The Nicklaus Design layout at Bear Lake Reserve might make you forget it is only nine holes.

    Conservative golfers looking for kindred spirits could find a home in the mountains of the Carolinas.  Upstate in both North and South Carolina, I counted only three counties of 25 that went for Obama.  Most notable was Buncombe County, North Carolina and its largest town, Asheville, surrounded by red counties but which voted 57% for Obama.  Many artists and craftspeople live in Asheville, which is often described as a small-scale San Francisco.  The city of 75,000, home to the helpful Center for Creative Retirement at the local branch of the state university, has undergone a significant transformation over recent years as newcomers arrived from the northern and Florida.  
    In the Asheville area, those looking for a golf community have a wide range of choices, from the upscale and private Cliffs at Walnut Cove to the open and public Reems Creek, which features a sloping and challenging British-designed layout.  Yancey County, just north of the city, went slightly for McCain (52%).  Its Mountain Air community, with breathtaking views and top-of-the-mountain airstrip, is about a half hour from Asheville. Henderson County, on the other side of Asheville, and home to the mature and member-run Champion Hills community and its classic Tom Fazio golf course, gave McCain a 60% victory.
    Brevard, Lake Toxaway and Sapphire comprise Transylvania County, just above the South Carolina border in the western panhandle of North Carolina.  The county went 56% for McCain.  Earlier this year, I played an enjoyable round of golf on the well-conditioned Connestee Falls course in the community of the same name, just outside the charming and vibrant town of Brevard.  Other area choices include the recently renovated Sapphire Valley and Glen Cannon, whose par 3 2nd hole plays to a green backed by a dramatic waterfall.
     Just west of Transylvania, 52% of Jackson County voters went for Obama, something of a surprise to me after a recent visit to the rural county.  Perhaps the presence of Western Carolina University in the county seat of Sylva tilted the numbers Democratic.  A few miles down the road from the school, Bear Lake Reserve offers a course at the top of the mountain that is so dramatic in its views that you might not care that it is only nine holes.  Neighboring Haywood County (McCain 53%) is chock-a-block with interesting golf courses, including Laurel Ridge, Waynesville Country Club (originally designed by Donald Ross), Maggie Valley, Springdale and the jaw-dropping Balsam Mountain Preserve, whose views from the Arnold Palmer course are distracting, in the best possible meaning of the word.  The Windover Inn in Waynesville, a bed and breakfast, is a great place to stay in the area.
    The counties surrounding Greenville, SC, home to a number of the Cliffs Communities, all went strongly for McCain, with the mostly rural Pickens County totaling 72% for the Republican candidate.  Greenville County, whose population is mostly in the city of Greenville, opted 61% for McCain.
    In the lower lying areas of the Carolinas where golf communities are plentiful, voting tended to skew Republican.  However, Obama's most commanding victory in the Carolinas was in the Charlotte area and Mecklenburg County, where the economy has soured quickly and the Democratic candidate took 62% of the vote.  Charlotte, which is home to the evaporated Wachovia Bank, as well as Bank of America, had maintained its financial footing until September's banking crisis.  Now prices on homes in the popular Lake Norman area and such communities as The Point (Greg Norman course) are eroding in the wake of corporate consolidations and layoffs.
    In Aiken County, South Carolina, home to Mount Vintage, Woodside Plantation and Cedar Creek, 61% of voters opted for McCain.  Up in the Pinehurst area, in Moore County, 60% voted for McCain.  Yet in the area of Winston-Salem (Forsyth County), Obama copped 55% of the vote.  Most of the good courses in the Winston-Salem area are semi-private or public; you could do a lot worse than a reasonably priced annual pass to Tanglewood, where two excellent courses, including the venue for the 1974 PGA Championship, await.
    Speaking of annual passes and reasonably priced public access golf, I was smitten by the few courses I played earlier this year on the Robert Trent Jones course in Alabama, a state that gave McCain a huge 60% to 39% tilt.  But Democrats do not despair because 13 counties in Alabama actually gave the nod to Obama, a few of them located along the Jones Trail.  Most notably, Jefferson County, which surrounds Birmingham, voted 52% for the President-elect.  I loved the course I played at Oxmoor Valley, inside the city limits, but others think the tournament venue Ross Bridge even better.   Finally, when I played the Robert Trent Jones Trail golf course at Silver Lakes, near Gadsden, AL, I was struck with the excellence of the golf and the unbelievably low prices of the adjacent housing.  However, if your politics tilt Democratic, understand that you will be in the minority in the surrounding Etowah County; 69% of its citizens voted for John McCain.
    For those relocating in the next few years, political discussions are apt to be lively, no matter where you choose to live.

