By David Droschak If there’s a golf course development in the Triangle on the verge of something special it has to be The Club at 12 Oaks. The private club located in Holly Springs was opened just prior to the 2008 economic recession and had a difficult beginning, but has since re-launched its brand South…
By KEITH JARRETT The options for fun and entertainment at Rumbling Bald Resort on Lake Lure stretch as far and wide as the blue waters which surround this golf and vacation destination. Start with 36 holes: the Apple Valley and Bald Mountain championship courses that offer two distinctly different layouts but similar feels for challenge,…
By Kurt Dusterberg The University of North Carolina’s Finley Golf Course has had its makeover. Now it’s time for the clubhouse to receive a facelift. “It’s certainly showing its age at this time,” said Johnny Cake, the director of golf at UNC. The original clubhouse was built along with the course in 1949 by Raleigh…
By David Droschak Harrah’s Cherokee Casino is growing faster than a spinning slot machine reel. The resort destination bordering the Great Smoky Mountains National Park has a new luxury hotel that towers over the town of Cherokee, it recently opened a pair of 1,900-square-foot high roller suites on the 21st floor and a Ruth’s Chris…
By David Droschak Developers of the newest golf course in the Sandhills joke that “one foot of dirt” was moved to build Dormie Club. While that’s a slight exaggeration and virtually unheard of in today’s “bulldozer age” of golf course design, Dormie Club’s natural setting really is a throwback layout in the ilk of British…
By JAY ALLRED For close to a century, High Hampton Inn & Country Club, surrounded by the eternal beauty of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Cashiers, has been hosting generation-after-generation of golfers and vacationers who return to rejuvenate their souls and reconnect amidst the 1,400-acre playground. This rustic resort is, arguably, one of America’s top…
By David Droschak The work is complete …. Now the reviews start. In what some have described as a bold move after two successful U.S. Opens and a unique USGA double-header on the horizon in 2014, Pinehurst Resort is ready to unveil the throwback design of its classic No. 2 course to the golfing…
Pinehurst No. 2, the site of the U.S. Open and U.S. Women’s Open in consecutive weeks in 2014, will close in the winter as the final stages of the course’s restoration project are completed. The famed course, designed by legendary architect Donald Ross, will close Nov. 16 and reopen sometime in March 2011, Pinehurst…
By David Droschak Celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Blue Ridge Parkway wouldn’t be complete without paying homage to one of the truly great public golf courses in the state of North Carolina. Mount Mitchell Golf Club in Yancey County is just a five-minute drive from the National Scenic Byway, sitting in a “valley”…
By David Droschak Golf course architects are handed varying degrees of landscapes in which to build and design layouts – some good, some challenging and then some that are quite simply spectacular settings. The Sound at Albemarle Plantation in Hertford would fall under the latter category with its panoramic views of the expansive water,…