You can imagine that I receive my fair share of marketing brochures from golf communities I visit and review.  Far fewer have shown up in my mailbox since the economy went south and most baby boomers put their retirement plans on hold.  Without the property sales they were used to before customers slowed to a trickle, golf communities can’t, or won’t, spend money on printed communications.  Instead, they rely on their own web sites and social networking services like Facebook and Twitter to communicate with the people in their databases.

        The strategy might be pennywise and pound foolish.  I find myself groaning when my email inbox fills with messages from golf communities, and I grow to resent those who send me repeated messages.  For example, Brunswick Plantation, located north of Myrtle Beach, was sending me one message at least every day for a few months, all with virtually the same underlying message of low-priced real estate.  Other golf communities are more temperate, but if you are on multiple golf community lists, the sheer volume of emails is annoying.  Facebook and Twitter communications just compound the problem.

        I use a computer for hours each day and, honestly, I look forward to holding a sheet of glossy paper or newsprint in my hand for a little bit.  My fellow baby boomers are probably more modest than I in their use of the Internet, but no less enthused by print communications.  Golf community advertising is targeted to 50- and 60-somethings, and we baby boomers may be perfectly adept at online communication but we were also raised on print.  Old habits die hard.  And photos still look better on glossy paper than they do on a glossy screen.

        I received one of those rare printed marketing pieces today.  The latest issue of River Landing’s newsletter, called “Lately,” gets it right.  River Landing is located in Wallace, NC, more than an hour from Raleigh and about 45 minutes from Wilmington.  That qualifies it as “remote,” although the golf community and its highly rated 36 holes by Clyde Johnston are less than two minutes from Interstate 40.  Yes, River Landing’s newsletter includes the obligatory resident testimonials (“Life is good here, very good.”) and plenty of photos of smiling people who could be wearing signs that read, “We are on permanent vacation.”

        But, shrewdly, the newsletter also features a local Wallace merchant.  Butcher Billy Goff has been in business in Wallace for 21 years and has expanded to serve some of the most popular barbecue in a barbecue mad region.  On a subliminal level, the story sends a message to us northerners who don’t live in a big city and consider a butcher a luxury (my town in Connecticut just got its first in 25 years).  It also implies that Wallace may be remote, but it must have a strong economic base if businesses can last a couple of decades there.   Moreover, the feature on a local merchant does not appear as self-serving as having your residents talk about what a great choice they made; after all, what are they going to say, “We are bitterly disappointed with our life here?”

        Customers I work with want assurances that the services they counted on for the last 40 years or so will be available to them in retirement.  They are skittish about going from suburbia or a city to the middle of nowhere.  River Landing is acknowledging that some prospects think it is far from civilization.  The story of Billy the Butcher addresses that notion head-on, and I think successfully.  

        It is smart marketing for a golf community to communicate what’s outside the gates as hard as it does what’s inside.

        If you would like more information about River Landing or any other golf communities in the southern U.S., please contact me.

        In recent months, I have visited two high-end golf communities, Hampton Island Preserve and White Oak, that could serve as poster children for bad timing.  Both opened for business and started selling properties in the few years before the economy went sour.  They both face a long slog ahead but are approaching the future in slightly different ways.

        Hampton Island, sited on a beautiful piece of marshland property along the Georgia Coast about an hour south of Savannah, has a guard, a gate and a golf course that hosts a couple of rounds of golf “on a good day,” according to a Hampton Island representative.  Just a few homes have been completed in the community.  Yet if you happened on a description of Hampton Island in the online Robb Report, you’d get the impression the golf community was in full operation mode.

        “…Hampton Island,” says The Robb Report, “is a coastal resort with a community base of more than 400 people.  Members enjoy use of the golf course, two luxury spas, an equestrian center, an organic farm, fishing and hunting excursions, and meals prepared by an on-site master chef.”  The Robb Report also indicates that memberships are $150,000 and dues $10,000 annually; the developers may have taken a page from The Cliffs Communities playbook which also offers a boatload of amenities at sunken-treasure prices.

The 1st hole at the Ricefields golf course at Hampton Island Preserve.

Mohair greens  

        Although Hampton Island Preserve lists all these pricey amenities on its web site, I saw zero activity around the equestrian barn and organic farm, and did not see a soul on the golf course over my 18 holes.  The Davis Love III designed course, called Ricefields, features an impressive layout that takes full advantage of the abundant marshland and sandy land formation.  Love did not disturb much of the terrain, but if he visits the year-old course, he might be plenty disturbed by its condition.  No lawnmower had touched it for at least a few days before my visit, perhaps as long as a week, and the greens putted like mohair.  They also showed some severely worn spots.  I had looked forward with anticipation to playing the course, but I felt like weeping on the first green.

