If nature abhors a vacuum, Donald Trump positively loathes it.  It has been weeks since The Donald insinuated himself onto the national scene.

        But in the last few days, Trump is back with a vengeance.  Today, he flew to Las Vegas to re-insert himself into the show known as the Republican campaign for President.  He endorsed Mitt Romney who, like Trump, likes to fire people; perhaps the coiffed one is angling for Secretary of Labor in a Romney administration.   Romney, those who care about such things may recall, was the only candidate to visit Trump at his marbled New York aerie and then leave by the servants’ entrance, ostensibly in order to avoid having to answer questions about ring kissing.  There won’t be any back doors available today.

        But fascinated though we are with politics and public displays of vanity, our humble blog is about golf communities, and we are pleased to report a

With a $3 million dollar bill due to be paid in April, The Point Golf Club members decided to reconsider Trump's offer.

golf community angle to Trump’s re-emergence on the public scene.  After members of The Point Golf Club on Lake Norman, just north of Charlotte, rejected the Trump organization’s offer to buy the golf club and spiff it up (see “Donald doesn’t get The Point”), they have changed their collective mind just two months later after considering the $3 million April bill they owe Crescent Resources, the community and club’s developer.  According to Trump’s son Eric and the Charlotte Observer, the vote to welcome Trump as club owner was “overwhelming.”

        The most loyal members of The Point could find themselves eternally rewarded.  Last week, The Donald announced that he wants to build a private cemetery next to his Trump National Golf Club in New Jersey.  According to the web site NJ.com, “The 1.5-acre site would become the exclusive final resting place for wealthy club members who pay as much as $300,000 in membership fees.”  Perhaps adjacent cemeteries will become a Trump golf club signature.

        But Point Club members can rest easy on one score:  Donald Trump has already announced that he and his family will be buried at the cemetery adjacent to the New Jersey club.  "This is really about members,” a Trump consultant said, “but we do plan to set something aside for Mr. Trump and his family."

        Golfers don’t typically check the tide tables before heading out to the golf course, but those with plans to play the Jack Nicklaus designed Pawleys Plantation Golf Club might consider it.  The short par 3 13th at Pawleys Plantation, its green almost totally surrounded by marsh and with no bailout area, is scary enough without the added attraction of hundreds of golf balls sitting in the marshy muck between the tee and the bulkhead that props up the green.  A confident swing is a fundamental requirement on the 13th tee, and the open grave beneath the tee box inspires much more dread than confidence.  Better to play the hole at high tide, when the results of poorly played shots are out of sight.

        The hole plays short –- just 145 yards from the tips, 115 yards from the blue tees and a paltry 69 yards from the white tees –- but the green at the 13th is smaller than the famed 17th at TPC Sawgrass.  At a mere 1/2 mile from the ocean, with nothing but marsh separating the two, the green is open to a prevailing breeze that typically blows from left to right.  On breezy days, a proper shot must start at the left edge of the green and ride the zephyrs back toward the meaty part of the putting surface (“meaty” looking more like a lamb riblet from the tee box than a hunk of ribeye).  If the wind reaches, say, 15 mph, not unusual so close to the Atlantic, a proper tee shot must start out over the marsh.

Pawleys13thballsinmuck

The muck and mired balls in the marsh short of the 13th hole at Pawleys Plantation do not exactly inspire confidence on the tee box.

 

        Members and those who have played Pawleys Plantation over time learn to ignore the pin position, denoted by the standard flag colors of red (front), white (middle) and blue (back); the tee shot is all or nothing at all.  Since the green tilts from back to front, well-struck wedges or 9 irons will stick where they land.  And because the green is so small, the reward for staying on it results in a putt of reasonable to short length for a birdie.  But if your shot joins those balls in the muck short of the green or beyond it, the drop area 10 yards to the right of the putting surface makes the third shot enormously difficult.  Not only must the length of roll of the chip shot be judged perfectly, but it also must traverse the tilt of the green from right to left. If the pin is yellow, the best you can hope for is a 15-foot putt for bogey from beneath the hole.

        If you want to have fun with your playing partner on the 13th, bet him on the tee that he can’t make a bogey four.  If he stays on the green, concede his par putt, if not the birdie.  But chances are you won't have to; bogey four is the toughest score on the “short par 5” at Pawleys Plantation.

PawleysPelican

The back nine's two par 3s at Pawleys Plantation, #13 and #17, play off the dike that once controlled water flow on the former rice plantation.  A native pelican prefers the 17th (background right) to the 13th.