Your blood pressure lowers with the air temperature as your car climbs Balsam Mountain Preserve. The 4,000-acre golf development sits about 40 miles west of Asheville, North Carolina, quiet, secluded and adjacent to half a million acres of national parkland. Before you know it, you’re at 5,000-feet above sea level and feeling the urge to build a fire on a summer morning.
Right after your round at one of Arnold Palmer’s most impressive designs (a course that jumps to the top of your “mountain golf” list), you meander over to a nearby cabin, drawn by the sounds of a guitar and a sultry alto voice. If you didn’t know better, you’d swear Bonnie Raitt had rented the place next door.
The voice is from a recording artist named Caitlin Krisko, a New Yorker who transplanted to Asheville and has been building an audience with music that could be described as Etta James with a little Joan Jett edge. Krisko and her boyfriend/guitarist Aaron Austin were on site at Balsam writing songs, riding horses, playing a little golf and getting some much-needed downtime before heading to Europe for a hectic touring schedule in the fall.
“I hit my first golf ball today,” Krisko said. “Aaron has played, but this was my first. I got it in the air, so that’s a plus.”
Caitlin Krisko and The Broadcast released “Lost My Sight” in 2021 and have an EP entitled “Blueprints” releasing in August. They’ve recorded with members of the Tedeschi Trucks Band and David Bowie’s Blackstar Band to name a few.
The reason this is important is not because a rising roots-rock and blues star visited a golf course. It’s interesting because Krisko’s visit to Balsam Mountain Preserve is part of a trend in the golf industry, one that has grown organically in numerous locations.
About 90 minutes south of downtown Atlanta sits the little town of LaGrange, Georgia, one of scores of former textile towns in the southeast whose hierarchical social structures once mirrored the organizational charts of the mill, but that now look desperate and sad; places where synthetic opioids have replaced denim as the leading export and members of old-line country clubs cling to a past that no longer exists.
The Fields Golf Club, a public course with a small clubhouse only a couple of turns off the freeway, is owned by the architect who designed the course, Mike Young. He does a good business being a low-cost alternative to the packed public courses in Atlanta, and he also draws golfers from Columbus, Ga., Fort Benning and Phenix City, Alabama.
But never did more people turn out than on the days when a band from Mobile played on the back deck.
“We got to know them, and they’d come out and play golf, then try out some new material on the patio. People would bring folding chairs and sit out between 18 green and the driving range to hear them,” Young said.
The band was The Red Clay Strays. It recently opened for the Rolling Stones.
Music and golf have long gone together. “Caddyshack” had the Lawrence Welk house band playing in the Bushwood ballroom until Rodney Dangerfield threw around some C notes and they transformed into Earth, Wind and Fire. In the real world, almost every men’s playday and member-guest ends with some local with an acoustic guitar warbling his way through a “Wonderwall” cover.
But this is something different. Owners and operators are realizing that the music world no longer looks like a Mötley Crüe documentary. Many songwriters play golf. Most want to try out their new stuff in a controlled environment in front of a crowd of relatively sober, modestly affluent fans. And all recording artists, regardless of their stature, want a calm, peaceful quiet environment where they can write.
Unlike the old days where the Stones or Bob Segar flew into North Alabama and spent a sleepless week in the Muscle Shoals Sound Studios writing tunes like “Brown Sugar” and “Night Moves” over Jack Daniel’s and amphetamines, songs are now recorded anywhere and everywhere. You no longer need Phil Spector and the Wrecking Crew band to help with the writing and recording process.
Krisko has a studio in her home in Asheville, one that Austin and his father built last year. The hour drive to Balsam Mountain Preserve allows Krisko and Austin a retreat where the only distraction is the 100-mile view and an occasional red-tailed hawk.
“It’s so quiet and peaceful up here,” Krisko said. “We can relax and if Aaron finds something on the guitar that he likes, we can fool around with it and see what comes out.”
Some of the most important trends are not created by a committee or a task force, and certainly not by a government agency or lobbying group with a PR-designed name and overpriced logo. They happen from the ground up, in multiple areas, at the same time.
At McLemore, the resort club on Lookout Mountain outside Chattanooga, Tennessee, special guests are invited every quarter or so to a “Songwriter Series.” This past June, the club welcomed platinum-selling and Grammy-nominated recording artist Eric Paslay. Paslay has already written five number-one singles, four for other artists as well as “Friday Night,” from his self-titled debut album.
So, Paslay got to play golf, relax at one of the most scenic clubs in the Southeast, and try out some music on a small group of invited members and guests while they ate glazed chicken and red potatoes.
It’s a win-win-win. The artists get a place to relax, recreate and write, the members or guests get a fantastic “I saw them when” private show, and the clubs get another cool activity that differentiates them.
“I can’t really say why this is a trend, but you’re right, it is one,” said David Southworth who owns Balsam Mountain Preserve. “I love the arts. I couldn’t play a note if I had to, I couldn’t act a scene if I had to, and I couldn’t sing a song other than the ‘Star Spangled Banner’ if I had to, but I just love it. My kids are all good – in fact one of my sons (Michael Southworth) is an actor, but I have no talent in that regard.”
Southworth said, “It might be a bad idea, but I always use myself as a gauge for what we should do in our communities, whether that’s right or wrong. I ask myself, would I enjoy this? And if the answer is, yes, we look at doing it.
“The songwriting and getting a deeper dive into that world, people like that sort of thing. They appreciate it.
“Dennis Quaid was up (at Balsam Mountain Preserve) not long ago, just vacationing and playing golf,” Southworth said. “But I made sure there was always a guitar hanging around because he writes and plays and records. So, it’s an important part of the overall experience now, for both the artist and the members.”