Source: The Herald-Sun (Durham, N.C.)
Chapel Hill, N.C. -- Time was, if you wanted to get in a full 18 holes of golf in Chatham County, you had to play the same nine twice. Or drive about 30 miles between the front side and the back.
And it still wasn't a sure thing, unless you happened to be a member at the Siler City Country Club or knew someone who was.
It was the 1960s, and the Siler City club and the public Twin Lakes golf course in northern Chatham were the only game in the county. Each had nine holes.
It stayed that way for decades, which wasn't always a bad thing.
"Back then, you could go to the golf course and play a round in 31/2 hours, because there weren't many people," recalls Victor Benoit, an avid golfer who moved to Chatham 36 years ago. "You could cruise around there right fast."
Things have changed in a big way, as surely as pastures and forests in parts of rural Chatham have given way to a bounty of new homes.
The county has become a mecca for golfers.
With land becoming increasingly scarce and more expensive in neighboring counties, Chatham offers proximity, availability and value to those who want to build golf courses. And with improvements made to U.S. 64 and U.S. 15-501, the county is more accessible to those who want to play golf.
A milestone was the development of the Governors Club off Mount Carmel Church Road south of Chapel Hill. It added 18 holes designed by the legendary Jack Nicklaus to the golf mix in 1990, followed by nine more Nicklaus holes opened at the club in 1994.
Another 18 holes opened at the Old Chatham Golf Club in 2001, designed by leading course architect Rees Jones, followed by The Preserve at Jordan Lake in 2002.
The company that developed The Preserve liked the market so much that it's building a second course and development in the county, now under construction off Old Graham Road and called Chapel Ridge.
Along with Nicklaus, pro-golfers-turned-course-designers Davis Love III and Fred Couples have gotten in on the act, with their design firms laying out The Preserve and Chapel Ridge, respectively.
When you throw in a second nine added at the Siler City club in 1986, Chatham now has 90 holes of golf, a five-fold increase over the old days.
Chapel Ridge will add another 18. And then there's the proposed River Oaks development, which Toll Brothers Inc. wants to build on the outskirts of Pittsboro, including an 18-hole golf course.
If all that happens, the golf total would reach 126 holes.
It's not what you'd call a public-golf boom, since Twin Lakes remains the only purely public course. You can just walk into the small farmhouse that serves as the clubhouse and put down your $10 to $12 to walk nine holes. Twin Lakes doesn't do tee times.
The Preserve is semiprivate. It has dues-paying members but also allows non-members to make tee times and play there.
Chapel Ridge is slated to be semiprivate, too. And the initial word from the developer of River Oaks was that it would be semiprivate as well.
At Governors Club, Old Chatham and Siler City, you have to be a member or play with a member. Governors Club and The Preserve also host charity tournaments with nonmembers.
Of course, it's not like the Siler City club is looking to be another Augusta National, in terms of exclusivity. The club has a membership drive going right now, and there is no initiation fee, said club president Stuart Lazar.
You just have to start paying the monthly dues of $135, which includes a practice area, tennis courts, pool and dining room.
With the golf, those kinds of amenities are attracting scores of new residents to Chatham.
Location, location
Tom Latimer and his wife, Judy, took one look at the Governors Club and were sold.
Latimer was retired from the paper industry, and the couple was living in Connecticut. They had been looking for a retirement community in warmer climes, and were focusing on the coast.
They thought they'd found their new home on Skidaway Island, Georgia. But on one of their trips along the coast they stopped at Myrtle Beach, not long after a hurricane had passed through. The damage convinced them to put a little distance between themselves and the coast, Latimer recalled.
The Latimers liked the appearance of Governors Club, and its proximity to Chapel Hill and UNC was a major selling point as well. They bought a lot in 1992 and moved in a couple years later.
"We were just totally taken by [the club]," Tom Latimer said. "When we moved in, everybody was new. People were very open and willing to make friends, which was really nice, because we'd lived in communities where there were social circles set in cement."
Larry and Peg Edwards had a shorter move to Governors Club, buying a lot there in 2001 and moving over from Raleigh after their retirement from IBM.
"Some of the clubs we looked at had corporate memberships, which was a turn-off," Larry Edwards said. "We were looking more for people living here."
It's a mix, he said.
"We're probably the rare ones, because we came here from Raleigh," he said. "There are people from the Northeast, the Midwest."
The Preserve has a similar blend of refugees from rapidly growing parts of Wake County and new residents from out of state. Chapel Ridge figures to attract that mix, too.
Along with the houses already occupied at The Preserve, small signs mark many of the lots to be cleared for new homes -- for people like the Smith family of Cary, the Mabreys from New Jersey and the Perricones from New York State.
It's all about good access to places like Wake County and Chapel Hill, along with qualities like less traffic, a semirural feel and lower taxes, said Tom Powers, president of the BlueGreen golf division, developer of The Preserve and Chapel Ridge.
"If you're on Big Woods Road, and you didn't know where you were, you'd think you were out in the middle of the country," Powers said. "That's a good feeling for a lot of people."
Here and there
Asked whether his company shied away from trying to develop next door in Orange County, Powers said the issue was high land prices.
But, he added, "What we do is not really an Orange County type of community. ... If folks, as a government and community, don't want growth, that is fine with us. We're going to go to the spots that really want us to be there. That doesn't mean they make it easier, but they also don't tell you at the front door to not come in the house."
The Old Chatham course provides an interesting contrast to the big golf developments that Chatham has welcomed.
It's golf and nothing but. No tennis courts, no pool and definitely no homes lining the fairways or on any of the property.
The idea was to have a high-quality course, pretty much equidistant from every side of the Triangle, said Rex Teaney, one of the club's founders. They picked about 400 acres along O'Kelley Chapel Road that fit the bill, and the club has about 225 members now.
Old Chatham is the one local course Benoit, who lives between Pittsboro and Chapel Hill, hasn't played. The Chapel Hill Tire employee grew up in Newfoundland, Canada, and headed south for warmer weather.
His first foray onto a golf course was at Twin Lakes, and he's pretty much had the bug ever since. He's been glad to see more golf choices in Chatham. But when he sees the tax appraisal of his property go up, he's not so sure about the growth.
Benoit also is amazed the new developments find enough people to buy homes and play golf.
"Who knows when we're going to go over the line and have too many [golf developments]?" said Bill Wilkins, who operates Twin Lakes with his brother. "I don't think we're there yet."
His course is near the site of yet another major development, Briar Chapel. About 2,400 homes are approved for that project, but it won't include a golf course.
Asked whether the county needs more public courses, Wilkins said, "I guess one could make the argument there isn't enough golf available to the public, although I'm not really sure how it could be any different.
"When this course was built [in 1961], it was a different world," he said. "The economics make it a little difficult these days to undertake a public golf course. It's just not feasible to buy a chunk of land and put a golf course on it, unless it's involved with housing."