By Frank Daniels IV
Staff Writer
After much speculation around the Moore County golfing community, the Mid Pines Development Group on Thursday announced its purchase of The Country Club of Whispering Pines and Foxfire Resort and Golf.
The group, which is led by the ownership team behind Pine Needles Lodge & Golf Club, Mid Pines Inn & Golf Club and Southern Pines Golf Club, made the deal under the newly formed Rolling Pines Group. It purchased the Country Club of Whispering Pines for $1.633 million and its associated time share units for an additional $411,000. It paid $1.512 million for the Foxfire property.
The deals come on the heels of the sale of the Mid Pines and Pine Needles hotels to the investment group Marine & Lawn, a division of AJ Capital Partners. The golf courses at those respective locations remain owned by Mid Pines Development Group, doing business as Ross Resorts.
In December, GreatLife Golf Management listed the properties for sale, asking just under $2.5 million and $3 million for Foxfire and Whispering Pines, respectively. Kelly Miller, managing partner of the new ownership group, said at the time he was only “looking at the properties.”
On Thursday, Miller said he had been focused on finalizing the joint venture with Marine & Lawn, and he can now shift attention to Foxfire and Whispering Pines.
“I haven’t had an opportunity to spend as much time on these properties, but I know there’s a lot of opportunity,” he said. “We’re going to welcome all the new associates (to the Mid Pines Group) and then listen to them, listen to the members, and over the next three to six months, be developing a plan that shows us our course of action.”
Miller and Haresh Tharani, who in 2017 became partners with the Miller and McGowan families — both descendants of the late Warren “Bullet” and Peggy Kirk Bell — said those plans also include bringing in course designer Kyle Franz to review the courses and develop a strategy for improvement. The company has an extensive history with Franz, who completed extensive renovations of its Donald Ross-designed Mid Pines and Pine Needles courses, as well as the Ross-designed Southern Pines Golf Club that the company bought in 2020 from the Southern Pines Elks Club.
“If one was to look at what we did at Southern Pines (Golf Club), that would be a very good example for people to see what Kelly and I do,” said Tharani. “ When we bought it, it was just a wonderful golf course. We brought in Kyle Franz, and we took a diamond and really polished it — that would be the best way to describe it — and that’s what we’d like to do to these properties as well.”
The group pursued the purchases because they saw the bones of solid courses at both locations. Whispering Pines was originally developed in the 1950s by A.B. Hardee around the roughly 3-square-mile Thagards Lake. Foxfire was developed by real estate broker Jack Vernon and golf professional Ed Kenney, who bought a 2,000-acre property from prominent amateur golfer Roland MacKenzie. The property features a lake bearing MacKenzie’s name.
Renowned mid-1900s golf course designer Gene Hamm designed the two courses, now known as the Red Fox and the Gray Fox, routed around Lake MacKenzie. The first 18 holes opened in 1968 and hosted the ACC Men’s Golf Championship in 1970, 1973 and 1975. Nine more holes were added in 1972, and the full 36 holes were completed by 1981.
Miller moved to the area that same year and married Peggy Ann Bell in the early 1980s. He then took a position with Pine Needles management staff, eventually working his way up to president and CEO.
Before his passing in 1984, Warren Bell had formed a group of golfers whoplayed three to four days a week rotating between Pine Needles, Southern Pines, Foxfire and Whispering Pines. Miller fondly remembers joining the group and gaining an appreciation for the courses at Foxfire and Whispering Pines.
Beyond the personal connection, he also believes there is an inherent connection between the design of the courses at the five clubs. That is particularly true in the case of Whispering Pines. Those courses there were originally designed by Ellis Maples, son of Donald Ross’ construction and course maintenance chief, Frank Maples. Ellis is best known locally for the Dogwood Course at the Country Club of North Carolina. The Maples name remains strongly tied to Moore County through his son’s Pinehurst-based golf design firm.
Miller said Ellis Maples’ knowledge of course architecture still shines through at Whispering Pines, regardless of some changes to the original design.
Over the past two years, there have been attempts to return the existing River and Pines courses there to the caliber they once had. The Pilot reported GreatLife Golf invested about $120,000 for irrigation and approximately $130,000 for new sod, sprigging, fertilizer, bunkers and tree work on the courses. It was their intention to make the courses attractive to golf packagers.
Despite those efforts, through recent visits Miller, Tharani and Franz agree there is still work to be done.
“They’re in pretty bad condition, and it’ll take a while to do,” said Miller “(We) have been out there several times, and (Franz) has some great thoughts and great ideas. It’s not a wholesale $20 million makeover. These are pretty good golf courses that just need attention to detail.”
“We believe that these properties are wonderful; they just need some tender loving care,” added Tharani. “Probably one of the most important things is getting the grass to grow properly, and the bunkers. It’ll be a pretty extensive amount of work over a period of time.”
Miller and Tharani see the move as a long-term investment, taking that time to improve the courses, learn what the community wants to see from the properties and, ultimately, they see “a real opportunity to provide really good golf at an affordable price.” Miller recognizes that North Carolina and the Sandhills region is growing, with Moore County projected to add more than 60,000 people by 2050.
“There really hasn’t been anything out there that’s kind of affordable for folks that are coming in,” said Miller, adding that the business would follow a semi-private course model. “We view it a little bit like what I call the Scottish or European model, where they’ve got a membership base and then it will be supplemented by outside rounds of golf.”
The deal included a series of existing units at Whispering Pines, labeled as timeshares, but Miller expects to operate those as long-term rentals and essentially separate from the golf business.
“ We’re not really getting into the golf packaging business over there,” he said. “If somebody wants to be in a golf package, they can stay here at Pine Needles or Mid Pines and, eventually when the courses are restored, perhaps may want to play over there to have an additional course.”
At this point, because “everything needs a lot of attention,” they haven’t developed a specific plan, and expect to spend that three to six months of listening time to familiarize themselves with the course and find that path forward.
“Kelly and I really love golf,” said Tharani. “We love what it means, and this really confirms our love for the area. We just want to do good things in a simple way.”
Contact Frank Daniels IV at (910) 693-2486 or frank@thepilot.com.
