Playing Apple Valley At Rumbling Bald On Lake Lure

Playing Apple Valley At Rumbling Bald On Lake Lure

For the first round of my Spring Break 2021 North Carolina Swing, I played a round on the Apple Valley Course at Rumbling Bald on Lake Lure (click here for resort info).

The fact that I had a lot of fun while playing in a rainstorm says a lot about the course. Apple Valley is a resort style course, with wide fairways and forgiving greens. For a mountain course, the routing is interesting in that only three of the holes play uphill. Of course, that means that the course is not particularly walkable.

On the fifth hole, I hit a drive that had spectators in the adjacent condos loudly clapping. If I had known they were watching, I surely would have topped it. As it was, I hit a 240 yard draw. That’s about all I’ve got at my age.

I’d love to return to the resort in the summer when the grass is green and the leaves are spread. That said, even in March, the grass, while dormant and brown, was still a fine playing surface. There were quite a few people out playing on that day and all seemed to be having fun.

There’s also a second course — Bald Mountain — where a scene from Dirty Dancing was filmed. Rumbling Bald seems like a great resort and I’m sad I only had the one day. Maybe they’ll invite me back. It seems like a nice option for midwesterners looking for a change of pace. It was just an 11 hour drive from Ann Arbor. (Yeah, I know. Eleven hours seems excessive — unless you’re from the midwest, where we consider it a decent day’s drive)

After my round, I drove over to the nearby Chimney Rock State Park. The park is centered around a 2, 280 foot granite monolith with sheer rock faces and numerous waterfalls. The climactic scenes of one of my favorite movies, Last of the Mohicans were shot there.

Lake Lure also has a really neat local attraction: The Flowering Bridge. Rather than tear down an historic bridge when a new bypass was built, the town converted it to a delightful and possibly completely unique local attraction. I know that Mrs. GolfBlogger would have happily spent a couple of hours here.

There’s actually a lot to do in the area, from golf to wine tours, to hiking to dining. During my all-too-brief stay, I stayed in a very nice condo, and had a great after-the-round meal at the resort’s Legends at the Lake .

I’ll have a full review of Apple Valley in a week or so, after I’ve processed all my notes and photos.