tsunami holds off selling and moving south, the longer the crisis will last. This has been my overriding question for the last two years:  Just how long is this generation going to defer its retirement dreams?
    Another year or two may be too long for some.  Take the example of the purely invented George and Martha Jones.  They purchased their home in the suburbs of Boston, MA, 20 years ago and raised their two kids there (George worked in the city, Martha stayed home to be with the kids full time).  Their favorite vacations were in the Orlando area, and they have been planning to retire there for the last six years.  George will retire this July with a nice pension and a fair number of unexercised stock options in a company whose share price has increased over his two decades on the job.  They bought their home in 1988 for $200,000 and, at the height of the market three years ago, had it appraised for almost $750,000.  
    Last week, a neighbor who was forced for personal reasons to relocate sold a home similar to the Jones' for $625,000.  A local real estate friend told Martha and George their home would fetch about the same price.  They were appalled at the estimate but heartened that the supply of homes in Boston is currently only seven months (true figure).  On the other hand, prices in the area have dropped more than 8% (also true) in the last year.  In addition, according to Moodys, employment prospects in the Boston area for the next two years are "very weak" which, of course, will affect home prices.
    The housing market in Orlando is even worse, with prices having plummeted 19% since last year and a 21-month supply of unsold homes indicating it might get worse.  The employment outlook for Orlando, according to Moodys, is just "average," which is a good sign (bless you Disney World). Median prices for homes in Orlando are much lower than in Boston, and the Joneses could find themselves a darn nice house for $600,000.  So, with their kids off on their own and a net from their home of more than $400,000, what do the Jones' have to gain by waiting any longer to sell their home and move to Orlando?
    Nothing, really.  True, Orlando prices could continue to drop, and the Joneses may be able to pick up a home there in a few years for a lot less than they can today.  But the value of their home in Boston will continue to erode as well, and maybe more than Orlando real estate if those high-tech companies along Massachusetts' Route 110 continue to lay off employees or if the Jones' baby boomer neighbors decide they are happy with the few hundred thousand dollars gain from the sale of their homes.  That would put even more homes on the market.
    There is no reliable way to time the housing market from a financial standpoint.  Those who can get past what their homes were worth just a few years ago, get the best possible price in the current market, and move to the place they have been dreaming about for years will emerge from the housing morass with their heads held high and their pocketbooks intact.  Holding out for those mythic prices of 2005 is fool's gold.
    For a related article from the Wall Street Journal online, as well as a chart of 28 major metro markets, click here.  If you do not have a WSJ online account, let me know and I will email the article to you (use contact button at top of page).

 

*  Quote is from a poem by Langston Hughes.

 

You can have yourself a good walk on the fairways of Silver Lakes Golf Club, near Gadsden, AL.  The 7th, a par 5, features all R.T. Jones design elements packed into one hole.

   

    Prevention magazine and the American Podiatric Medical Association have published their list of the best and worst U.S. cities for walking.  Southern cities did not fare well.
    On the top-10 list, no city south of Washington, D.C. made the grade, unless you count Honolulu as south (Hawaii is, after all, the most southern of the 50 states).  Cambridge, MA, tops the list.  Been there, can't argue.
    Southern cities are unfortunately well represented on the list of the worst 10 for walking.  Two I have visited recently, Gadsden, AL, and Mt. Pleasant, SC, weigh in at 3rd and 5th worst respectively.  Gadsden's poor showing surprised me; any city that has a river run through it, in Gadsden's case the attractive Coosa, invites a stroll.  Every year, the Coosa and well known concert acts lure thousands of people to the annual River Fest celebration.  They don't come to stand in one place but rather to walk along the river.  I think Prevention and the foot docs may have erred on this one.    

    I can't fault the choice of Mt. Pleasant though, a town with which I am especially familiar.  I visit the area whenever I am in residence at Pawleys Island, about an hour north, and I've reviewed Mt. Pleasant's substantial golf communities and played their courses.  Mt. Pleasant is just north of Charleston, which itself should have made the top-10 list, along with Savannah.  If walking through malls counted for anything, Mt. Pleasant might be the best walking city, but the many shops that have opened along the highway have served to clog traffic and take away what little interesting walking space there was.  Walking in the small downtown area provides just a few blocks of respite.
    The small neighborhood adjacent to the Silver Lakes Golf Club, and about 10 minutes from Gadsden, offers some of the best bargains in golf course real estate anywhere.  The golf club's three nines, with the appropriate names Backbreaker, Mindbreaker and Heartbreaker, are excellent and well maintained, just above midpoint on the Robert Trent Jones Trail.  A nine-hole short course features some of the toughest par 3s I've encountered, all but one over water.

    Don't take my word about Gadsden.  River Fest this year is June 13 & 14, and there are some classic concert acts lined up for the two-day event, including Billy Ocean, Sister Hazel and Clint Black.  Play 27 at Silver Lakes and then kick back down by the river in Gadsden.  Web site:  Gadsdenriverfest.com.

    For a ranking of the top 500 cities to walk in, go the the APMA web site and enter the words "best walking cities" in the search box.

 The walk to the 11th green at RiverTowne Golf Club in Mt. Pleasant is magnitudes more pleasant than most walks in the mall-happy town. 

The par 5 16th at Poplar Grove is all risk and a little reward.  The tee shot must be long to a frighteningly narrow strip of fairway bounded by water right and sand left (and out of bounds by the cart path left).  At just 455 from the white tees, the green is reachable in two...if you dare tempt the lake a second time.

