Member Clubs
S
ome golf courses just need to be built. The terrain and
the vision demand it. Unfortunately, these impera-
tives don’t guarantee financial success. Indeed, some-
times it’s the second or third owners of these dream
projects who figure out how to make them work.
Such has been the case at Ballyhack Golf Club, a
course opened in 2009, just as the housing market was tanking. The
layout was good enough to knock on the door of several national Top
vsga.org
100 lists, but nevertheless failed to thrive as a traditional private
club. It was sold to new owners last year and when the Delta Dental
State Open again visits Ballyhack July 20–22, Virginians will see a
club and development in full-on rebound mode.
Kula Golf is the Nebraska-based investment company that in June
2016 purchased Ballyhack from the original owner, Fountainhead
Land Co. In less than a year, membership rolls have surged and four
new homes (each $500,000-and-up range) are under construction.
Four new guest cottages are also being built, with more on the way,
according to Joe Zaleski, the general manager at Ballyhack GC.
What accounts for the turnaround?
Well, the new owners at Ballyhack have embraced a cutting-edge
development model rapidly gaining steam not just in Virginia, but
also across the country: the remote, national, destination, private
club (RNDPC). Despite its clunky acronym, RNDPC pretty well
sums up the genre. These are super high-end private enclaves
located well off the beaten path, with guest cottages and real estate
investment options for “national” members, who, because the golf,
amenities and surroundings are so unique, come from all over the
country to enjoy them.
“We consider a ‘national’ member to be anyone who lives more
than 30 miles away,” Zaleski said. “We are convenient to the Roa-
noke-Blacksburg Regional Airport and I-81, making us the perfect
getaway for golfers—an ideal vacation-home location for anyone
who lives north or east of Richmond, including all of greater Wash-
ington, D.C., even Philadelphia, Cincinnati or Pittsburgh.”
Ballyhack didn’t start out with all this in mind. It was conceived as
a more or less traditional private club, designed by Richmond-based
architect Lester George. However, the course was built by golf’s pre-
mier course-construction outfit, Lincoln, Neb.-based Landscapes
Unlimited, a company that sits at the heart of both the RNDPC
dynamic and Ballyhack’s changing fortunes.
At the request of new owners Kula Golf, Landscapes manages the
club through its operations division, Landscapes Golf Management.
But Landscapes’ role here goes deeper still. In the 1990s, the firm
helped build the godfather of all RNDPCs, Sand Hills GC in west-
ern Nebraska, a course so good that links aficionados from all over
the world made and continue to make pilgrimages to tiny Mullen,
Neb.—located four hours west of Omaha and four hours east of
Denver—to play it. Soon the owner there built accommodations
and the pilgrimages grew more frequent, lengthy and profitable.
Landscapes founder Bill Kubly noticed something else: “People
were falling all over themselves to join this club!” Kubly and Land-
scapes subsequently built their own version of Sand Hills in South
Dakota (Sutton Bay Club), and others for clients in remote locations
(Colorado Golf Club debuts this year). At Landscapes’ recommenda-
tion, the new owners at Ballyhack have also gone the RNDPC route,
and Kubly put his money where his mouth was by joining Kula’s
ownership consortium.
Bottom line: It’s working in Roanoke, in part because of this RNDPC
dynamic, but also because the housing market has rebounded.
“For several years we experienced zero local interest in homes
here at Ballyhack, but the resurgent housing market has changed
that, too,” Zaleski said. “Truth is, the club is not that remote. Not
like Sand Hills. We’re 10 minutes from downtown Roanoke. So we’ve
really sort of evolved into a hybrid, a destination private club that
well serves both local and national memberships. We’re quite liking
the combination.”
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