March 7, 2006
Royal Oaks gets makeover
By EDDIE LITAKER
Item Staff Writer
elitaker@theitem.com
Phone: 803-774-1289
Live Article
MANNING — Royal Oaks Golf Club might soon have a West Coast flavor, thanks to a new California-based ownership group.
NextGen Construction Inc. took over ownership of the course in September, with president Richard Nelson making the move from California to South Carolina to work with Course Manager Ricky Church on a daily basis.
Nelson said co-owner and secretary/treasurer Steve Shapiro will continue to work mainly out of California, coming to Royal Oaks "at least once a month." Marc Korody will also work from California in the capacity of comptroller.
"It's just a little bit of an adjustment," Nelson said of the East Coast-West Coast complications. "It's easier when you're on the West Coast working the East Coast because when it's 6 (a.m.) there it's 9 (a.m.) here."
Nelson, who lived and worked in the Sacramento area for 15 years, said making a business move to South Carolina has offered many advantages for his company.
"California has gotten so expensive that it made it hard to develop there," Nelson said. "That was part of the problem. We found it very nice to work out in this area. We've been real pleasantly surprised and pleased at what a nice reception we've received.
"I'd been on the West Coast all of my life, so coming here was a real pleasant change," he said. "It's a beautiful area, you don't have the traffic issues and there's all kinds of nice things. They don't have near as strict regulations over here, so something like that makes it a real positive business environment here."
Other factors that played in NextGen's decision to purchase Royal Oaks were positive population growth demographics in the South and its location near the Santee Cooper lakes and other popular tourist attractions.
After mainly working in the areas of development and construction, Nelson said this is his first experience in the golf course industry. With so much change and so many new personnel getting involved at Royal Oaks, Nelson was pleased to have Church and developer Jim Thigpen on board with him.
"We are very happy that Ricky is with us," Nelson said. "He knows this business, he know the locals, and we couldn't do it without him."
Nelson said plans are still in place for the development of residential lots along the course, a project in which Thigpen has remained active.
"Plans are now for about 900 units, single-family homes and patio homes," Thigpen said. "We've done a lot of improvements already. Mostly, we've been spending our time doing the engineering work, going through the permitting process, which is coming along fairly well."
Along with the work on residential lot development, Nelson will be working with grounds superintendent Todd Kirkland and golf course architect Clyde Johnston on a major course facelift.
"The course will be almost totally rebuilt, and that's what we've hired Clyde Johnston to do," Nelson said. "He's redesigning the course now. All the greens will be redone and then the 14th and 15th holes will be changed."
"He's laid out seven new holes for us," Thigpen said, "so we're going to be shutting down some of the holes on the interior and building new holes on the exterior. We're real excited about it."
One hole that will not be changed is Hole No. 13, the course's par-3, 174-yard signature hole.
"We're leaving that one as is," Nelson said. "We like that hole a lot, actually. One of the things that we asked Clyde to do was to develop a course that's real pleasing to the eye. We think that's important, and he assures us he is about to do that."
Nelson has also become acquainted with the course's unique wildlife habitat. "We were just sitting on the front porch here and there's five deer that just ran across in the middle of the day here on No. 10," Nelson said. "The guys on the tee box had to hold up for them. (We have) turkeys and I saw an alligator here the other day for the first time. We have a pair of eagles down on the back end of the course that are real beautiful.
"It's just stunning, and we'd love to try to keep that integrity, that same feel, throughout the development, keeping it so that wildlife would be here and can be observed," he said. "We're setting up some walking trails along the wetlands there so that people can observe the egret fishing and we have some beavers out there, so it's real pleasant."
Nelson hopes to have residential lots for sale in October — he plans to purchase one and move from his temporary home in Santee — with course improvements estimated for a fall 2007 completion.
"We invite people to come out and take a look at what we're doing," Thigpen said. "This is going to be a long process to get everything done, but we would welcome any of the local people to come and take a look at what we're doing. This is going to be a great place to live, not just for retirees from other areas but it's going to be a very attractive place for local people."
