Biz
Pinehurst links to Triangle
Triangle Business Journal - Staff Reports
The owner of Pinehurst Resort & Country Club is finishing plans to acquire three Triangle golf courses from a California company.
Lochmere Golf Course in Cary, Devil's Ridge in Holly Springs and The Neuse in Clayton are all scheduled to be purchased by Dallas-based ClubCorp Inc. from Cobblestone Golf Group.
Cobblestone bought the courses last year from the locally based Carolinas Golf Group. But Cobblestone's parent, a real-estate investment company, subsequently decided to get out of the golf course business.
ClubCorp is buying 45 golf properties with American Golf Corp. for $393 million. The two companies will then divide the properties, with ClubCorp keeping six North Carolina courses.
ClubCorp is also completing the acquisition of downtown Raleigh's Cardinal Club, which will merge with the company's Capital City Club.
If he can teach Susan Sarandon to hit, maybe Bill Miller is a natural to run the Durham Dragons of the Women's Professional Softball League.
Hoping to stem the tide of a small attendance slip between the Dragons' first and second season, the WPF's league office hired Miller as the team's first local general manager. The two previous GMs came from Wisconsin and Texas.
Miller says those local roots -- and experience as a groundskeeper and assistant GM with the Durham Bulls from 1980 to 1995 -- should help Dragons sales team hit the ground running. In minor league baseball, every employee sells tickets and sponsorships in the off season.
While with the Bulls, Miller helped out on the filming of "Bull Durham," including throwing batting practice to Sarandon before filming started.
The Dragons' averaged 850 fans per game last year, down from 900 a year earlier. Ticket prices will remain $6 for box seats and $5 for general admission, but Miller said the team plans more ticket discounts and giveaways for kids.
"I want to see the kids in Durham and Raleigh running around with their Dragons T-shirts on," he said.
Atlantic Coast Conference Commissioner John Swofford admits he spends a good deal of time thinking about the "E" word.
That's "E" as in expansion -- an omnipresent topic of conversation for ACC fans, which Swofford discussed at The Sports Council meeting March 24.
"One thing I feel I have to do as commissioner is to make sure that topic is before our schools with regularity," Swofford said.
The nine-school ACC is the smallest division I-A football conference in the country. But few schools, if any, could meet the requirements needed to be voted in to the league.
A new member would need an attractive academic profile, a history of compliance with NCAA regulations, high attendance and be in a new television market, Swofford said.
North Carolina State University trustee Smedes York asked about the prospects of the University of Miami joining the league. Swofford said he wouldn't talk about specific schools.
From our "Waterworld" files:
At a March 23 groundbreaking ceremony Daniel Corp. held for its Forum IV office building and parking deck, officials joked about a water tower next to the building Medic Computer Systems Inc. will occupy when it is completed next year.
"There won't be any problems with the toilets in there," Mayor Tom Fetzer quipped before donning his hardhat for the obligatory photos.
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