The GolfCourseHome Life

Golf Digest Names Cliffs at Keowee Springs a 'Best New Private Course' for 2009

The Cliffs at Keowee Springs SC: Hole No. 7 and No. 8 tee box.

The Cliffs at Keowee Springs golf course perhaps had a harbinger of things to come when its No. 8 hole was named to the GolfCourseHome Dream 18 of Best Residential Golf Holes last March.  Now Golf Digest has just named the course the No. 8 Best New Course' in the U.S. for 2009.

Designed by Tom Fazio designed the par 72, 7,100-yard layout, the course returns to The Clubhouse or The Turnhouse at six-hole intervals, making it one of the most versatile designs in Fazio’s wide repertoire of award-winning courses. 

The Cliffs at Keowee Springs also benefits the golf by being the homes of the International Institute of Golf. The brainchild of famed Australian golf coaches Steve Bann and Dale Lynch, the Institute is modeled after the prestigious Victorian Institute of Sport golf program in Melbourne, where the duo have trained leading tour professionals including Geoff Ogilvy, Stuart Appleby, Aaron Baddeley, Robert Allenby and KJ Choi.

The Cliffs Communities are ranked among America’s Top 10 Private Golf Communities by Travel + Leisure Golf and The Robb Report. Cliffs’ members membership in one community provides access to world-class amenities at all eight Cliffs Communities--eight championship golf courses including Tiger Woods’ first U.S. course design, spectacular clubhouses, marinas, an equestrian center and access to The Cliffs’ international vacation properties in British Columbia, Chile and the Bahamas.

Golfweek Magazine's 'Best New Courses' 2009 Features GCH Network Communities

The Cliffs at Keowee Springs, SC

Golfweek Magazine's prestigious and influential list of Best New Courses for 2009 is out, and three GolfCourseHome® Network communities have been honored:

• The Cliffs at Keowee Springs, SC makes the list at No. 16 with its Tom Fazio design
• Fairvue Plantation, TN and its Foxlands Course by Bill Bergin comes in at No. 35
• Black Bull, MT along with architect Tom Weiskopf join the rankings at No. 40

Blackstone Golf Course Earns Certified Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary Status

The Jim Engh-designed golf course at Blackstone Country Club has been designated a Certified Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary, the 10th in Arizona and the 778th in the world, by Audubon International.

A 570-acre private, gated community located within the Vistancia master plan in Peoria, the award adds even more weight to the community's green efforts, catapulting it to the Vanguard level--the top designation--on the GolfCourseHome Network's GreenGolfCommunities website.

Earning the certification means the club has demonstrated a strong commitment to its environmental program and maintains a high degree of environmental quality in the areas of environmental planning, wildlife and habitat management, outreach and education, chemical use reduction and safety, water quality management, water conservation and environmental planning.

“The Blackstone agronomy team is to be commended for its efforts to provide a sanctuary for wildlife on the golf course property,” said Jim Sluiter, staff ecologist for the Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary Program.

The championship course is home to mule deer, ducks, badgers, bobcats, prairie dogs, chipmunks, many types of birds and the wild donkeys that have roamed the area for generations.

Course Superintendent Roger Brashear led the 25-member team in the year-long process that took more than 300 hours to complete.

“I’m proud of the team’s efforts,” he explained. “Their daily record-keeping allowed me to provide Audubon International with information in a concise and timely manner. It made things run very smoothly.”

Brashear, who is being recognized for his environmental stewardship by the organization, regards the certification as an affirmation of the club’s existing course maintenance practices.

“The environmental management practices we follow here are respectful of the land, wildlife, water and air,” he said. “But they also help us to improve our efficiency in maintaining the course and will ultimately help us achieve sustainability.”

Golf Magazine's 2009 Top 100 Courses in the U.S. & World Shine Again for Sea Pines

Harbour Town, Hilton Head Island, SC: Double winner.

Congrats goes to the Harbour Town golf course at Sea Pines Plantation, Hilton Head Island ,SC, which again was named to both of Golf Magazine's Top 100 Courses lists--Top 100 Courses in the U.S. and and Top 100 Courses in the World.

The Pete Dye - Jack Nicklaus course comes in at No. 44 on the Top 100 in the U.S. list and No. 73 on the Top 100 in the World list.

Both rankings are a few steps down from the course's 2007 rankings, but every two years the course successfully fends off newer, shinier layouts to maintain its place among the world's elite golf courses. It is one of the main attractions to home buyers looking at real estate at Sea Pines.

And One to Watch....

