Photos by Sam Dean | The Roanoke Times

Ballyhack Golf Club, an upscale course near Mount Pleasant in Roanoke County, is slated to open to members in late June.

Membership fees are between $40,000 and $130,000 depending on factors such as whether the member is local or not.

Ballyhack includes a residential component that has 42 lots on the market. Membership in the club is not a requirement to buy one of the tracts, which are selling for between $170,000 and $270,000.

From the 18th tee at the new Ballyhack Golf Club, members are going to have to be attentive to find the flag on the green they're shooting for.

At the end of the 473-yard, par-4 hole is a 20,000-square-foot green -- at half an acre, three times the average size. It's nestled in an amphitheater-shaped nest near the spot where the clubhouse is scheduled to be built.

"It will be a great way to finish a round of golf," Ballyhack's director of operations, Jonathan Ireland, said as he gave a tour this week.

He expects the same reaction from the club's members when they finish the first rounds, which will be played the last weekend in June at the site near Mount Pleasant in east Roanoke County.

It will likely take six to eight years to fill out an exclusive membership roster that will be limited to 300, Ireland said. That's a couple of years longer than originally planned, a consequence largely of the economic crisis, he said.

But already about 40 golfers -- four of them from other parts of the country -- have signed up to play on the 190-acre, par-72 course.

They're eager even though there has not been a shot taken yet on the newly established fairways and greens, and despite the fact that the "Blue Ridge arts and craft style" clubhouse is unlikely to be built before year's end.

Membership fees range from $40,000 to $130,000, based on whether members are local or national, individual or corporate. Members will then pay annual dues of $2,500 to $10,000 to play.

Visitors from out of the area also will be able to rent one of 15 four-bedroom cabins planned for the site, and eat three meals a day -- "simple but upscale food" -- in the club's restaurant. But those amenities also are not expected to be completed any earlier than year's end.

Ballyhack, of course, is opening during the national recession. That has affected even the affluent clientele the club is going to depend on, Ireland said. Plus, a downward trend in golf play is a factor for his business, too, he acknowledged.

Nevertheless, "there is still a lot of money out there," and plenty of avid golfers to come up with the critical mass needed to make Ballyhack a success, he said this week.

Another advantage for his company, Ireland said, is that it is set up to depend on only 300 members, not 600 or 800.

The tract was found and developed by Lester George of Richmond, one of the nation's most respected golf architects.

The 360-acre former dairy farm on Pitzer Road also includes a residential component, with 42 lots already for sale and others slated for later development.

Membership in the club is not a requirement to buy one of the housing tracts, which range from an acre to 2.7 acres and cost between $170,000 and $270,000. The recession has claimed a number of golf courses across the country that were tied directly to the residential component of a development.

At Ballyhack, The residential portion is managed by a company that is separate from the one overseeing the golf club.

Ballyhack is the first of the dozens of courses George has designed that he has become a partner in, Ireland said, an indication of George's faith in its success.

During public hearings to rezone the site in late 2005, George described his idea as trying to preserve the natural contours and vegetation of the site as much as possible.

"He likes to say, 'This was a golf course before I bought it. I only dusted it off,' " Ireland said.

In addition to George, there are six other entities -- individuals and partnerships -- in the ownership group, Ireland said. They include Bill Kubly, a Nebraska-based developer whose companies are considered the country's largest specializing in golf course construction and management.

Kubly is routinely listed with the likes of Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus as one of the 25 most influential people in the sport by Golf Inc. magazine.

"He's a real feather in our cap," Ireland said.

The ownership group provided the lion's share of the $13 million in development costs, Ireland said, although "there is a small piece of financing done through a traditional institution."

In fact, George wasn't the first to consider the site -- only 10 minutes from downtown Roanoke -- for a golf course. But the investors who had planned the first one backed out in 2001 when it appeared that the proposed Interstate 73 was going to cut through the site.

By 2004, the interstate route was moved and George soon signed an option on the property.

Although initially referred to as Fountainhead, the name of the development company, Ireland said that was never intended to be the final name for the club.

As development proceeded, the company found some old books and documents that referred to that section of the county as "Ballyhack."

On top of the local reference, "Ballyhack" sounded vaguely Scottish, Ireland said, evoking the birthplace of the game.

And although most of the club's neighbors probably are about as remote from Scotland as they are from the prospect of ever playing on the championship-level course, the project received an enthusiastic reception from them when George appeared before the Roanoke County Board of Supervisors in September 2005 for his rezoning.

The Mount Pleasant Civic League praised George because he "put the community first, embraced our scenic beauty, is bringing jobs, and will not overburden our roads and schools," nearby resident Ona Early said at the time. "If this is not smart growth, what is?"

This week, she said the community continues to support the project.

"I have not heard any bad comments about it whatsoever since it first started."

She credited that good will to George's efforts to reach out to the civic league. "He laid out his plans, what he wanted for the neighborhood, and really turned all the people for him. He told us what he wanted to do and he followed through" on a plan Early said preserves the beauty of the place.

"He was very upfront with everything."