This is the final part of our year-end roundup of the best golf courses and golf communities we visited in 2012. If you see any golf course or golf community that piques your interest, please contact us for more information. Links to our original reviews of these golf courses are highlighted.
Golf got old for me in September, literally. It started at the circa 1929 Torrington Country Club, which is actually in Goshen, CT, not Torrington, at the beginning of the Labor Day Weekend. Torrington was designed by one of those architects, Orrin Smith, who is largely forgotten by history but respected during his time. I had wanted to play Torrington for 20 years and had high expectations that were met by the sometimes classic, sometimes quirky, but always challenging layout. I won’t soon forget one almost drivable par 4; the back edge of its green disappeared into golfing oblivion and made even a 30-yard pitch shot a knee knocker. A week later, I hosted a couple of contributors to this web site at Yale Golf Club, which opened in 1926 and crams just about every classic element of early golf into one sprawling layout. Doglegs, blind approach shots, false fronts, double-tiered greens…Yale has it all. There is no more truly intimidating golf hole than #9 at Yale, a par 3 total carry over water and a steep face to a green that is about 65 yards(!) front to back with a four-foot deep chasm across its middle. If the pin is at front and your tee shot lands toward the back –- or vice versa -– be grateful for a bogey.
The pin at Yale on the day I played was up front -- and my tee shot came to rest beyond the four-foot deep crevace that runs across the green. It took me three putts to find the hole, including one from the valley. One of the toughest par 3s you will ever be lucky enough to play.
Babe Ruth hit 60 home runs in 1927, and Donald Ross hit a big one that same year when he built Oyster Harbors Golf Club on Cape Cod. The annual golf outing that I attend there every September never gets old. Mother Nature contributes just enough in the way of terrain changes to make the great architect’s tricky green complexes and maddening putting surfaces seem as natural as a Venus flytrap.
I am a bit sheepish about announcing that I played Winged Foot in October since there is no record of that adventure; I decided not to burden my playing partners or play the tacky tourist by carrying a camera. We played the championship course and, suffice to say, the layout, the changing tree colors, the white caddy outfits against the bright green fairways –- it is hard to overstate the experience of such a course, and hard to overstate how proud I was to break 90. I played another tournament golf course a week later, the Thornblade Club in Greer, SC, just outside Greenville and host to the final round of the annual BMW Championship on the Nationwide Tour. Not only is Thornblade a fine example of an early Tom Fazio course, but it is also the breeding ground for such PGA Tour luminaries as Lucas Glover and Bill Haas (the Haas homestead almost hangs over the 5th green). A couple of days later, I revisited Musgrove Mill in rural Clinton, SC, with the SC Golf Rating Panel, a farewell of sorts, we thought at the time, since the McConnell Golf Group had announced it was closing the challenging course for lack of members and play. Thankfully, as the year comes to a close, there is word that some dedicated Musgrove members have found a way (and the funds) to forestall the hangman’s noose.
Greer, SC's Thornblade Club, a Nationwide Tournament venue, may be the most stable private golf club we visited this year, with an involved membership that spans all ages and such golf luminary members as the Haas Family and Lucas Glover.
The next day, the Panel moved on to one of my favorite golf communities, The Reserve at Lake Keowee, whose sleek and pleasurable Jack Nicklaus Signature golf course is but one of the amenities that lure families from Atlanta and the Greenville area. With one of the cleanest lakes in America at its doorstep, a huge community-gathering lawn that sweeps up from the lake to the large and rustic clubhouse (with an excellent Austrian chef at the helm of the restaurant) and the most inclusive club membership available (all direct members of a family have member privileges without fees or dues), there doesn’t seem much reason to leave the enclave. (Good thing since Greenville is an hour away and, frankly, Clemson, 25 minutes away on a winding road, is only mildly attracting.)
I rested up in November for a big ending in December, which began with our first Home On The Course couples event at The Landings, just outside Savannah. Four couples representing Ft. Wayne, IN, Goshen, NY, Atlanta and Boston joined us for a long weekend that was both active and relaxing. Much of the activity was centered on two of The Landings’ golf courses, Oak Ridge and Palmetto, both in fine condition but offering two different playing challenges (the Arthur Hills Palmetto course the tougher of the two, with a few forced carries over marsh). The Landings chefs also strutted their stuff with a special three-course lunch after golf and two sumptuous dinners. Although it was optional, three of the couples opted for multiple visits to homes currently for sale at The Landings. (Note: We hope to repeat the Discovery Weekend in 2012 at two or three golf communities. If any readers have suggestions about where to hold it, please contact us.)
Couples from Ft. Wayne, IN, Atlanta, Goshen, NY, and Boston participated in our first Discovery Weekend, held at The Landings near Savannah. They played the Oak Ridge and Palmetto courses (Palmetto shown here), two of the community's six nicely conditioned and sporting layouts.
I could hardly have asked for two better golf courses to end my year than Camden Country Club and Columbia Country Club. Columbia, which is actually in Blythewood, SC, is a 27-hole complex by Ellis Maples, whose fairways are open and fair but whose charms are hidden in the large and subtly undulated greens, which were also in stunningly good condition for so late in the year. Although the course is surrounded by a mature community, I do not recall a single home or out-of-bounds stake intruding on the round. The only thing that intruded on our round at Camden was a freight train that barreled down the tracks that separate the 11th green from the 12th tee, tracks that once brought revelers to the luxury hotel that sat alongside the par 3 12th. Those days sadly ended during World War II but fortunately the Camden golf course is substantially as Walter Travis and Donald Ross intended it –- short and mean in ways that leave you smiling in frustration. (Ross was hired in 1939 to remake the circa 1922 greens and to enhance other aspects of the layout.) As befits a true Ross course, I might have had one or two putts all day that did not break at least a cup’s width –- maybe. I cannot think of a better way to ring in the new year without saying goodbye to the old style of golf.
Donald Ross fairways may be wide, generally speaking, but a pushed tee shot at the par 4 7th at Camden Country Club creates a triple threat for the approach to the green; the fairway bunker, a tree at the fairway's right edge, and a greenside bunker that takes away the "safe" play to the front.
As 2011 ends, there are signs that the housing market may be improving incrementally. This may give some baby boomers the confidence to sell their primary homes and move to a warmer climate where they can indulge their urge to play golf year round and enjoy the benefits of a lower cost of living environment. Still, some high-end and high-profile golf communities like Reynolds Plantation and the Cliffs Communities and their property owners and club members face an uncertain year. Developers of both former high flying communities face financial uncertaintly, and even the recharged Tiger Woods may not complete his golf course deisgn for The Cliffs when the Cliffs' vaunted amenities and seven golf clubs are sold by financially strapped developer Jim Anthony, which seems more and more likely. We will address the year ahead for golf communities in our January issue of Home On The Course, our free monthly newsletter. You can subscribe at the top of this page.
Thank you for your support and continued readership. Happy New Year to all.
Ellis Maples made his large greens at Columbia Country Club tough to access. Here's wishing all our readers a 2012 free of traps.