Golf, of Course

From your patio chaise you can sip an aperitif and gaze at the splendor of it all. There, as far as the eye can see, is the backyard of your dreams: green, rolling turf-perfectly clipped and manicured-accented by the occasional rippling pond or stand of native trees. Migrating birds swoop in for a brief respite before fluttering on their way. And at dusk, crickets and hoot owls begin their serenades.

Of course, there are tradeoffs. On Saturday and Sunday afternoons, for example, you can expect several hundred friends and strangers to come traipsing through your idyllic lawn, either on foot or in motorized carts. Your dog can't romp across the greens. Your kids can't play in the sandtraps. And you might experience an occasional broken window from an errant shot.

But homeowners who live on golf courses say such inconveniences are a small price to pay for beautiful vistas and increasing property values.

"We wanted to live on a golf course because I'm an avid golfer," says Jim Deaderick, an early retiree who with his wife Cathy recently moved from New Jersey to a home bordering the South Hampton golf course in St. Augustine. "We look out over our pool and across a lake to the eighth fairway. It's very picturesque."

Communities built around golf courses have become the norm in Northeast Florida, at least as far as newer master-planned developments are concerned.

Within a 25-mile radius of downtown Jacksonville there are more than 100 golf courses, and many of the most highly rated are part of real estate developments. Residents include a veritable Who's Who of PGA Tour pros, who live alongside avid amateurs, casual duffers and even unapologetic non-golfers who just enjoy the ambience.

Communities such as Eagle Harbor and OakLeaf Plantation in Jacksonville" target="_blank">Clay County, Palencia and World Golf Village in St. Johns County, Julington Creek Plantation and Queen's Harbour Yacht & Country Club in Jacksonville" target="_blank">Duval County, Amelia Island Plantation and Summer Beach in Nassau County, Grand Haven and Hammock Dunes in Jacksonville" target="_blank">Flagler County, and Osprey Cove and Laurel Island in Jacksonville" target="_blank">Camden County all offer golf as a prime selling point.

These and other sprawling mixed-use projects have added new courses to an inventory that already included such legendary links as the world-renowned TPC at Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach.

And while the number of golf courses under construction in the U.S. has declined from a high of nearly 500 in 1998 to just 150 last year, the popularity of golf course communities doesn't seem to be waning on the First Coast.

Indeed, several major local developments either just under way or slated to begin later this year will have golf courses anchoring their amenities packages.

Does the region need these new facilities to accommodate a glut of golfers? The answer is clearly no. But as a community amenity, golf courses have become de rigueur.

"Yes, there has been a saturation of courses from a golf perspective," says M.G. Orender, president of LandMar Development's Hampton Golf division and honorary president of the PGA of America. "But from a community perspective, we can't build them fast enough."

Orender and other observers say the appeal of living on a golf course, or at least in a community that includes a course, is only partly attributable to the love of the game.

"Around 17 percent of the U.S. population are golfers," says Orender. "But only 25 to 50 percent of the people who move into golf communities actually play. Non-golfers enjoy living adjacent to 200 acres of open, well-manicured green space. Plus, property values in golf communities have maintained, if not exceeded, their expected value over time."

Orender is right on target, says Norman Bray, executive vice president of Amelia Island Plantation, a pioneering Nassau County resort community offering 54 holes of golf.

"Developers who are planning golf communities aren't doing it because there's a need for more golf courses," says Bray. "They're building courses because upscale buyers expect them, and because of the increased value of the real estate."

The numbers, at least in Northeast Florida, suggest that Orender and Bray are right.

A study conducted in 2002 by the University Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Services divided up the region into one-square-mile parcels, then compared property value assessments of parcels that included golf courses against those that did not.

One key result: The value of developed, primarily residential parcels that encompassed golf courses was about $71,000 higher than comparable parcels without golf.

"It could be said that the trend toward building golf courses peaked in the late 1990s and is headed downward," says Alan Hodges, a UF professor who co-authored the study. "But in Jacksonville" target="_blank">Duval County, along with some other Florida counties we looked at, adjacency to golf still seems to be a good investment for homebuyers-so it's still a good investment for developers."

How good an investment? A linkside perch can add anywhere from 10 to 50 percent to the value of a home, say experts.

