The Perfect Life: September 2011

 Living Large on The Links at Ipswich Country Club 

If living is good and you want have your cake and eat it too in greater Boston, than The Homes at Ipswich Country Club says you have arrived. Ipswich a small seaside community nestled along the north shore in Massachusetts, between Newburyport and Gloucester is one of the oldest towns in the country founded in 1633. It’s character and New England charm make it a “Perfect Life” fit for living in the heart of it all. Ipswich is Just minutes from the Hub of New England, Boston, and all this great city has to offer. This gated community has it all with full service maintenance including landscaping and snow removal as well as golf, swimming and tennis in an exclusive club home setting.

The Ipswich Country Club a Club Corp USA facility was built in 1989. This Robert Trent Jones Sr. design is a par 72 at over 7000 yards with a course rating of 75.2/140. It is a great design that recently was completely updated with 5 million dollars in improvements. In addition to Golf, there is an Olympic sized swimming pool, a Junior Olympic sized swimming pool, 6 HARTRU tennis courts and an Exercise / Fitness Center located in the Clubhouse and are available to members. The 221 private homes at Ipswich were built by some of the regions finest custom builders and offer traditional New England living at its best. Our featured residence is on 191 Country Club Way a wonderful 6500 sq. ft. home on the 13th fairway at the club. This custom 4 bedroom home sited on a corner lot with beautiful landscaping, overlooking the 13th fairway. Many unique features including oversized rooms, white birch and huge stainless kitchen, 2 en suite bedrooms on second, high ceilings, two elegant Grand Alle’s, delightful screened in Gazebo and all the extras as well for $1,140,000.

Brilliant Bling

Make your mark with eye-popping style. Priced at $10,000, the special order 950 Platinum TRI Marker from TRI Mark Golf’s Executive Series, is hand-crafted with a ring of diamonds and comes with a platinum 16.5” Bead Link Necklace delivered to your door in an exotic luxury driving machine of your choice — perhaps a Ferrari or Lamborghini. This little gem is one bit of bling you won’t want to throw casually in your pocket or golf bag. If you’re more of a bargain sort of person, there is the white gold marker with a lilac amethyst center studded with sapphires, and ice blue topaz for just $2,758. Or design your own! Trimarkgolf.com

Your Ultimate Golf Vacation

Imagine playing Pinehurst No. 2, venue for the 2014 U.S. Open and U.S. Women’s Open, strolling into a quintessential golf town and staying in a fine old historic inn. Recently renovated by Coore & Crenshaw to bring it back to Donald Ross’s original intention, No. 2 evokes the Pinehurst of the early 1900s. Your three day/two night ultimate Golf Vacation includes accommodations in the grand dame, The Carolina, a round of golf per day (three days) including a round on No. 2, cart, sleeve of golf balls, two breakfasts and dinners at $1,391 per person, per night, double occupancy. (Ask for the Donald Ross Package). Nearby play two more great courses, the Dormie Club, a new Coore & Crenshaw design and Pine Needles, another classic by Donald Ross. Pinehurst.com

Go Way Cool on and off course with Garia

Put on your driving goggles and be prepared to drive to the golf course then back home. Yes, the Garia golf cart is street legal and equipped with seat belts, side mirrors, and hydraulic brakes. But no speeding tickets: you can only move at 25 mph tops. Great for Bermuda! Your price for this vehicle of $62,000 gives you handstitched seats, digital instruments, stereo and dashboard fridge. You can make the Garia uniquely you by customizing with more than 100 different colors in body, roof and upholstery. Garia.com

Worth their Weight in Gold

They look expensive and they are. We’re talking about 5-Star grade Honma clubs with a crowned titanium head embellished withP1000 platinum and 24k. Each club sells for more than $4,000 apiece. Handcrafted in Honma’s factory in Sakata, Japan, these highend sticks are definitely for those who covet the finer things in life. Honma offers less-expensive clubs as well in it Beres line. Honmagolf.com

Golden Girls Putting

It could be called the most exclusive putter in the world. Made by Barth & Sons, a Germanymade company, it’s called the GoldenPutter. The First Lady Special Edition of the GoldenPutter has a gleaming golden shaft, 24k gold plated putter head with crystal inlays and bright pink leather grip. It costs just over $3,000, but wait. There is more. If you’re a “Diamonds is a Girl’s Best Friend” kind of gal, you can spring for the Special Edition diamond model at $150,000. Golden Putters are made for men too and come in a cherry wood box. Thegoldenputter.com

Golf Bag Ou La La

Product M58221 represents the top of the upper echelon of golf bag couture. Crafted by French master Louis Vuitton in typical understated elegance, every detail from the monogrammed canvas and leather trim exterior to the numerous pockets spell class. $11,700. Louisvitton.com

