FEATURE STORY
College Towns Offer More than Just Tailgating
By Shane Sharp,
Contributing Writer
CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (August 25, 2002) - It came Thursday night, earlier than it has ever come before. There were 300-pound linemen with their bellies hanging out of their untucked shirts. There were running backs and linebackers who looked as if they jumped from the pages of a superhero comic book and into an extra small jersey. And there were cheerleaders, oh were there cheerleaders. And tailgating with barbeque and (as they say it here in the south), cole beer.
The college football season got underway on Aug. 22, the earliest start in the history of the game. Colorado State stole one from Virginia, 35-29 in Charlottesville in front of an announced crowd of over 50,000 orange and navy blue clad maniacs. Diehard Wahoo fans (the unofficial nickname of UVAer's, as based on a fish that allegedly drinks twice its weight each day) were snake bitten. "How could this Mountain West team come into our house, on opening day, and leave with a victory," they wondered out loud, only with considerably more four-letter words.
For the casual, objective observer who snuck into town to play
a little golf, take in a little history, and whet an appetite
for the college gridiron (you know who you are), it was simply
time to hit the sack and get ready for another day on the links.
You see, a good college town can offer so much more than voluminous
libraries, economically defiant happy hours, and five-dollar symphony
tickets. Each year, thousands of amply educated Americans retire
to places like Charlottesville, Chapel Hill, NC and Austin, TX,
shunning the shuffleboard courts of south Florida for something
closer to a normal existence.
So get to your local bookstore and pick up your usual assortment of college football previews. But while you are perusing the depth charts and passing efficiency stats, start thinking about a life of Saturdays in a raucous stadium and weekdays on deserted fairways. Here's a sampling of college towns that blend the best of both.
Charlottesville, Virginia
Golf Digest once rated the surrounding county as the best place in the country to retire and play golf. And don't you think a town founded by Thomas Jefferson, the ultimate American Renaissance man, would have a little bit of everything? If you don't want to commit to one country club, the Keswick Hall and Golf Club has a variety of membership options for Virginia residents. The main guesthouse is something straight out of a European history book, what with its Tuscan architecture and French doors.
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Extra Point The highly regarded courses of Colonial Williamsburg are just a 5-iron away.
Austin, Texas
If spending every Saturday locked in an 80,000 seat stadium
with a raging bull named Bevo and enough burnt orange to make
you want to hurl doesn't sound like a good time, Austin has plenty
of daily fee and resort golf offerings to take the time off your
hands. The crown jewel of them all is Barton
Creek, home to two Tom Fazio designed courses (Foothills and
Canyon) that are ranked among the Lone Star States' best. The
Palmer Lakeside and Ben Crenshaw Cliffside courses are also highly
touted and worth the price of admission.
If and when Barton Creek's upscale layouts put a safety blitz on your retirement budget, Austin is home to a mess of affordable daily fee courses that will keep you from having to resort to the early bird special every night: Bluebonnet is a linksy layout devoid of housing, Star Ranch is one of Austin's newest courses, designed by Carter Morrish and Roy Bechtol, and Jimmy Clay and Roy Kizer are two respectable municipal courses.
Extra Point: Horseshoe Bay Resort and its three award-winning courses is just 60 miles away.
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
The "Southern End of Heaven" is what the locals call
this quaint college town situated in the rolling hills of the
North Carolina Piedmont. Few scenes rival that of historic Franklin
Street in the fall. The leaves turning on the trees, the fans
making their way down to Keenan Stadium in the valley below, and
the beer taps bowing like Japanese businessmen at the college
bars on every corner. By day, you'll also find hordes of students
making their way to the Finley Golf Course on campus, redesigned
by Tom Fazio in 1998.
And what's more, if you don't have a collegiate allegiance, you can make the ten minute drive to the Washington and Duke Golf Club at Duke University. If you are looking for a place to live and play, Davis Love III and his crew just opened a new track at the Preserve at Jordan Lake. The tree-lined course is the centerpiece of a 516-home planned development on the western shores of Jordan Lake.
Extra Point: Pinehurst Resort, the self-anointed Home of American Golf, is just an hour drive from Chapel Hill. The resort houses eight top notch courses designed by the likes of Donald Ross, Tom Fazio, Ellis Maples and Rees Jones.
Shane Sharp is a Contributing Writer with TravelGolf.com. Reach him at sharp@travelgolf.com.
