The Bay Club

Local golf: West Bay amateur Bill Barnes ready to enjoy U.S. Senior Open

But this week at Inverness Country Club in Toledo, Ohio, he’s been acting like a kid.

“I’ve just been living the dream, really,” said Barnes, who became a member at West Bay Club in Estero about two years ago, and has a residence at The Colony nearby. “It’s just really great.

“I mean, amateurs, while we play big tournaments, we’re not used to somebody asking us for an autograph. We’re not used to playing with major champions. We’re not used to getting applause for making birdies.”

Barnes will be trying his best to make as many of those as he can, beginning Thursday. He won’t be alone.

Champions Tour players Loren Roberts, Jeff Sluman and John Harris, all Calusa Pines Golf Club members, Bonita Springs’ Peter Jacobsen, and Naples National member Fuzzy Zoeller also are in the field.

Barnes is a senior vice president and consultant for Burke, Inc., and deals with market research in customer loyalty. He’s originally from North Carolina, and went to North Carolina State, but did not play golf there.

Barnes had played growing up, but really got into the game when he got his first job out of college. He joined a club in Columbus, Ga., and met Larry Mize, the 1987 Masters champion who was a member there. The two became friends and playing partners.

“I was always inspired by how hard he worked,” Barnes said. “He kind of inspired me to kind of become better.”

Barnes has had a successful amateur career. He advanced to match play in the 1983 U.S. Mid-Amateur, played in the 1988 U.S. Amateur and British Amateur, and in the British again the next year. He also advanced to match play in the 2009 U.S. Senior Amateur, and played in that event in 2008 and 2010.

But he had never qualified for the Senior Open. This year, it took making four putts 15 feet or longer in the sectional qualifier to shoot a 69 and share medalist honors in Powell, Ohio.

Tuesday, he played a practice round with Mize and Hal Sutton, the design consultant for TPC Treviso Bay in Naples.

“For a guy like me, that’s a real treat,” said Barnes, who credited instructor Jon Butler for improvement over the past year. “Those guys could not have been more gracious, more helpful, more inclusive. It was just really a special day. ... It’s kind of hard to focus on your golf.”

Make no mistake, Barnes is focusing on his game. He played the course three weeks ago, then came back for nine holes Saturday and Sunday, and 18 holes Monday and Tuesday. He had family and friends arriving Wednesday.

Deal of the Week: The Bay Club at Waikoloa 7000 point Platinum

Remy: The pickin’s are slim for our first “Deal of the Week” as Hilton continues to ROFR the beejebus out of the Hilton Grand Vacations Club (HGVC) resale inventory. This week I’ve settled on an eBay listing for a 7,000 point two bedroom Platinum season at the Bay Club at Waikiloa Village on the Big Island, Hawaii ( View Listing ).

The pros for this purchase include 2012 maintenance fees are paid with 4,500 points remaining, annual usage, it is already enrolled in HGVC, online booking is in the Revolution system, and it has a very low entry fee (current bidding is around $1,000). The cons are a higher MF of $1,214.48. The transfer fee is $399 and the closing costs are $449.

I chose this because it does have that low entry fee. If you’re going to own short term, the MF can be viewed as a “pay as you go” rather than paying more up front and less over time. If I were planning to own for 25 years, I’d look at properties with lower maintenance fees, like the Las Vegas properties. For comparison’s sake, let’s say this goes for $1,500 and your alternative is a $12,000 Las Vegas Strip 7,000 point Platinum season with about a $729.42 MF. It would take 21 years of paying the higher MF at Bay Club to make up for the difference in purchase price.

Seph: I think Bay Club is underrated.  It’s like a location that had a poor restaurant then a better one moves in.  It takes awhile for people to go to the new restaurant because the location is associated with the bad one.  Bay Club was in dire need of a renovation for many years, in fact they lost their gold crown rating.  They have now been updated, and from all reports it looks great.

Since Hawaii is so expensive to purchase into and trading into it with points is so dicey then buying a Bay Club for use rather than points is a reasonable solution.  As I noted they have had a recent renovation and the rooms at Bay Club are larger than at Kingsland and they have better lanais.  Recently they implemented a new policy allowing for one days passes for the pool at Kingsland (it was previously $80 a day) if you book with HGVC points.  You get a one-day pass for each day of your visit.  Bay Club also has its own pool which is described as “quiet.”

If you’re looking just for points I’d still look at Bay Club.  The “buy in” is low but appreciating.  I recall seeing one on eBay less than 6 months ago that went for a dollar!  It wasn’t in the HGVC system so I assume it didn’t garner the audience it would have with the HGVC crowd.  But nonetheless the prices seem to be rising for this property.  Remy mentions the higher MF (maintenance fee) and that’s an important consideration.  I’d submit that with a low enough purchase price that the math for point cost is a simple matter of using just the MF and point calculation I mentioned in previous articles .  The point cost is only 17 cents a point.  That’s cheaper than what I pay for my property on Marco Island.

Bel-Air Bay Club, a country place by the sea : the first seventy years

Bite me, a love story

Fodor's Bahamas 2010, Plus Turks and Caicos

Frommer's Bahamas 2012

Insiders' Guide to the Greater Tampa Bay Area, Including Tampa, St. Petersburg, & Clearwater