TL;DR: Sapphire Valley sits at 3,000 feet in the Blue Ridge Mountains between Cashiers and Lake Toxaway, offering crisp summers perfect for golf. Burlingame Country Club’s 18-hole championship course, designed by Tom Jackson and completed in 1985, delivers elevation-driven drama through mountains, rivers, and old-growth forest. A 2-4 day retreat balances rounds with dining at six venues, spa services, hiking trails, and nearby town exploration.
Top Golf Clubs to Play Near Highlands, North Carolina
Burlingame Country Club is the premier 18-hole championship course in the Sapphire Valley area, sitting roughly 30 minutes west of Highlands with stay-and-play options through nearby accommodations at Lake Toxaway, Cashiers, and the Burlingame community itself. The region’s compact geography lets you explore multiple towns within minutes while staying centered on world-class mountain golf.
Sapphire Valley sits at roughly 3,000 feet in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina, tucked between Cashiers and Lake Toxaway in a landscape that stops people mid-sentence. The air is clean and cool even in July. The ridgelines frame every tee shot. The rivers and old-growth forests that cut through the valleys give the whole place a feeling that’s hard to manufacture and impossible to forget.
For golfers, this geography isn’t just pretty scenery. It shapes the experience in ways that flat-country courses simply can’t replicate. Elevation changes create natural drama on every hole. Morning mist burns off the fairways as the round gets going. Shadows from the surrounding peaks shift throughout the afternoon, changing how the course reads from hole to hole. A Sapphire Valley golf retreat isn’t just a round of golf. It’s a place you keep thinking about when you get home.
Best Golf Courses in Cashiers, NC
Burlingame Country Club near Cashiers is the area’s most respected 18-hole championship mountain course, designed by Tom Jackson and featuring elevation changes between 3,000 and 3,500 feet that deliver ball flight and turf conditions unlike sea-level courses. The layout works with the natural contours of the Horsepasture River valley rather than fighting them, making every hole feel like it belongs exactly where it sits.
Construction on the first nine holes began in 1983, with the back nine completed in 1985. In the decades since, the course has matured into one of the most respected mountain layouts in the Southeast. The surrounding community, now home to more than 600 members, has grown up around it while preserving the natural setting that made the land special in the first place. Cashiers sits at the intersection of Highways 64 and 107 and has a small-town feel with a serious dining scene relative to its size, making it an ideal base for a multi-day golf retreat.
Exclusive Member Benefits and How They Compare
Burlingame Country Club membership includes championship golf at a course built to Championship standards, access to a pool complex with year-round therapeutic massage and aqua fitness programs, dining at six indoor and outdoor venues, and membership in a community of 600+ families. The club offers recreational depth through lawn sports including tennis, pickleball, and croquet, plus miles of private hiking trails through the property.
Unlike sprawling resort-style clubs, Burlingame emphasizes intimate community connection and multi-generational family experiences. The membership-based model prioritizes environmental stewardship of its 1,450-acre property, creating a setting where golf and nature coexist rather than compete. This approach attracts affluent families and retirees seeking heritage-building experiences and outdoor recreation over flashy luxury amenities. The result is what members describe as a “family reunion where everybody likes each other” atmosphere—a gathering place that values both recreational excellence and natural preservation.
Why Sapphire Valley Works as a Golf Destination
Western North Carolina has been drawing travelers to its mountains for well over a century. The cool, clean air and beautiful scenery of the Blue Ridge, once called “America’s Switzerland,” pulled visitors from across the country long before golf arrived here. That same natural draw still brings people today, and golfers have figured out that the region offers something genuinely different from the coastal and piedmont courses they typically play.
Sapphire Valley sits at the heart of what’s sometimes called the High Country Plateau, a stretch of terrain in the southern Appalachians where elevations routinely exceed 3,000 feet. Summers here are milder than in the cities that feed most of the area’s golf traffic. Atlanta sits nearly 1,500 feet lower in elevation, and Charlotte golfers deal with heat and humidity that Sapphire Valley simply doesn’t get at the same intensity. That climate advantage turns June, July, and August into prime golf months in the mountains, which is practically the reverse of what golfers experience in Florida or along the South Carolina coast.
The Sapphire Valley golf retreat corridor is compact enough to explore in a few days without ever feeling rushed. Cashiers is minutes away. Lake Toxaway, with its own resort scene and lodging options, is a short drive down Highway 64. Highlands sits roughly 30 minutes to the west and brings its own dining and boutique retail scene to the mix. The whole area functions as a single mountain destination even though each community has its own personality.