    Those of us of a certain age recall watching Sam Snead in the earliest televised golf tournaments and on such made-for-TV matches as Shell's Wonderful World of Golf.  The man may have had the best tempo of any pro golfer ever and a swing he seemed to replicate flawlessly every time.  That kind of swing stands up to the pressure of competitive golf, whether a pro tournament or a little side action.
    Snead was known for the side action almost as much as he was for his professional prowess.  Indeed one might hazard a guess that, Tiger notwithstanding, the Slammer's ratio of off the tour income to tournament winnings was the highest ever.  The man had the reputation that he would do anything for a buck, including posing for a photo and providing a casual golf tip.  And, of course, lending his name to whatever.
    Over the last few days, I thought of Snead and his genius at ringing the register at every opportunity.  The scorecard at Poplar Grove, site of the Old Dominion Athletics Conference golf championships, includes first mention credit for Snead as course designer, and secondary credit for Ed Carton, who previously worked with Tom Fazio.  The course opened in 2004; Mr. Snead passed away from a stroke in May 2002.  Now that is genius.
    You can see the influence of Fazio in some of Carton's work at Poplar Grove, with funneled fairways, large fairway bunkers and dramatically elevated tees that make the 7,000 yard course play like 6,600 yards.  Still, though, there are enough fairways that tilt toward trouble and a few dicey forced carries to severely undulating greens to justify a rating from the tips - dubbed the "Slammer" tees - of 75.0 and a slope of 141.  Even the white tees, at 6,100 yards, carry a slope rating of 135.

   If you are ever in the area of Amherst, VA, about 25 minutes north of Lynchburg, stop by Poplar Grove.  Green fees are ridiculously low for this quality of golf, less than $50 with cart.  There is a real estate office just across the parking lot from the pro shop.  New homes include a golf cart garage and a golf cart and start at $439,000 for 2,100 square feet.  Please contact me if you would like more information.

The 14th hole at Poplar Grove is a reachable par 4 but those who don't play well in sand may opt for the safe route to a wide fairway on the left.  

It takes length and pinpoint accuracy off the tee at Poplar Grove's par 5 3rd hole to get in place for one of the most difficult lay-up shots anywhere.   

 

    Without swinging a club, I've gotten to know the Poplar Grove Golf Club pretty well.  I have been following my son and his Washington & Lee teammates around the Ed Carton/Sam Snead design in rural Virginia, about one half hour from Lynchburg.  At 7,000 yards, the tees from which the Old Dominion Conference players are competing for the conference championship and an automatic bid to the NCAA nationals at Chateau Elan next month, the course is long but it also demands precision placement of irons.  Indeed, the toughest shot on the course is not a tee shot or an approach to a green, although they are plenty tough.  The most challenging shot of the first two days of the tournament is the lay-up shot at the par 5 3rd hole.
    The drive from an elevated tee (see top photo) must squirt downhill at least 260 yards or so from the back tees in order to set up the delicate second shot to a narrow strip of fairway bounded by a stream in front and along the right, and cart path and woods to the left.  The safest play is to about 160 yards from the green, but unless you are at the far left edge of the fairway, you won't be able to see the narrow green from there (see photo below).  To hit the approach to 150 yards or closer demands nerves of steel because the fairway narrows even more at that point, with the same trouble still surrounding the small landing area.  The green is narrow (see bottom photo); yesterday the back pin position suckered a number of the kids into third shots that skidded off the back edge, leaving a delicate short chip downhill to the pin.
    Poplar Grove is in the town of Amherst and anchors a community of large and upscale homes whose prices start in the mid-six figures.  A 1.1-acre lot with nice views down the 15th hole is on the market for $140,000.  A 2,500 square foot single-family home on the 8th fairway is listed at $599,000.  The club is open to the public but provides membership to residents.  Only a relatively few homes have been built in the circa 2004 community, and it is hard to fathom the market for such big homes in such a rural setting.  But the course is a delight, challenging and dramatic, with all the standard hazards in ample supply and framed against the Blue Ridge Mountains.  If you are ever traveling near Lynchburg, Virginia, an interesting city itself, Poplar Grove is definitely worth a detour.
    Poplar Grove Golf Club, 129 Tavern Lane, Amherst, VA.  434-946-9933.  www.poplargrovegolf.com

 

 

Short and left of the 3rd green leaves a delicate lob wedge to a narrow green.  

    Ed Bernard, above left, and Bill Reidway are members of all four courses at St. James Plantation near Southport, NC.  Ed, from Rochester, NY, and Bill, from Long Island, play golf four or five times a week.  They were great company last week during our 18 holes at The Reserve course, by the Nicklaus Design shop.  Most residents of the sprawling St. James, which is actually an entire town with its own government structure, are retired, and the golf courses get a fair amount of play, but Ed and Bill said they rarely have to secure a tee time more than a day in advance.  The Reserve course was a brute, especially with a brisk wind making the numerous forced carries a challenge.  
    I'll have more to say about St. James, as well as Ocean Ridge Plantation (Sunset Beach), The Thistle (Sunset Beach) and Brunswick Forest (Leland), in coming days.  In the meantime, thanks to Ed and Bill for letting me play along with them.

At the par 4 5th at The Reserve course at St. James, your tee shot must carry over an expanse of marsh and avoid a pot bunker at mid fairway (top photo).  Your reward is about a 140-yard approach over yet another expanse of marsh to a green surrounded by trouble (bottom photo).  The 5th is the number one handicap hole on a very tough golf course.