Leland, NC, is a relatively small, but dramatically growing town -- its population sextupled between 2000 and 2010 -- with a growing emphasis on golf. The large community Compass Pointe (2,000 residents when fully built out) is putting the finishing touches on its 18 hole golf course, unusual in that it has followed the opening of the community by a few years. (Recall the good old days when developers used the golf course to sell the adjacent properties? Compass Pointe and its developer Bobby Harrelson have flipped convention on its end.) The new Compass Pointe course is designed by Rick Robbins, who learned his trade working for Jack Nicklaus’ design shop.
Now we’ve learned that following a more conventional trend to offer golf members the option of playing more than one golf course, Harrelson and his Brunswick Golf Holdings, LLC, have purchased Magnolia Greens, a 27-hole public golf facility located just off Highway 17 in Leland and directly across the road from Brunswick Forest and its well-reviewed Tim Cate golf course, Cape Fear National. Magnolia Greens was designed by Tom Jackson, a Greenville, SC based architect responsible for many layouts in the Carolinas.
We haven't played Magnolia Greens but thought Cape Fear National was one of the best coastal layouts we had played in the last decade. (Read our review here.) We look forward to trying out Compass Pointe and Magnolia Greens in the coming months. If anyone has some thoughts on Magnolia, we'd love to hear them.
The 8th green at Cape Fear National, the golf club in the Brunswick Forest community