Burlingame Country Club: The Centerpiece of Any Sapphire Valley Golf Retreat
No course in the area carries more character or more history than the 18-hole championship course at Burlingame Country Club. Designed by Tom Jackson, whose creative fingerprints are all over the best mountain layouts in the Carolinas, the course plays through a terrain of mountains, rivers, lakes, waterfalls, and old-growth forest that most course designers only dream about working with.
The layout runs between 3,000 and 3,500 feet of elevation, which means ball flight behaves differently than at sea level. Shots carry a bit farther in the thinner air. The cooler temperatures keep the turf firm and fast in the mornings. And because the course works with the natural contours of the Horsepasture River valley rather than fighting them, every hole feels like it belongs exactly where it sits.
Construction on the first nine holes began in 1983, with the back nine completed in 1985. In the decades since, the course has matured into one of the most respected mountain layouts in the Southeast. The surrounding community, now home to more than 600 members, has grown up around it while preserving the natural setting that made the land special in the first place.
Planning Your Sapphire Valley Golf Retreat: A 2-4 Day Itinerary
A Sapphire Valley golf retreat hits its sweet spot in the two-to-four-day range. Shorter than that and you’re just scratching the surface. Longer and you’ll want to start building in rest days and non-golf activities, which, at Burlingame, isn’t exactly a hardship.
Day One: Arrive and Get Your Bearings
Most golfers driving in from Atlanta or Charlotte arrive in Sapphire Valley in the early afternoon. Highway 64 through the mountains is scenic but not particularly fast, and the last stretch from Brevard into the plateau deserves your attention rather than a GPS-focused race to get there.
Check in to your lodging, give yourself time to settle in, and plan a late afternoon or evening at one of Burlingame’s dining venues. The Overlook Lounge offers panoramic views of the course and the surrounding mountains, along with a craft beer menu featuring local options worth trying. The outdoor dining deck is one of the club’s most popular gathering spots for exactly this kind of winding-down moment at the end of a travel day.
Day Two: First Round
Get out early. The morning light on the Burlingame course is worth setting an alarm for. Tee times in the first few hours of the day give you the course in its quietest, most atmospheric state. A light breakfast at Elevation 3042, the club’s casual all-day restaurant, sets up a morning round without slowing you down.
After the round, the pool complex and the Rejuvenate Spa become logical next stops. Therapeutic massage is available year-round at Burlingame, and the spa’s aqua fitness and stretching programs are designed specifically to keep golfers and active members feeling right over a multi-day stay.
Day Three: Second Round and the Rest of the Area
The second round at Burlingame tends to go a little smoother once you’ve had a night to think through the holes that got you. This is also a good day to walk a different set of tees or spend 30 minutes before the round working with Golf Pro John Johnston, whose competitive background at the highest levels of junior and collegiate golf translates into practical instruction that holds up on the course.
The afternoon is worth spending in Cashiers or Highlands. Both towns are a short drive from Sapphire Valley and offer independent restaurants, galleries, and shops that add texture to the trip beyond the club itself. Cashiers sits at the intersection of Highways 64 and 107 and has a small-town feel with a serious dining scene relative to its size.
Day Four (Optional): Hike, Explore, or Play Again
Burlingame’s property includes miles of hiking trails that wind through the same terrain as the golf course. The Horsepasture River runs through the property, and the trails connect to hidden waterfalls and viewpoints that most visitors never find because they stay on the course. A morning hike before the drive home is a genuinely worthwhile use of a half-day, especially if you want to see the property at a pace that golf doesn’t allow.
Accommodation Options for a Sapphire Valley Golf Retreat
Sapphire Valley and the surrounding plateau offer a range of accommodation styles that fit different trip formats. The area doesn’t have a single massive resort that captures everything in one place, which is actually part of its appeal. The lodging options here tend to be smaller-scale and more personal, which matches the region’s character.
Lake Toxaway Area
Just minutes from Burlingame, Lake Toxaway offers some of the most scenic lodging in the region. The Greystone Inn sits on the shores of Lake Toxaway and has been one of the area’s premier destinations for decades, with lakefront access and a level of service that suits a golf trip where you want someone else handling the details.
Cashiers and Highlands
Both towns have short-term rental inventory that ranges from mountain cabins to larger vacation homes suitable for group golf trips. A four-bedroom cabin near Cashiers can comfortably house eight golfers and often works out cheaper per night than comparable hotel rooms in Asheville, which is a two-hour drive and a different golf market entirely.