"The premier homesite would be a large lot with a lake feature between the house and the golf course, with the lake backing up to a green," says LandMar vice president of marketing Jim Doyle. "Certainly the entire amenity package-tennis, playground, pool-is important. But golf really raises the bar on prestige. It's particularly appealing to first- and second-time move-up buyers."

Indeed, the stereotypical golf community dweller is an active retiree or an affluent professional with time to spend perfecting his or her swing. But developers say they're also selling to young families who want to bond over casual afternoons of golf or who want to groom their tots to be the next Tiger or Annika.

There are also an increasing number of retirees from the Northeast and Midwest who have never played golf in their lives, and assume that learning to do so is all but mandatory for a Florida resident. Consequently, club managers are accommodating novices by offering golf orientations and private lessons.

For serious golfers-and for serious prestige-junkies-some golf courses have more cache than others. In order to differentiate one golf community from another, developers go out of their way to either find a unique location or to bring in a big-name course designer.

"Some developments try to distinguish themselves with an elaborate clubhouse and the amenities they put in the clubhouse," says Jeff Lucovsky, vice president and chief course designer for McCumber Golf in Jacksonville. "Others really want to be able to say they've got a Mark McCumber, a Tom Fazio, a Jack Nicklaus or an Arnold Palmer course."

(At World Golf Village, developers can tout a double-whammy-its King & Bear layout is the only course in the country co-designed by Nicklaus and Palmer.)

Lucovsky, whose company has built at least a half-dozen courses in Northeast Florida, says a typical layout requires 150 to 200 acres of land and a $4 million to $10 million outlay-although some amenity-rich courses have cost as much as $30 million.

"But most developers don't commit to a golf course as a profit center on its own." Lucovsky notes. "They hope to break even on golf, make it successful, then sell it to the homeowners or members after a number of years."

According to Lucovsky, good golf course architects always try to work with the natural terrain to make a course interesting. Indeed, environmental laws governing development of wetlands and other sensitive ecosystems have made it virtually impossible to create a course without accommodating characteristics of the local terrain.

Terry Pendleton, president of Hammock Dunes Real Estate Company in Palm Coast, proudly notes that his development's Rees Jones-designed Marsh course-which was built on 200 acres surrounded by 500 acres of wetland preserve-has been named a Certified Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary.

Audubon International, the nonprofit environmental preservation society, sponsors a program through which golf courses can earn certification by demonstrating outstanding achievement in environmental planning, wildlife management, chemical use reduction, water conservation and education and outreach.

There are fewer than 500 Audubon-certified golf courses worldwide, and four of them are in Northeast Florida: Hammock Dunes, Amelia Island Plantation, the Golf Club of Jacksonville and TPC at Sawgrass.

"It's a real testament to the homeowners association that they wanted this designation," Pendleton says. "It means we've done a responsible job of protecting the environment and our course has had zero impact on the wetlands."

So, if you buy a golf course home, what's your financial obligation to the course and the club? The answer is: it depends.

Hammock Dunes is an equity club, which means members must buy shares in addition to paying annual dues. Only residents can be members, so when members move away their shares can be sold to the next buyer of the home or to a nonmember resident. The tab at Hammock Dunes is $75,000.

"The ability to join the club is tied to living in the community, and that puts positive pressure on the value of the real estate," says Pendleton. "It also makes the membership more valuable. I know if I move, I can get some or all of my $75,000 investment in the club back."

Equity membership is perhaps the most exclusive club structure, but it's far from being the only one.

LandMar, for example, owns and operates courses both inside and outside its developments through its Hammock Golf subsidiary. Although members pay dues, they aren't required to buy into the clubs, and they may play golf at any course the company owns.

In older communities, the developer may already have sold the golf club to homeowners, who may or may not have hired a management company to handle the business. Some clubs subsidize member dues by allowing the public to play on the course at higher fees.

Joe Eskut and his wife Darlene moved to South Hampton from Ohio when he retired four years ago. They knew they wanted to live in a golf course community with a well-run golf club-and it didn't matter to them that South Hampton was semi-private, with the public allowed to play on occasion.

"We belonged to a country club in Ohio," says Eskut. "We both play golf. We wanted to live someplace where we had ready access to a course. We liked the climate and we liked being near a city that wasn't just a retirement center. The golf has been great. We love it."