May 2024A Closer Look

1TitleScenic, dangerous, tranquil, noisy, entertaining, complicated: Living on a golf course can be all that, and moreBy Susan FornoffDeb Goldfogel was out in the yard playing with her little grandkids one afternoon when a golf ball whizzed over their heads.“I thought, maybe I shouldn’t be out here with them during the day,” she says.A close call, but never once did Goldfogel think, “Maybe we should move.” She and husband Jeff are two of those people who absolutely love living on a golf course – in this case, No. 4 on the Country Club at Castle Pines, but they’re even on a fairway at their winter home, Arizona’s Anthem Country Club.“You have to have a sense of what you’re getting into,” Goldfogel says. “But generally it’s beautiful and it’s quiet, and you don’t have a house backing up to your house. You have this big park behind you that somebody else takes care of. And you get free entertainment.”The Goldfogels, avid golfers who had been members at Green Gables, knew how to shop for the right lot in the right location for them, and how to design for minimal damage from wayward slices. Piper Knoll, a Realtor with West + Main Homes who has represented golf course home buyers and sellers, finds it useful to takes a “flow chart approach” like this one when a client says they’d like to live on a course:“Are the amenities important to you? That’s going to tell me if we’re looking at something more private or more public. Saddle Rock and Murphy Creek (both public) have good clubhouses, but some of them just don’t. If you have small children, how concerned are you about balls coming in the yard? How are you going to use the backyard? And, also, what’s your tolerance to noise and activity?”Knoll lives six minutes from her club, Blackstone and Black Bear, and wishes she lived closer. She says if you’re a CGA member and you haven’t thought about living on a golf course or a golf community, you should. “I think everybody should explore it,” she says. “There are many great perks to it, but it’s not for everybody.”Here are some helpful points that emerged from conversations with these two experts:

There’s a distinction between living on a golf course, which may be public, and living in a membership-based golf course community with access to amenities including clubhouse dining, gym, pool, tennis courts and sometimes even spas. “I’d say only half my golf community buyers actually golf,” says Knoll. “These are typically quieter communities. People walk around a bit more. You might have friendlier neighbors that are more connected and have more of a community feel than neighborhoods where you don’t have a reason to go out and socialize.”

Purchase of a home in a golf course community may come with golf club membership. Or it may not. Knoll tells of a recent Castle Pines seller who bought in 2018 and declined to purchase the owner’s club membership. “Now the new owner can’t get one, they have to be on a wait list for a couple years. … If the seller’s willing to sell their membership, that’s the only way to get into some of these places with wait lists.” Most of the time, even homeowners have to join a wait list, then be vetted and accepted for membership.

Golf community homes may come with strings attached. “There’s a whole set of bylaws and rules that you need to agree to,” Knoll says. “Some of these really exclusive clubs do come with some pretty heavy rules, which may or may not make sense for the amateur golfer. The one that sticks out would be Bear Creek and not being able to play there if you’re female.” Also check for upcoming assessments, overcrowded tee sheets and proposed changes to memberships. “We waited to join (CCCP) until the members bought the club,” Goldfogel recalls. “To me that felt safer than having it owned by some offshore Canadian entity.”

Expect to pay 2 to 5 percent more for a house on a golf course than for the exact same house two or three blocks off the course. “If you have some greater views, maybe some mountains, that’s where you’ll get that 5 percent increase in value,” Knoll says.

Golf course living isn’t reserved for the wealthy. Goldfogel points out that at Castle Pines, there’s a wide range between Re/Max founder Dave Liniger’s gazillion-square-foot spread atop the ridge and townhouses down below. Some courses have condos and small villas in the mix. Knoll says she works mostly in the $900,000 to $1.5 million range.

Be prepared for noise. “In the morning at 6 o’clock, the mowers and the machinery are out there,” says Goldfogel, who is fortunately an early riser. And consider how much you’ll hear of conversations and music. That may not be as simple as avoiding proximity to tees and greens, where golfers congregate and exclaim most. “There’s a hole down here with a wood bridge that crosses an arroyo,” Goldfogel says. “When carts go over the wood bridge, it makes a clickety clack noise. I have a friend who was looking at a house along there and stood outside for half an hour and then said, ‘Hell no, I’m not going to listen to that all day.’ ”

Then there’s the added liability. Goldfogel says, “You have to hit a pretty bad shot to have it land in my yard, so it’s not like a constant bombardment. But occasionally they’ll hit the roof, and we do have pockmarks in the stucco.” Knoll’s husband, Justin, has the distinction of breaking a window on a house at Black Bear that had not ever had a window broken. “It was probably 280 yards down – there’s no way he should have hit this house,” she says. “They never thought someone could hit their house, and they lived there for 10 years. It does happen. If you live on a golf course, you’re never completely safe.”

There is, however, the perk of free golf balls. “The ProV1s we save for my son,” Goldfogel says, laughing. “I’ll find some I use. And we donate a lot to First Tee or junior golf. It’s just a hazard of living on a golf course. You’re going to get some balls.”

Finally, golfers, make sure you’re doing your due diligence. For example, did you know the Castle Pines area is one of the lightning capitals of the world? “We are in a very high lightning area,” Goldfogel says. “In the summertime, you’d better play early in the day to make sure you get 18 holes in.” Important to know if you want to live on a golf course Jimmy Buffett style, “drinking Cajun martinis and playing afternoon golf.”

--------Journalist Susan Fornoff has written about golf for publications including the San Francisco Chronicle, ColoradoBiz Magazine and her own GottaGoGolf.com. She belongs to the Overland and Links at Highlands Ranch ladies’ clubs and ghost-writes as “Molly McMulligan,” the CGA’s on-course consultant on golf for fun. Email her at mollymcmulligan@gmail.com
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