Moving to NWA from TX

[Travtex]

Hey folks,

I've been offered (and have since accepted) a job over in Northwest Arkansas. Looks like I'll be heading that way somewhere around mid-March or early April. Haven't picked a spot to live specifically, but we're leaning heavily toward Fayetteville. Anyone in the area have any recommendations regarding courses? (Or housing, even? Priorities, I guess. Heh!)

[goblue107501]

I think what most people don't realize about the area is that it is quite large. Most think of Wal-Mart in Bentonville and UofA in Fayeteville. When you add up Bentoneville, Fayetteville, Rogers, Springdale, Buena Vista, and the surrounding areas, it is a very big place with a good size population. Plus, some of it is a retirement area, so the golf options are plentiful.

I made a trip down there a few years ago with some friends to play golf for a few days. We played at one of the Fayeteville courses. It was very highly rated and was mentioned in a magazine with 4.5 stars or something like that. It was called Stonebridge, Stonemeadow, Stonewall...Stone something. I remember it being on the south side of town, just past the Razorbacks baseball stadium. Nice course, good layout, reasonably priced. We had fun there.

Another course we played was in Rogers. It was called Lost Springs. I absolutly loved this course. It was well maintained and a ton of fun to play. It had challenging holes that were short and tight, and others that were long and open. Many of the holes made you think and could be played a variety of different ways. I played 45 holes that day. We played 18 then switched groups and played 18 more. We still had daylight so me and another guy played 9 more after that. It has been 4-5 years since I was there, and I still want to go back.

We played another course in Pea Ridge (I think). I don't remember the name of it. It wasn't all that good. It was built out of the hills and was kind of gimmiky. I was pretty new, I think the summer we played was the first year it was open.

You might check with the local paper's website about all the golf options. Many of the newspapers will do a spring 'golf guide' detailing the local courses. There is certainly not a shortage of places to play in the area.

[msd3075]

Unless people have been there and seen it themselves, it's hard to believe how much there really is in Northwest Arkansas. I live in Fort Smith (about an hour south on the OK/AR border), but my wife and I are up in NWA atleast once a month. If I had to choose which town to live in I'd probably end up in Fayetteville because it has the most "non-Arkansas" feel to it. It's a college town and has a bit of that eclectic feel to it that none of the other areas have. The town actually has a nightlife unlike other areas, and it has restaurants that are good and unique. The great part though is that since you are coming from San Antonio, driving between Bentonville/Fayetteville/Rogers/Springdale will feel like nothing. As for shopping and typical stores, you'll find almost everything you have in San Antonio somewhere in NWA. Rogers has an outdoor mall (Pinnacle Hills) that has pretty much everything you'll ever need. It's pretty nice because we have nothing down here in Fort Smith compared to what's up in NWA.

When most people think of Arkansas, they immediately think of toothless hillbillies living in shacks and being married to their sibling. Granted there are areas in Arkansas that are exactly like this, Northwest Arkansas is the EXACT opposite. The people are normal, the houses are normal, the places you can go are normal. The only thing that might be a downside is that if you venture out of the "city" part of NWA very far, you'll end up in that stereotypical Arkansas.

As for golf, I know there are golf communities (mainly retirement-type places) up in Bella Vista, just north of Bentonville along the Missouri border. The only other course I know of is Pinnacle Hills in Rogers, and the only reason I know it is because it's where they host an LPGA tournament every year. You should let me know too and I'll take you out to play Hardscrabble here in Fort Smith. It's a Perry Maxwell design (he designed Southern Hills and Colonial) and plays host to a Nationwide Tour event every summer.

[murpbrad]

I was up there for a wedding last August and we played a course between Farmington and Prairie Grove. I think it was called Valley View. It was a pretty nice course. You should check it out if you're out that way.