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CONTINUED FROM PAGE 115 not an option because of Avery’s rough winters and isolated location. They looked four miles down the road at Linville and saw their answer: Build a golf course and develop the property around it for second homeowners. They formed the Avery Development Corporation and sold shares of stock to raise money for the project.

Thanks to great leadership and a generous landowner, Todd Lecka, Mountain Glen would become a reality. George Cobb, who first designed Quail Hollow in Charlotte, the Augusta National Par Three Course and, locally, Hound Ears, was the architect. Cobb later designed Linville Ridge. The back nine was built first, and it opened in July 1964. The front nine opened a year later.

Mountain Glen has been one of the most popular courses in the area. It plays 6,523 yards from the back tees and 5,968 yards from the regular tees. The signature hole is the beautiful, downhill, 186-yard 12th hole. The view from the tee shows Hump Mountain in the background.

Mountain Glen’s hardest hole is the 411-yard dogleg left 11th hole. The hole isn’t particularly long, except that from 200 yards in, it is steeply uphill. Also, the tee shot must be very accurate. A little left and you are blocked by trees; a little right and you are in the trees. It is not a good idea to be above the pin on its sloped green. Mountain Glen’s greens get really fast later in the summer. I rate no. 11 as one of the top five hardest holes in the High Country.

Now to drivable par 4s: We need to divide this into two categories.

First, the mortals have two opportunities. The 291-yard sixth (265 yards from the regular tees) is a tempting drive. Fade your drive and you are in a pond. Hook it and you might have a shot, you might be blocked by a pine tree or you might be out-of-bounds. Going for it is worth the gamble, though.

The 16th is slightly downhill and 313 yards from the regular tees and 339 from the back. Aim right and hit a draw on the downside of a hill, and you’ll be sitting pretty. Get double-crossed and hit a fade, and you’ll be in your pocket. Out-of-bounds is right off the fairway.

And then there’s David Forbes. Forbes takes it back as far as John Daly and is twice as strong. Forbes has driven every par four at Mountain Glen except the 11th. On the “short” par 4s such as the 339 yard 16th, he drives it with a 3 iron. Forbes is more than a long hitter. He holds the amateur course record with a 63 from the tips. My most intimidating tee shot? It’s a tossup between the 11th and the 17th. No. 17 is a dogleg right with two huge oak trees down the right side of the fairway and a row of white pines bordering the left side. The fairway slopes left into the pines. The best shot is a high fade over the first oak or a low fade under its branches. A tee shot left of the first oak has to be perfect or you are in the pines where the sun never shines.

Call Mountain Glen at (828) 7335804 to set up a tee time and to ap- preciate what it took for David Forbes to drive all but one of their 10 par 4s. If Sam Foster answers the phone, you are talking to someone special. He served as head pro for more than four decades and holds the course record with a 62. Before coming to Mountain Glen, Foster was assistant pro at Grandfather Golf & Country Club in season and an assistant at Augusta National in the offseason.

Linville Land Harbor

Linville Land Harbor is a 48-year-old, 1,000-acre residential resort that is, by far, the largest in Avery County with 1,400 homes. It is designed around a 48-acre lake visible from U.S. 221 three miles south of Linville.

Land Harbor was created by the Robbins brothers —Grover, Harry and Spencer — who also brought to the High Country Tweetsie Railroad, Hound Ears, Beech Mountain, Land of Oz and the Elk River Club. The original idea was to build a recreation resort for short-term or extended-stay vacationers who used their campers or RVs to live in. Back in the 1960s and early ‘70s, campers were the rage.

The RV lots made up 1,510 of the 1,933 lots, with homesites making up most of the rest. Later on, people wanted to spend more time at Land Harbor, so many of the RV lots were combined to provide an additional 500 building lots.

The Land Harbor property belonged to a lumber company in the early 1900s. In 1923, 5,000 acres of that property was purchased by Howard Marmon, an engineering genius whose parents took him to the Eseeola Lodge when he was a boy. Apparently, Marmon had health problems when he was young, and being in the mountains healed him. He came back to build a second home.

In 1909, Marmon built the car that won the first Indianapolis 500. The following year, 61 of the nation’s official speed records were owned by Marmon cars. Amelia Earhart rode in a Marmon in her New York City ticker-tape parade, and supposedly, Bonnie and Clyde used the speedy car to outrun the police after their bank robberies. Marmon was good friends with Harvey Firestone, Henry Ford and Thomas Edison. They came for visits and fished in the lake Marmon built, which is now the Land Harbor lake.

Mr. and Mrs. Marmon left their estate to their nephew, and when he died, he put it in a trust to benefit the hospital, library and airfield in Avery County. Warren Buffett now owns the Marmon Company. Part of the Marmon property was developed into a nursery, and that is the property that is Land Harbor.

Land Harbor was a subsidiary of Carolina Caribbean, developer of Beech Mountain and owned for the most part by the Robbins brothers. Carolina Caribbean, like Sugar Mountain, was a victim of the turbulent ‘70s and had to declare bankruptcy in 1975. A bank took over the property and decided it was in the best interest of the resort’s property owners to sell them the property.

The first nine holes of the Land Harbor Golf Club was designed by architect

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