Sometimes developers bite off more than they can chew. Six hundred acres and a golf course at a small price per acre probably seem like a good idea at the height of the market. But then the folks from New York and D.C. stop looking and you go over budget for the golf course, the community infrastructure and the nicely appointed clubhouse and, before you know it, things go all soft and squishy and reality sets in.
The Highlands in Franklin, West Virginia, 600 acres and an 18-hole golf course, will be auctioned off on July 19th. Background details are a little sketchy, but there is an odor of desperation about the sale. Last year the owners put a reserve price on the property and the highest bid didn't meet it. This time around it will be an "absolute auction," which means the community and course will go to the low bidder, no matter how low. The road that runs alongside the golf course is called Troublesome Valley. Someone either had great prognostication powers or a gallows sense of humor.
The Highlands Golf Club opened in May 2006 and was designed by Bill Ward, a West Virginia architect who has completed 17 other projects in the region. He carved the Highlands from a pine tree forest in the Potomac Highlands, and his design appears to follow the contours of the land; from photos I looked at, he didn't move a lot of earth.
Ward has an inclination to add one unforgettable hole on each of his courses; at Meadows Farms in Virginia, for example, he built the Guinness Book of Records' longest par 6 in America, an 841-yard monster. At The Highlands, he built his excess around the greens on two successive holes on the back side. The approach shot to number 10, a par 4 and arguably Highlands' signature hole (and its #1 handicap hole), is played to a small island green set in the middle of a small lake and reached by an iron bridge. The pro shop estimates the green's dimensions at 30 yards deep by 20 yards wide.
The 11th, another par 4, presents a similarly sized green totally surrounded by sand. Holes 13 through 16 are significant doglegs, with the approach to number 13 requiring a long drive down the right side to afford a view of the green snuggled behind the trees at a 90-degree left angle to the fairway. To add an element of intimidation, out of bounds stakes run down the right side of the hole.
Championship tees play to 6,800 yards with the men's tees a more reasonable 6,250 and the ladies tees just 4,680. The senior tees play to less than 5,700 yards. The course rating from the back tees is 73.7 with a slope of 144. Comparables from the men's tees are 71.0 and 138. This is not by any means an easy course, but it charges reasonable daily fees as low as $35.
In its first abbreviated year of operation - the course opened in May 2006 - The Highlands hosted 15,000 rounds of golf, and based on rounds played so far this year, the run rate appears to be about 30,000 rounds, not bad for an April to October season. The pro shop says most of its traffic is from the I-81 corridor of Virginia and the towns of Harrisonburg and Staunton, about 45 minutes away, but some folks from Washington, D.C., about three hours away, will make a long weekend of it in the area.
Franklin, WVA sits in the valley between two large national forests west of Interstate 81 - the Washington and Jefferson and the Monongahela Forests. Together they comprise about a million acres of public land. From my research, and drives through the area in the past, it must be the kind of property that can make a man dream large.
I am still waiting for a call back from Albert Burney, the auction house, handling the sale. If more details become available, I will provide an update here. The golf course has a nice web site with course layout and descriptions at HighlandsGolfWV.com.