Describe Your Town with Golf

JB

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Speaking to a friend this morning, we were talking about traveling and how so many places in this country have great courses, golf stores, etc that nobody knows about. I thought it would be a fun thread to have people discuss the town/city there are in and what exists for golfers. Is your area, a golfing area?
 
I feel compared to other parts of the country the public courses are overpriced and don't offer enough variety. All the courses that stand out in the Houston area that I would want to play are private.
 
Public courses here are for the most part are mostly not amazing and managed by 1 of 2 companies, and the country club lifestyle is huge. In a city the size of Charlotte there are countless country clubs from crazy expensive to 4-8k initiation fee Charlotte CC, Carmel CC, Myers Park, Providence, Olde Providence, Trump/The Peninsula, Quail Hollow, Pine Lake, Ballentyne, Club at Longview, Cedarwood, Raintree, Firethorn, TPC Piper Glenn, Pine Island, The Palisades(E1terate is a member), Northstone, Cowan's Ford, and so on and so on. Its amazing that all of these clubs can survive.


I feel like with the amount of courses the number of golf stores is pretty lacking. There is Dick's and Golf Galaxy(2 of them), but not really any other major golf retailers like PGA SS. There is a Top Golf and another planned to open next year I think, there is a huge practice facility called Leatherman's that does demo das and has a ton of bays. There is a Club Champion and Carolina Golf Manufacturing for custom fitting.


Best public courses in Charlotte to me are The Divide(JohnboyNC is a member), Rocky River, and Red Barn.
 
Tons of courses, lots of overpriced ones, some goat tracks but some decent tracks as well. We are starved for good weather here so unfortunately when its nice courses are usually packed and rounds are slow. As far as stores we have one really good one (Carl's Golfland). I'm fortunate to not be too far from it but thats about it other than Golf Galaxy which is awful. If a PGA Superstore ever popped up I have a feeling it would do very well.

Edit...in my own city? There is nothing golf related
 
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Lots of 9 hole muni's and some really nice 18 hole courses. Just have to be willing to travel at a minimum 1/2 hour up to 2 hours to get there.
 
Population around 35K. We only have a Golf Galaxy and a Country Club with a $30K initiation fee that I'd love to join but won't be able to. So yeah, I leave my town to go play golf.

The surrounding area on the other hand has a lot of options but all are priced high. Lots of variety though so you can pick what types of courses you want and go play.
 
Being in the North East of England we have so much golf on offer and variety of golf it is unreal. For links we have Cleveland and a few others, you can travel a little further for moorland courses. Then you come in land and you have a load of parkland style courses like Close House, Rockliffe Hall, Slaley hall, Matfen hall as upper echelon places and then you have places that don't ask a big price tag but are kept in great condition like Dinsdale, Brass castle and a few others, then there are goat tracks and all sorts of funny places to enjoy for even less money.

So much variety on offer within 50 minutes of driving if you want to play a full on course. The only thing we don't really have is a top class practice facility open to the public.

The great thing is you can get on all of these courses for under £40 each if you don't mind twilight rates
 
Charleston, great city for choices golf wise..... only issue is it can be very pricey most of the courses that people want to play. Even for residents its silly high.

shopping wise we have an edwin watts with a pretty inept group of sales people haha but the other major shop here (david ayers low country custom golf) is great! Greta staff and very knowledgeable
 
Wisconsin is a dang strong golf state. Lots of golf courses. Not too many stores, but many courses. Fun and inexpensive courses. NE Wisconsin is a fantastic place for the game, just not year round.
 
Lots of 9 hole muni's and some really nice 18 hole courses. Just have to be willing to travel at a minimum 1/2 hour up to 2 hours to get there.

Are you still in your town driving that far?

Wisconsin is a dang strong golf state. Lots of golf courses. Not too many stores, but many courses. Fun and inexpensive courses. NE Wisconsin is a fantastic place for the game, just not year round.

Thats a state though, how about your town?
 
The Wilmington golf scene is declining. We have lost 2 courses in the last 3 years. Real estate is booming and they are selling the land to be developed. It's a double edged sword here because of the proximity to Myrtle Beach. It is equal to or costs less to drive to the Myrtle Beach area to play. Courses are plentiful and usually cheaper too! Same thing with hotels. It is a lot cheaper to stay in Myrtle, than in Wilmington!
 
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Thats a state though, how about your town?

From my house, a 20 minute from my house will get you to 17 public 18 hole courses, 2 9 hole courses, and 3 private country clubs. There is a custom clubmaker in the area and many driving ranges. 2 mom/pop golf stores and a Golf Galaxy. If a person is willing to drive and hour, there's Golf Digest Top 100 course and a LPGA Tour course, two more private courses, 12 more public courses, a Dick's Sporting Goods, and four more mom/pop golf stores. If a person is a golfer in Appleton, WI and can't find somewhere to buy equipment or play some golf, they're not looking.
 
A big nooope, at least to me. Even in my county, about 915 sq miles, we have 2 county courses, maybe 3 township courses, and private course, and a 9 hole country club ... There may be others I don't know of ... Maybe 3-4 driving ranges, a DSG and 1 fitting studio shop

My specific township doesn't have anything, but the town north of me has a course with a range at least

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My town, Langley BC, isnt really a golf destination in and of itself but a 30 minute drive in almost any direction gives me a HUGE amount of golf options. Langley has 4 or 5 public courses, a handful of par 3 courses, and a couple executive par 4 courses. None of which are a destination.

For retail we have 1 Golftown and a couple ProShops. SportChek doesn't count IMO.

All that said, BCs lower mainland is pretty golf rich. 45 minute drive in any direction I probably have 70+ courses to choose from. The best courses are all private.
 