        Hampton Island Preserve must be spending whatever limited resources it has on things other than maintenance of the golf course.  Or maybe the developers are simply preserving all their capital.  (I tried to contact the developer but he did not return my message.)  With only a handful of property-owner members, despite The Robb Report’s claim of 400 of them, it is hard to justify the expense necessary to maintain a top-notch layout.

        Yet for all the sense cutting expenses seems to make, letting the golf course deteriorate can develop an ugly spiral from which it is hard to recover.   Golfers considering property at Hampton Island will likely look past the attractive course design and see only the current course conditions; they are not likely to be satisfied with explanations that it is only a temporary situation.  Such conditions scream “We are out of money!”  With so many fully functioning golf clubs up and down the Carolinas and Georgia coasts, only daredevil risk-takers are likely to plop down a half million dollars for a marsh-view lot at Hampton Island if the golf course conditions are, as my teenage children might say, “sketchy looking.” 

        Here’s hoping that Hampton Island Preserve can find its way, and the resources, to attend to the needs of its attractively designed and laid out golf course.

Waste bunkering is the commanding feature at White Oak.

Another approach to course maintenance

        White Oak, another golf-oriented community whose timing was unfortunate, has taken a slightly different tack.  The upscale Tryon, NC, community is located at the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains on a piece of property its developers say reminds them of their native Ireland.  PGA professional Padraig Harrington and Champions Tour player Des Smyth are both involved in the White Oak development (the developers built a home at White Oak for Harrington and his family to use when he plays U.S. tour events).

        I played nine of White Oak’s holes recently with one of its few members, a dedicated reader of this web site.  The second nine at White Oak is scheduled to open later in the fall but, to my eye, it looked almost ready to open now.

        Unlike at Ricefields, White Oak’s owners are cutting the grass frequently enough to give the fairways and especially the greens the feel of a championship course, although there is little evidence of such grooming elsewhere on the layout (the “natural” looking waste bunkers were starting to look unnaturally scruffy).  That aside, White Oak could eventually be a top-10 course in the golf-endowed state of North Carolina.  The Arnold Palmer design -– Erik Larsen took the lead on the layout -- makes the most of the natural foothills landscape and looks for all the world as if it could have come out of the currently hot (Bill) Coore/(Ben) Crenshaw design shop.  The scruffy waste bunkers look indigenous, and nowhere does one get the sense that the land on which the layout is carved took a back seat to concerns for the housing.  Because the course is laid out along the lowest area of the property, the future homes will be sited well above, providing excellent views of the course from the back decks but, more importantly, keeping out-of-bounds areas to a strict minimum.

        The accompanying photos will give you a better sense of White Oak than words will but, for the record, I did not encounter anything resembling a mediocre hole on the nine we played.  Developers and golf course designer have conspired to create a challenging layout that members should be pleased to play over and over.  Hazards abound at White Oak, and to quote the cliché, you do have to “think your way around” the course.  But I found the layout fair and penal in equal measure, although in full disclosure, I struck the ball better at White Oak than on any nine holes I have played in at least five years.  It was 100 degrees on the course, and I was hot in more ways than one.

        It made me smile, and I hope Irish eyes will also soon be smiling at White Oak.

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A new home for sale in Tryon, NC's White Oak community is patterned on this home already occupied at The Cliffs Communities.  The White Oak home adds another 1,000 square feet.

        Elaborating on a design used at The Cliffs Communities, JL Design Builders of Spartanburg, SC, are putting the finishing touches on a nicely sited and dramatically designed home in Tryon, NC’s White Oak community (see photo above).  The Laurelwood model includes 4,200 square feet (heated) and such flourishes as a wine cellar, media room, full-house audio system and even a 12-square-foot “doggie” room where Fido can have a bit of privacy.  In all, the home is 1,000 square feet larger than The Cliffs version.  Built at the midpoint of a sloping piece of property, the house features dramatic wooded views beyond the entire back end of the house, including from the dining room, great room, master bedroom and porch.  Conveniently located within 20 minutes of the growing cities of Greenville and Spartanburg, new owners in White Oak should appreciate both the privacy of the setting and the convenience of the location.  For more information about this brand new home, contact me and I will be pleased to put you in touch with the builders. 

        List priced at $1.15 million.