Golf at the Beach: A Sea of Greens

Along the Coast, Public Courses of All Kinds Spring Up

This is public course golf at the beach.

The fifth hole on the Links at Lighthouse Sound in Bishopville, Md., 185 yards from the next-to-back tees over marshland to a green that seems about the size of a strip of bacon laid sideways. With an outline of Ocean City off to the right across about a mile of bay water, the overall scene is stunning.

But it can cost as much as $135 to get there. That's the Friday-through-Sunday greens fee--cart and range balls included.

This also is golf at the beach.

The 15th hole at Old Landing in Rehoboth Beach, Del., 117 yards over marshland from the tips to a very wide and forgiving green. With several trees and another unexceptional hole ahead, the overall scene is bland.

But it can cost as little as $32 to get there. Add $12 to ride.

That's the alpha and omega of 18-hole public courses in the area ranging from just north of Rehoboth down though Ocean City: The very expensive and very new Lighthouse Sound, which opened just a few weeks ago, to the modestly priced and unpretentious Old Landing, which opened its second nine holes in 1967.

Golfers who have not been to the Ocean City-Rehoboth area for about 10 years will be astonished at the sudden availability of public 18-hole courses of par 70 or more. No longer are the choices limited to Old Landing and the Ocean City Golf & Yacht Club, which opened in 1959.

In fact, Ocean City Golf & Yacht Club isn't even the only course off Route 611 just outside Ocean City. Along the way are Rum Pointe and Eagle's Landing, the only municipal course in the area, built by the city nine years ago.

The number of courses reached 14 when ambitious Baywood Greens--with about 100,000 plants, shrubs and trees and an island fairway--opened its second nine May 26. The Rookery is aiming for a late-July opening and touts as its signature sight the 75 or so blue herons nesting behind the fifth green.

Three more courses are at least in the planning stages, among them the fourth in the area by developer Tom Ruark. It will also be along that Route 611 golfing gateway. His other courses are Lighthouse Sound, Rum Pointe and Nutters Crossing in Salisbury.

The Ocean City public courses have joined together with about two-dozen hotels for promotions and packages. Their global goal: keeping golfers from going all the way to Myrtle Beach during what are known as the shoulder months: April through May and September through October.

"We don't know how many courses we can fill up," said Andy Loving, the pro at Eagle's Landing. "Last year, [the 12 Ocean City area courses] had 250,000 rounds. By January this year, weekend tee times at our place were filled for April and May."

On the third Saturday in May, a single golfer could not get a tee time at any of the Ocean City courses until very late in the afternoon. The day before, the parking lot at the 36-hole Ocean City Golf & Yacht Club was overflowing, with dozens of cars from Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

"Like any industry that's growing," Ocean City Golf & Yacht Club pro Buddy Sass said, "golf here goes in spurts. We go from not having enough supply to too much. Right now, courses here are not seeing any increase in their rounds. One course might be able to handle 30,000 rounds a year. But three courses that open in the same year are probably not going to handle [a combined] 90,000 rounds."

Loving and others said Tom Perlozzo, Ocean City's director of recreation and parks, is the person most responsible for the area's golf explosion. In the early '90s, Perlozzo pushed for the construction of Eagle's Landing and then persuaded the public courses to help promote themselves. The growth has been such that Perlozzo runs the golf-package service he helped start.

The packages vary. One that includes two nights and two rounds at the River Run Golf Club and Community runs from $91 to $219 per person depending on the season. Hotels and condominiums also offer packages.

"I'd imagine that golf has pumped well over $1 billion into our economy in the last decade," Perlozzo said.

Most courses know their niche. Lighthouse Sound wants to be rated the best new public course in the country. Baywood Greens, whose Friday-through-Sunday fee is $68, plans to compete with Lighthouse Sound. Those two and other courses do not permit walking and limit riding to the concrete paths.

Old Landing encourages walking and, weather permitting, allows riding carts everywhere but within 20 or so yards of each green.

"We don't do some of the fancy stuff those guys do, like $40,000 bridges," Old Landing owner Robert Marshall said, referring to the 1,500-foot cart bridge at The Links at Lighthouse Sound. "We build our own."

Old Landing does not have a pro, or a driving range. It does have a place in golf. A young executive might not go there to impress a client, but a father would go there to give his child an early experience on a course above the pitch-and-putt level. The 6,097 yards from the back tees are more than enough during typically windy conditions and a few holes are so tight it feels like hitting down a tree-lined hallway.

Old Landing was carved out of the Marshall Farm, which dates to the 1800s. And Robert Marshall expects to be in business longer than some of the competition.

"I don't count the rounds," he said. "I look at the revenue, and we're doing okay. But we don't have the mortgage they have. We've been here longer. If the new guys are honest about it, I think you'll find the rounds and total revenue are not what they expected.

"I think they overestimated how much money that's actually in golf."

Many are betting otherwise. Part of their learning curve is dealing with one of the quirks of beach golf--that the beach crowd doesn't play as much as one might think. The rates at Nutters Crossing are significantly lower in July and August.

"It's really weird," Loving said of Eagle's Landing. "We'll get golfers on a bad beach day, when it's rainy."