Where I grew up (it will always be home to me), we had/have Longaberger/Virtues right down the road. So our podunk little town has one of the best public courses in the state of Ohio.

Living in Cincinnati now, it's an okay golf town. Lots of muni/county courses that are almost impossible to get out on. A few courses out in the suburbs that are decent to very good (Stonelick Hills is awesome), but not within city limits so I guess technically they wouldn't count. Our club is 10-15 minutes from our house, depending on traffic, so that's nice for me. But it's also outside of city limits, so doesn't count.
 
Appleton has 22 courses, that is awesome.

Within a 20 minute drive, yeah. I counted them up because I wasn't sure it was right, but that's correct. Varying degrees of quality, of course. There are two inside the city limits of Appleton. A muni and a private club. It's not a bad little golf town.
 
Within a 20 minute drive, yeah. I counted them up because I wasn't sure it was right, but that's correct. Varying degrees of quality, of course. There are two inside the city limits of Appleton. A muni and a private club. It's not a bad little golf town.

Gotcha. So Appleton has 2 courses.
The rest are in the neighboring towns. Got it.
 
Louisville is a great golf town. There are 7 Muni's that are fairly to extremely good layouts and fairly well maintained. 4 of them were designed by AW Tillinghast himself. For 18 with a cart only one of them is more than $30 and it's only $35. Aside from that there are at least 10 other public courses within 30 miles of downtown that offer really good design and conditions for $60 or less. Heritage Hills about 20 miles south of downtown has beaten Valhalla as the best course in the state of Kentucky a couple of times in various rankings and made Golf Advisors top 25 public courses in the nation in 2017. It can be had for $35 after 3:00 PM with a cart. On top of that there are several private clubs with no initiation membership and sub $2000/year dues. We also certainly have a few extremely exclusive clubs as well if that is your bag with both old money places (Louisville Country Club, Hurstbourne Country Club) and new money places (Valhalla).

As far as shops we have a Golf Galaxy, but we also have a locally owned Golf Headquarters that has been open for 30 years. They have a ton of stuff, good prices, huge used selection and the guy that owns it has a great relationship with the sales staff of the manufacturers so he regularly gets random things they have to offer for dirt cheap. Some examples include a bunch of Stitch sales ample headcovers that he was selling for $25/each, a truck full of Ping demo clubs that were like 50% of used prices for the same makes and models, Footjoy polo singles that he sells for $30/each.
 
I feel compared to other parts of the country the public courses are overpriced and don't offer enough variety. All the courses that stand out in the Houston area that I would want to play are private.

Pretty much this, with the exception of Woodforest. It’s public and in fantastic shape, even compared to some of the ClubCorp properties I’ve seen. Though, they are able to subsidize their costs through offering monthly memberships as well as being open to the public.
 
On my side of town we only have 2 Golf courses. A Private course that has a 9 year wait list, and a goat track that is awful. Needless to say I don't play either one.

Just outside of my area though we have a plethora of golf courses within 20 miles.

We have a Golf Galaxy, Edwin Watts, Golf Locker, and DICK's if you want to count that.

Lucky to have lots of THPers in the area and we always make sure it's a fun time no matter the scores.
 
Louisville is a great golf town. There are 7 Muni's that are fairly good layouts and fairly well maintained. 4 of them were designed by AW Tillinghast himself. For 18 with a cart only one of them is more than $30 and it's only $35. Aside from that there are at least 10 other public courses within 30 miles of downtown that offer really good design and conditions for $60 or less. Heritage Hills about 20 miles south of downtown has beaten Valhalla as the best course in the state a couple of times in various rankings and made Golf Advisors top 25 public courses in the nation in 2017. It can be had for $35 after 3:00 PM with a cart. As far as shops we have a Golf Galaxy, but we also have a locally owned Golf Headquarters that has been open for 30 years. They have a ton of stuff, good prices, huge used selection and the guy that owns it has a great relationship with the sales staff of the manufacturers so he regularly gets random things they have to offer for dirt cheap. Some examples include a bunch of Stitch sales ample headcovers that he was selling for $25/each, a truck full of Ping demo clubs that were like 50% of used prices for the same makes and models, Footjoy polo singles that he sells for $30/each.

I wish Charlotte's Muni's were that affordable. The Muni here want 45 plus most of the time. Right now looking at the muni's rack rate is 43, on golfnow you can get it for 33 for 18 or 21 for 9. You can get onto the chip and putt for 18. Golf in Charlotte is not what I remember from down in Ft. Lauderdale we played a local 18 for like 25 a round for my dad and as a junior is was like 15 bucks.
 
I have a lot of options nearby, in my specific town I have one and neighboring towns there is plenty within 10-25 mins away. While being in the Chicagoland the prices aren't the best, there are tons of options.
 
Pretty much this, with the exception of Woodforest. It’s public and in fantastic shape, even compared to some of the ClubCorp properties I’ve seen. Though, they are able to subsidize their costs through offering monthly memberships as well as being open to the public.

I forgot about Woodforest. I’ve not been up there in a while but it’s always been well maintained. Eagle Pointe is another great public track, but not exactly in Houston (although it’s a short drive)
 
We're back in Scottsdale, AZ housesitting for my brother. I lived in the Phoenix area for 16 years and I would describe it as a Golf Mecca! If you can stand the heat, you can play some of the best courses in the country for next to nothing!
 
Are you still in your town driving that far?

No, sorry. Closest course is about 4 minutes. A small CC that is over priced and the course is in rough shape. The next closest course would be 1/2 hour away and that's where I have membership.
 
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