Golf in the North Carolina Triangle

By Shane Sharp,
Contributing Writer

CHARLOTTE, NC (June 5, 2000) - The Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill area, a.k.a. the "Triangle" has it all. You say you like college basketball? Then catch a Duke, University of North Carolina, or North Carolina State hoops game - all of which are within a half hour's drive of each other.

Maybe you are more of a "techie" interested in all things computer and technology related. Look no further than the Research Triangle Park, which hosts IBM, SAS Institute, and Glaxo Wellcome among others.

Or perhaps you just like the idea of living in an area of the country that has been continually recognized by such publications as "Newsweek" and "Money" as one of the best places to live in the United States.

But if you like to surround yourself with shameful amounts of daily fee golf, then the Triangle may not be for you after all. Charlotte has over seventy golf courses within a forty-five minute drive of the city. Greensboro and the Triad area is a veritable panacea of affordable, daily fee golf. But there are more educational opportunities than golfing options in the Triangle.

With hordes of white-collar workers and young people who are allegedly hoping on the golf bandwagon, you might think that the Triangle would be a haven for high-end, daily fee golf. So what gives?

"Most of the affordable golf in the area is located about forty minutes from downtown Raleigh," says Ed Juline, and IBM employee and frequent patron of Triangle area golf courses. "In general, there is a real shortage of golf courses here, and that has a lot to do with the price of real estate and some environmental issues."

But alas, golf is a feel good game, and who are we to dwell on the negative. But memo to big time developers in other cities: if you have a little extra cash sitting around, and ever dreamed of opening a golf course in a region void of much competition, get to the Triangle.

Higher Education

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University are the hubs of higher education in the Triangle (sorry Wolf Pack fans), and they also happen to be the nexus of area's golf scene.

The Finley Course at UNC (919-962-2349) has long been recognized as one of the better collegiate golf courses in the country, and that was before Tom Fazio completed his recent revamping of the course. The remodeling job was heralded as "remarkable" by the Insiders Guide to Golf in the Carolinas," and carried a price tag of almost $8 million.

And for the money spent, and a $40 greens fee on the weekdays, you won't find a better place to play. The greens are walk mowed each day, a Border Collie chases away any water foul looking to leave their mark on the fairways, and Finley now boasts one of the best practice facilities in the state.

Leave it up to Duke not to be upstaged by its hated rival. Just down "Tobacco Road" at Duke University lies one of the Triangle's other great tracks, the Duke University Golf Club. When legendary Wake Forest basketball coach "Bones" McKinney would host recruits in the Triangle (Wake Forest used to be in Wake Forest, just outside of Raleigh) he would drive them around Duke's campus and tell them it was Wake.

The point being, Duke has a gorgeous campus, and the course at Washington Duke Golf and Country Club is no exception. The course was designed by Robert Trent Jones and originally opened for play in 1957. In 1993, Rees Jones was persuaded by his daughter (a Dukie at the time) to revamp the course pro bono. The course is routed through some of the most beautiful hardwoods in the area, and is walkable if you are used to hoofing it and have a resting heart rate of 75 or under.

Hanging the Devil from a Neuse

So you are not ready to dawn the cap and gown and march down the fairway with a bunch of matriculates. The Triangle does offer up a sisterhood of three high-end daily fee courses that have garnered some recognition from national publications.

Off the beaten path in Clayton, about a forty-minute drive from downtown Raleigh, you'll find the Neuse Golf Club, designed by George Cobb disciple John LaFoy. The Neuse recently received four and half stars from Golf Digest in its "Places to Play" rankings.

The Neuse (919-550-0550) is a good modern golf course with rock outcroppings, rolling hills for fairways and hundreds of homes. You ain't in the back yard of higher education anymore, and developers have to make a buck or two.

There are a few memorable holes at the Neuse that offer the occasional glimpse of the Neuse River. But chances are you will walk away with more memories of the windows you busted out on your tee shots. All kidding aside, the Neuse is a great deal at $40 on the weekdays, and even cheaper than that in the afternoon.

Over in Holly Springs is one of the Neuse's sister courses, Devil's Ridge ((919-557-6100). Similar to the Neuse, Devil's Ridge is a modern course that sports a great deal of mounding, gruesome blind tee shots, and undulating greens.

Devil's Ridge is a course that will inflate your score by five to seven stokes the first time you play: you simply don't know what you are hitting into a good deal of the time, so a yardage book is a key piece of equipment.

The third member of the family is the Lochmere Golf Club ((919-851-0611) in the affluent Raleigh satellite town of Cary (which according to locals stands for Congregation Area for Rich Yankees). Compared to Devil's Ridge and the Neuse, Lochmere is flat and refreshingly short - playing only 6867 yards from the tips.

As would be expected from a short course, Lochmere demands accuracy on most shots, especially off the tee. To use one of the tireless clichés in the craft, it is a shotmaker's course that will require you to use every club in your bag.

So while there may be a better chance of the Wolf Pack beating Florida State this season in football than the Triangle emerging as a golfing destination, there are a few must plays when visiting North Carolina's technological and education capital.