By HOWARD WARD
The televised image of Davis Love III and brother Mark putting their heads together over the next shot in a golf tournament is ingrained in the minds of many golf fans.
The brothers Love are still putting their heads together, but more often than not, it’s now over the intricacy of a hole they’re designing. In fact, Mark has pretty much worked his way out of the job of caddying for Davis on the PGA Tour.
As president of Love Enterprises and Associates, Inc, Mark Love is far too busy most weeks to help Davis select the club for an approach shot to a green. He can usually be found at one of the various sites the company has under construction, holding strategy sessions and checking on details.
A site Mark Love is spending a lot of time at these days is Anderson Creek Golf Club, a daily fee development course located a few miles north of Fayetteville off Highway 87 and just more than 30 miles from Pinehurst.
Anderson Creek is scheduled to open for play July 30, and a pre-opening ride over the property with Mark, vice president Bob Spence and marketing director John McKenzie is enough to make a golf addict salivate.
If there is a bad hole on this labor of Love, it doesn’t show in the trip around the course. The tee areas offer a view of generous landing areas, but with plenty of strategically placed bunkers, water and wetlands to keep the golfer alert and wary. The impression is that it will be a fair layout, with a natural beauty and challenge that will make it one of the better and more popular courses in the area.
Davis visited the course in late June and pronounced it to his liking, finding it hard to choose a favorite hole.
"I like all the par-3s," he said. "It’s not an impossible course. There’s some tough driving areas and a couple of forced carries, but I think it’s a fun, challenging course. It’s the best set of greens we’ve done."
Davis couldn’t pick a least favorite hole, either. "There isn’t a weak hole on the course," he said.
"We try to do very traditional courses," Mark Love said. "The No. 2 Course at Pinehurst was one of our dad’s favorite courses and Davis and I always have it in our minds when we’re designing a course. Anderson Creek has more topography than No. 2, but the greens are similar with the runoff tendencies."
There is a special pride in Anderson Creek for the Love brothers, as well as for Spence, a former PGA Tour player and a noted golf instructor who is construction superintendent.
"This is the only one of the eight courses we’ve built that we have ownership in," Mark said. "One reason for that is that it’s in the Sandhills and we thought we could do something special here.
"This course has more of the Pinehurst look to it than any of our others, with more roll to it," Mark said. "We used what was here as much as we could, but we had to move some dirt to create some of the holes we wanted. It’s different from Pinehurst because of the wetlands we cross a couple of times, but I think it works.
"In all the courses we do, we try to find a blend of challenges. We want the good golfers to go to the back tees and have a challenge, but like No. 2, we like for them to be open so that you can always find your ball and have a shot.
"Davis says the Tour players enjoy the challenge of the new courses, but they always look forward to going back to the majors on the old courses."
Spence is as sold on the Ross influence as anyone.
"I grew up in Pinehurst," he said. "Few people have put as many balls in the air on No. 2 as I have, mostly in practice. One thing we’ve taken from the older courses is the placement of bunkers. They were put in to tell you not to go there. Ross told you how to play a hole by looking at it. That’s what we’re trying to create here."
Burr Johnson is general manger of the club and course superintendent. Both he and head professional Harold Thomas come to Anderson Creek from other Love-designed courses. Homesites in the development begin at $40,000, with homes built on lots ranging from $150,000 to $500,000.
Plans are to make the course affordable, with greens fees in the mid-$30 range during the off-seasons, according to Mark Love.
"The prices will be seasonal, like everyone else," he said, "but we’d like to keep them where people will say, ‘I can’t believe I can play a course like this for this price.’ We want to be below average in cost, but above average in the golf experience."
For information, call (910) 814-2633.
