Smoke Rise GC - Stone Mountain, GA

[Richie3Jack]

Smoke Rise is a Gary Roger Baird designed course that plays 6,821 yards from the back tee with a 142 slope.

Smoke Rise struck a deal with Canongate to become one of their courses, but only allow Canongate members to play there Tuesdays thru Fridays. The weekends are reserved for original members and the course is closed on Mondays. However, that may change soon as the course is losing a lot of its old members and Canongate is reportedly pumping in anywhere from $1 - $3 million into course upkeep.

The Smoke Rise area in Stone Mountain used to be considered one of the wealthiest in the entire Atlanta area. You can see glimpses of that coming into Smoke Rise as some of the homes are downright gorgeous, but it appears they eventually let much more moderately priced homes in the area.

Smoke Rise represents the struggles that golf courses typically have had in the Atlanta area. To join Smoke Rise, the original initiation fee was $60K. But the market simply didn't suit that and the course eventually went to hell. The issue Canongate has now is that if it were to take over Smoke Rise full time, the old membership would likely flee due to not wanting to share a club with people, particularly since they paid $60K to get initiated into the club while Canongate's current initiation is $300.

The problem with the course is mostly conditioning and a bit of a quirky design. It appears that most of the money was spent on the clubhouse, restaurant and tennis courts, all of which are immaculate while the golf course didn't get the attention it needed. From my experience, restaurants on golf courses can do quite well, but the golf course needs good sized and active membership. For whatever reason, tennis just doesn't equate to people later on spending money in the restaurant quite like golf does.

The fairways and the bunkers at Smoke Rise are usually in solid condition. The greens are either in excellent shape or need a massive overhaul due to disease. A lot of the greens are surrounded by large trees which makes it tough to get air flowing thru and sunlight and you need both a competent greenkeeper crew and a good amount of resources to keep those types of greens in good condition. I don't think Smoke Rise had either. The tees are usually in awful condition as well.

The course is loaded with dog legs and it's a course you really need to play with somebody who has a good amount of experience playing there to find your way around. I like the back side better than the front because the front starts you off with #1, which you really need about a 3-iron to tee off with and you can't see where the ball is going. Then #4 is a horrible golf hole that usually winds up seeing people lose their golf ball and taking a long time to complete the hole. Then #9 is a 420 yard hole that says it's 490 yards on the scorecard. But it's about as straight uphill as I've ever seen a golf hole.

I also find the front side much more difficult. The good thing about Smoke Rise is there are quite few really good holes like #2, #5, #6, #7, #11, #17 and #18. But there are too many weak/bad holes like #1, #4, #9, #10, #16. I would suggest that if you can hit the ball 250 yards with the driver, to play from the back tees or you will be hitting irons all day from the 6,300 yard tees.

The 6th hole is my favorite hole there. It's about 560 yards with an elevated fairway that slopes hard to the left. It has a beautiful second shot where the ground slopes to the left and goes uphill and leaves for a nice looking approach. #4 is what's wrong with golf design as it's a hole that takes a 90* dogleg and if you miss slightly right of center, you can lose your ball into the hill. But if you hit down the center, you can have an impossible lie in the fairway. It's too bad because the approach shot is very pretty, sitting down slightly with a few beautiful homes behind the green.

Overall this is a course that really needs Canongate more than Canongate needs Smoke Rise. I think it should at least open the golf course full time to Canongate members and if the old members do not like it, then it's not a big loss considering that those members couldn't keep the course afloat when they had it to themselves. The big thing Canongate needs to do to the course is get the tees growing again, fix the greens that are a disaster and do a lot of tree and brush cutting to open the doglegs up more so golfers know where they are going and can speed up play.





3JACK

[gmbtempe]

This cannongate deal seems like one of the greatest golf gigs I have heard of

[Richie3Jack]

It is. Particularly if you live on the south side of town because something like 18 of the 25 Atlanta courses are on the south side. On the North side, there's also a huge Korean population, so the courses are busy every day and it's not uncommon to get a 5 hour round during the weekday. One day it was 45* and windy and I went to the range to hit balls and when I stepped into the pro shop the assistant told me that they had 112 golfers that day.

The south side courses are wide open for play. As a single you can finish in 2 hours with a cart down on the southside. Eagle Watch you can finish quickly as well. But the other north side courses, fuhgetaboutit.

For somebody like myself, they would charge $150 a month, and that includes range and then every time I went to play it cost me $25, but that includes a cart. If you have a family, the $150 a month is for the entire family.

The unlimited golf is a $5,000 initiation fee and then you're billed $375 a month, but you never have to pay when you play. A buddy of mine got that and he and his wife play about 25 times a month and he said it took about 1 year to make up for that $5K initiation.

I do plug Canongate quite a bit because it's an example of how thinking a tad bit outside of the box can create a situation where everybody wins. The customers get to play great courses at great prices and Canongate rakes in a lot of cash and is still actively seeking new courses in Atlanta. Plus, it's a monthly payment plan (with at minimum a 1-year commitment).

When I came down to Orlando, everybody wanted all the cash up front. I can sort of see that, but if they required a 1-year commitment or a 2-year commitment, they could've been protected against snow birds and others trying to pay for a month or two and then leave them high and dry. 50% of the courses in the US lose money, and IMO it's usually do to charging too much for what the market can bear and not thinking outside of the box. Plus, too many courses treat it solely as an assembly line type of business instead of making it fun and a warm place to visit.





3JACK