Birmingham's Oxmoor Valley is one of the oldest along the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail.  The county around the city went for Obama but the entire state of Alabama went strongly for McCain.

Rees Jones' Charleston National is one of the best looking courses in the Charleston, SC, area. The surrounding community offers plenty of choices of homes.    

    The primarily Republican residents along the Atlantic coast may be feeling a little blue after Tuesday's election, but they can assuage their disappointment on one of the many excellent golf courses at their disposal.
    John McCain carried substantially more counties than Barrack Obama did up and down the coast from Virginia to Florida.  For example, Perquimans County, North Carolina, home to Albemarle Plantation, a nice if somewhat remote golf community an hour south of Norfolk, VA, went 57% for McCain.  An hour down the coast, in the up and coming New Bern, voters in Craven County gave Senator McCain the same 57% nod.  The community called Taberna, home to many retired military personnel, is located just outside of New Bern, a town on many lists of "best places" to live.  The Taberna golf course was well groomed and underrated when I played it a few years ago.
    Further down the coast in Wilmington's New Hanover County, McCain inched out a 50% to 49% victory, essentially a dead heat.  Wilmington's Porters Neck, with a classic design by Tom Fazio, and Landfall, with 27 holes by Nicklaus and Dye, offer a contrast of community designs and price points (and judging by the local voting, diverse political points of view).  The most reasonably priced community in the area, Castle Bay, features a golf course designed by its developer who studied Scottish links and crafted a layout that is a joy to play (if you ignore the ubiquitous high-tension wires that thread through the course).  Prices for the tidy homes adjacent to the course start below $300,000.
    Golf's supermarket, Myrtle Beach, comprises both Horry and Georgetown counties, which went for McCain, 62% and 52% respectively.  Out of the more than 100 courses on the Grand Strand, a relatively few are private, community-oriented clubs, among them Grande Dunes (Nick Price), The Reserve at Litchfield Plantation (Greg Norman), Wachesaw Plantation (Tom Fazio) and DeBordieu Colony (Pete Dye).  The private Surf Club, a former public fee course located north of Myrtle Beach, is a reasonable alternative to private community clubs, as is the vaunted Dunes Club, which permits limited play for those staying in some of the area's hotels.  The remaining semi-private and public clubs offer a wide range of playing options; with a $39 annual Myrtle Beach Golf Pass, local residents receive discounts up to 60% off green fees for themselves and friends, even at the most popular course in the area, Caledonia Golf and Fish Club.  
    An hour down the coast in Charleston County, all but a relatively few votes have been counted, and Obama holds a commanding 54% to 45% lead.  High-roller golfers will know the area as home to the famed Ocean Course (Dye) at Kiawah Island, as well as the private and highly regarded Cassique Golf Club (Tom Watson).  But Kiawah and its neighboring barrier island, Seabrook, offer other splendid semi-private club and golf resort options.  For less pricey options, Mt. Pleasant, just north of one of America's classiest cities, Charleston, offers both daily fee courses and one private club, Snee Farm, a classic George Cobb layout that is in way better condition than the club's dated and dismal clubhouse.  My favorite daily fee course in town was Rees Jones' Charleston National, which threads its way through the marsh.  My day of golf there a year ago was marred only by incomprehensibly indifferent service.
    Just a sliver of Bryan County, Georgia separates two Democratic counties, Chatham (Savannah) to the north and Liberty County to the south.  Bryan is home to the wonderful and expensive Ford Plantation and its Pete Dye golf course, one of the best I have played.  Bryan County went strongly for McCain, with 71% of the vote, although Ford Plantation, with homes beginning in seven figures, is closer to Chatham County than it is to the heart of Bryan County.

    The six counties extending south from Liberty County along the coast -- three in Georgia and three in Florida -- all went for McCain.  These comprise the many excellent golf communities near St. Simons Island, Sea Island, St. Marys, Amelia Island and the Jacksonville area.

    McIntosh County, Georgia, which went 53% for McCain, is home to one of the most interesting golf communities of my travels, Cooper's Point at Shellman Bluff.  A good eight miles from I-95, the community is remote but close to a sleepy little fishing village where you can still haggle with a ship's captain over the price for part of the day's catch.  The daily fee golf course is surprisingly challenging, lightly trafficked and priced to delight the most conservative spender in Congress.

Amelia Island's Ocean Links is open to resort guests and residents who populate the adjoining single family homes, villas and condos.  The par 3 6th hole is shown.