Another course at a real estate community caught the eye of the Golf Magazine reviewers even though it is not open for play yet. The Cliffs at High Carolina, Asheville, N.C., is to be Tiger Woods's first design in the U.S. and is slated to open in 2010.

Sited in the Blue Ridge Mountains, High Carolina has generated a lot of buzz and curiosity. But as the Editors at the magazine write, "We know Tiger can play, but can he design? We're about to find out." Stay tuned.

Carolina Trace Nabs Fifth 'Top 100 Best Community' Award from 'Where to Retire'

Carolina Trace, NC: Five times a 'Top 100' winner.

Carolina Trace was recently named one of “America’s Top 100 Best Master-Planned Communities” by Where to Retire magazine. The editors conducted a 10-month search for communities across America to reach their comprehensive list. It is fifth time Carolina Trace has received the designation. 

Featuring two Robert Trent Jones, Sr. championship golf courses, new full-service clubhouse, established community with a wide range of homes ($152,000--$1.5 million) developed on 2,500 acres with lake, golf course or wooded views, Carolina Trace is one of just two communities located in the heartlands of the North Carolina Sand Hills area to be chosen.

The community is known for how quickly new residents are welcomed into the social fabric.

“You would think we had lived here for years,” says Liz LaFuze, noting how she and husband Tom made friends so soon after moving to the community a few years ago from Wisconsin.

“We drove into the Trace and we said, ‘Oh, my, this is exactly what we want,’ she recalls. Homes are much different from a “cookie-cutter” approach in other communities they scouted, Liz says.

The couple, in their late 50s, especially enjoy the golf facilities, having taken up the game after moving to Carolina Trace.

 “It just turned out to be perfect,” she says. The editors at Where to Retire magazine would agree.

SummerGlen Named to 'Where to Retire' Magazine's '100 Best Communities' List

SummerGlen, Ocala, FL: A 'Best' place to retire.

SummerGlen has once again been named one of "America’s 100 Best Master-Planned Communities," by Where To Retire magazine. 

Every two years, Where To Retire selects the 100 master-planned communities in the US which it considers to offer the best in quality, value and lifestyle. SummerGlen was included in the prestigious list in 2005 and 2007. The 2009 list was recently announced in the July/August issue of the magazine.

According to “Where To Retire,”during a nine-month selection process, our editors reviewed several hundred candidates across the country.  Your community (SummerGlen) is among an elite group of developments that offer today’s retirees a well-rounded and active lifestyle.”

In the issue, Where To Retire editors quoted SummerGlen residents Rich and Connie DeStefanis, who lived in Vero Beach but didn't find what they wanted for retirement there.

"We were looking for a 55-plus community that offered a lot of activities and where we could have social interaction with a lot of people," says Rich. "We liked the activities [at SummerGlen]. The clubs have just about anything you want to do, and the people are very friendly. The builder was accommodating on changes to the home, which other places weren't flexible."

 

Homestead Preserve, Cliffs Communities Earn 'Best Preservation Practices' Award

Homestead Preserve is one of six communities receiving “Best Preservation Practices” honors in Pinnacle Living Mountain Homes magazine’s 2009 Best of the Mountains Awards.  The magazine cited Homestead Preserve’s conservation of more than 10,000 acres of land with The Nature Conservancy and Virginia Outdoors Foundation as well as its strict architectural guidelines as primary reasons for the award. 

Pinnacle Living Mountain Homes also praised Homestead Preserve’s restoration and adaptive reuse of the Old Dairy Community Center in Warm Springs.  In 2007, Homestead Preserve developers completed a $6 million restoration of the 1920s agricultural complex and community icon.  Old Dairy is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places and as a Virginia Historic Landmark.

“We are honored to be recognized for the fourth year running in Mountain Homes’ ‘Best of the Mountains’ awards,” says Homestead Preserve Co-General Manager Don Killoren.  “The fact that we make the list year after year attests to our ongoing commitment to the environment and the community of Bath County.”

The five other communities honored for “Best Preservation Practices” this year include Balsam Mountain Preserve in Sylva, NC; Cold Mountain in Asheville, NC; Red Wolf Run in Asheville, NC; The Cliffs Communities in North Carolina and South Carolina; and The Preserve at English Mountain in Sevierville, TN.

Homestead Preserve developers and Celebration Associates partners Charles Adams and Don Killoren were instrumental in the design and development of Celebration, Florida, near Orlando, which was hailed as the “Most Advanced Community in the Country from 1996-1998” by The Guinness Book of World Records.