Burlingame Real Estate
For golfers who make this trip more than once a year, the option of owning property within the Burlingame community is worth understanding. Burlingame’s real estate opportunities range from Fairway Villas adjacent to the course to larger mountain homes on the 1,450-acre property. It’s a meaningful step from golf trip to mountain retreat, but for the right person, it’s a logical one.
Dining During Your Sapphire Valley Golf Retreat
Eating well is part of what makes a Sapphire Valley golf retreat truly worthwhile. The Burlingame dining operation spans six distinct indoor and outdoor venues, which is unusual depth for a private mountain club of this size.
The dining program is led by Executive Chef Gerry Fong, a Culinary Institute of America graduate whose career has moved through Ritz-Carlton properties, Pinehurst, and North Carolina State University’s Centennial Campus. He builds menus around seasonal ingredients and relationships with local farmers and purveyors, so the food changes with the seasons and reflects what’s actually growing in the region.
The Overlook Lounge
Panoramic views of the course and surrounding mountains, craft beer menu featuring local options, and an outdoor dining deck popular for sunset moments.
Elevation 3042
Casual all-day restaurant serving breakfast and lunch before rounds, with light fare designed not to slow you down for golf.
Private Dining and Special Events
Four additional indoor and outdoor venues accommodate everything from intimate dinners to group gatherings, reflecting the club’s multi-generational heritage approach to community building.
Quick Recap
- Sapphire Valley sits at 3,000 feet elevation in the Blue Ridge Mountains between Cashiers and Lake Toxaway with naturally cool summers perfect for golf
- Burlingame Country Club’s 18-hole championship course, designed by Tom Jackson with first nine holes completed in 1983 and back nine in 1985, features mountains, rivers, waterfalls, and old-growth forest
- Plan 2-4 days to balance multiple rounds, spa services, hiking, and nearby town exploration without rushing
- Dining at six venues led by CIA graduate Chef Gerry Fong emphasizes seasonal ingredients and local relationships
- Accommodation options range from Lake Toxaway’s Greystone Inn to Cashiers cabins to ownership within the Burlingame 1,450-acre community
- Beyond golf, access lawn sports including tennis, pickleball, and croquet, plus miles of private hiking trails
- Golf Pro John Johnston offers instruction informed by competitive junior and collegiate golf background
- Rejuvenate Spa provides year-round therapeutic massage and aqua fitness designed for multi-day stays
- Community of 600+ members emphasizes environmental stewardship and multi-generational family experiences
- The region’s climate advantage reverses typical golf seasons, making summer peak season unlike Florida or South Carolina coastal courses
Frequently Asked Questions
What elevation does Sapphire Valley sit at?
Sapphire Valley sits at roughly 3,000 feet in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Burlingame Country Club’s course plays between 3,000 and 3,500 feet of elevation. This elevation means shots carry farther in the thinner air and temperatures stay cooler even in summer months compared to lower-elevation courses in Atlanta (1,500 feet lower) and Charlotte.
When did Burlingame Country Club open?
Construction on the first nine holes at Burlingame Country Club began in 1983, with the back nine completed in 1985. The course was designed by Tom Jackson and has matured into one of the most respected mountain layouts in the Southeast over the decades since.
How many members does Burlingame Country Club have?
Burlingame Country Club now has more than 600 members living in the surrounding community. The membership-based model keeps the club intimate while supporting the 1,450-acre property and its amenities.
What dining options are available at Burlingame?
Burlingame offers six distinct indoor and outdoor dining venues led by Executive Chef Gerry Fong, a CIA graduate. Options include The Overlook Lounge with panoramic views and craft beer, Elevation 3042 casual all-day restaurant, and four additional venues for private dining and special events. Menus emphasize seasonal ingredients and relationships with local farmers and purveyors.
What other recreational activities are available beyond golf?
Beyond golf, members and guests access a pool complex with year-round therapeutic massage and aqua fitness, lawn sports including tennis, pickleball, and croquet, plus miles of private hiking trails through the property with access to waterfalls and viewpoints.
What is the ideal length for a Sapphire Valley golf retreat?
A Sapphire Valley golf retreat hits its sweet spot in the 2-4 day range. This timeframe allows multiple rounds at Burlingame, spa services, meals at different venues, and exploration of nearby towns like Cashiers and Highlands without feeling rushed or needing extensive rest days.
Can I own property at Burlingame Country Club?
Yes. Burlingame’s real estate opportunities range from Fairway Villas adjacent to the course to larger mountain homes on the 1,450-acre property. Ownership represents a step from golf trip to permanent mountain retreat for golfers who visit more than once a year.