Or at least the one that offers the most “free” stuff ever. Our July/August edition of Home On The Course is overstuffed with helpful information, especially for those currently searching for a golf home in the southern U.S. Noted economist Ingo Winzer, who warned the world about the impending housing crash in 2005, almost three years before it happened, provides highly specialized forecasts for housing markets across the U.S., using up-to-date jobs and population data. He shares in this month’s newsletter his thoughts about the future of some of the most popular markets in the Southeast, and makes an exciting offer exclusively for subscribers to Home On The Course: Three in-depth market reports for the price of one. That could be reason enough to subscribe today to Home On The Course -– click here, it’s free! -– but...
        We are especially excited to announce our second ever Golf Community Discovery Weekend, co-sponsored with CarolinaLiving.com, at one of the east coast’s most value-oriented golf communities. (Our first such couples weekend was held at The Landings, outside Savannah.) Because this is an exclusive initial offer to Home On The Course subscribers, we can’t mention the name of the community here –- not yet, at least -– but here is just a taste of what the weekend will include:

• Waterfront hotel for two nights
• River cruise
• Two days of golf
• Non-golfer activities
• Friday evening cocktail hour & buffet dinner with residents
• Special chef-created lunch on Saturday
• Tour of community with a resident expert
• A look at current specific properties and homes currently for sale (optional); opportunity to learn building process and prices from site contractors.
• Panel discussion: "How to Search for a Golf Community Home"*
• Price per couple: $350

        There has never been a better reason to subscribe to Home On The Course. Please click here and be sure to confirm your subscription when asked. We publish on Monday.

        I was mentally prepared, if not physically, to play my first Lee Trevino designed golf course last week. Trevino presented quite a quandary for me as a young developing golfer in the 1960s and ‘70s. He was easily my favorite on tour, after “Champagne” Tony Lema died in an airplane crash (on a golf course). But Trevino’s stroke was flat, almost a baseball swing and geared to a certain body type with which I was unfamiliar; I stood 5 feet 11 inches and weighed between 115 and 120 until a year after I was graduated from college. Thin would have been an improvement. Trevino, of course, was built like a fireplug, and strong. He does not get anywhere near the credit he deserves as a competitive golfer, lost in the accolades for the more stable personalities of Palmer and Nicklaus. Trevino could be a bit of a crass showman, but boy could he play. And golf needed someone to take the game less seriously than it seemed to take itself. The Merry Mex was the right agent of levity.
Ironwood8 from teeMost shots over trouble at Ironwood are easily made, and women and retirees will find the course a pleasure to play.
        I thought the Trevino-designed course at Ironwood Golf and Country Club in Greenville, NC, was going to feature mostly left to right doglegs to mimic Trevino’s standard ball flight throughout his career. (You may recall that he stopped playing the Masters event because it required too many right to left shots.) But Trevino, who often could not put a governor on his actions or mouth when he was playing the tour, apparently can show great restraint when he designs a golf course. Ironwood, surprise of surprises, was “normal,” and it was in excellent condition, a lot of fun and surrounded by one of the nicest neighborhoods in the Greenville area. This is not a retirement community by a long shot, but retirees comfortable being around families and junior golfers will find some stately medium to large sized homes, many brick-faced, beside the fairways. (Single-family homes of nearly 3,000 square feet start around $350,000.)
Ironwood15 from teeThe doglegs at Ironwood are mostly right to left shots, the opposite of designer Lee Trevino's ball flight when he was one of the best golfers in the world.
        Any left to right holes at Ironwood are gentle bends; the only severe doglegs – the par 5 13th and the par 4 18th, as well as the second and third shots on the par 5 7th – are right to left shots with angles that would be at home at Augusta National, Trevino’s nemesis. You get the impression that someone else at the Wm. Graves Golf Course Design Company, with which Trevino was affiliated, might have laid out the course. This course is not particularly suited to Trevino's game, but more credit to him for restraint, something Jack Nicklaus could not resist with his earliest designs that put a premium on high left to right shots.