The Perfect Golf Carrying Machine

Range Rover Sport HSE priced from $60,495 is the kind of rugged, reliable car, which can take you over mountains to courses like Devil’s Knob on the top of a mountain at the Wintergreen Resort or Primland’s Highland Course running across a ridge in the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia. Your Range Rover Sport HSE has a 5-inch TFT-LCD screen and a 7-inch touch-screen so you can’t get lost. Then it sports comfort features like 8-way electrically adjustable leather seats and seat bolsters along with mood lighting and things to make your life easier including heated exterior mirrors and a rear view camera to keep you from backing into the baggage stand. Need extra space for your golfing foursome? Add a Sports Equipment Sports Box or Cargo Carrier to the exterior of your Range Rover. With stainless steel tread plates and 20-inch 15-spoke alloy wheels, this is one cool car. Landrover.com

On the Trail of the Most Expensive Round

Quick. What first comes to mind when you think “expensive green fee?” Pebble Beach? Good guess but you would be wrong. It’s Shadow Creek Golf Club in Las Vegas, perhaps the most exclusive track in the country. You have to be a guest of MGM Resorts International to have the privilege of paying $500 to put cleats on the ground to play this Tom Fazio design while Pebble’s green fee squeaks just under the fee at $495 for their resort guests including a cart. But you get an extra perk or two at Shadow Creek: limo service from the Strip to the course and caddie fees, snacks and shoe service. And you are after all, playing where presidents and celebs play and where Michael Jordan holds the celebrity course record. Shadowcreek.com

The Most Impressive Coffee Table Book

“True Links” by Malcolm Campbell and George Peper is a handsome, large, heavy, full color book with magnificent photos and descriptions of 246 courses they say qualify as “true links.” Out of this number, only four meet the criteria in the U.S.: Bandon Dunes, Pacific Dunes and Old Macdonald in Oregon (all part of the Bandon Dunes group) and Highland Links, an inexpensive public track with a quaint lighthouse in Truro, Cape Cod. Campbell, a Scottish golf writer (who happens to make great scones BTW for his wife’s coffee shop in Lower Largo, Fife, Scotland) plays out of the Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews while Peper, former editor of Golf Magazine divides his time between Portsmouth, R.I. and St. Andrews. The 308-page book published by Artisan Books in New York, is priced at $40. Artisanbooks.com

Most Historic 19th Hole

The 19th hole at the Country Club Locker Room Bar in Brookline, Massachusetts, has to be recognized as one of the most historic 19th holes in the country. Even the audacious name “The Country Club” says it all. When it was founded by Boston bluebloods in 1982, there simply wasn’t another golf club around, so why go further. Since that time, thirsty golfers have been gathering at the bar, swapping tales, reliving holes, making deals. tcclub.com

Getting It On with Jamie

It takes little insider knowledge to recognize when a lady is wearing a Jamie Sadock design. Her apparel simply has that extra pizzazz or glitz. Sleek, sexy, wild, sophisticated… Sadock does it all. Her apparel goes from course to trendy café in a blink. Fabrics are silky, soft, buttery hard. Different. Details include surprises like zip-off sleeves, sunglasses loops, asymmetrical cuts and stripes, washable leather welts on pockets, gem studs and arty patterns. Sadock’s pieces shout out, “I want to go out and play!” Jamiesadock.com

These Shoes were made for Walking

When Fred Couples recently won the Constellation Energy Senior Players Championship at Westchester Country Club in Westchester, he was wearing ECCO’s hybrid Golf Street Premier shoes. Designed to be “street legal” off the course as well as on, the shoes have an engineered outsole with 100 molded traction bars with more than 800 traction angles delivering great grip for all conditions. They come in five delicious color combinations like licorice-coffee-fanta and moonlessblack-chili red. (SRP $140) Sadly they don’t come in ladies’ styles. Bummer. eccousa.com

These Belts Don’t Bite

A great gift for the man in your life (or you) the genuine crocodile belt from Fairway & Greene priced at $150 is handmade from skins of superior farm-raised American Crocodiles with Italian-tanned lining and featherstitching. Color choices are black or brown. The buckle is solid brass in a polished silver finish and it comes in a suede box. What a way to hold up your pants. Fairwayandgreene.com

All That Glitters

Frosted Gear, which creates private label crystal items for the high-end sports market has created a glittering cuff bracelet covered by Swarovski crystals. Worn by high performance athletes, celebrities and style-conscious fans, the company is owned by Vanessa Swarovski Piedra and her husband, Jorge Piedra, a former all star baseball player; the crystal accessories are made in Austria. The bracelet on a flexible ultra suede band fastened with a crystalized snap is available in several colors ($250). Frostedgear.com

All the Best Golfers dig the Spider Look 

In case you didn’t know it, PGA star Camilo Villegas is a fanatic biker, which might help account for his fantastic shape, a perfect model for J. Lindeberg’s latest collection. Catch the fit as Villegas “spiders” up his putt. He’s wearing J. Lindeberg of course, an elegant fitted eclectic look with artistic twists on traditional forms like a shirt patterned with large khaki and black diamonds smeared like ink blots on the edges. Trousers are worn long and slim, shirts are tapered and craftsmanship is key. Jlindeberg.com

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1. The Perfect Life – Live the Dream
2. Palopoli's Picks – September 2011
3. Living the World of Perfect
4. Perfect Golf Labs.com
5. New England Golf Life By The Bay