Dec. 28, 2005 - --HARTSELLE -- If you're looking for a championship course and a resort in the same location, Quail Creek Inn is the place for you. In late November, course owner Matt Nail opened the 10,000-square-foot resort that has 14 mini-suites and a view that would please any golf lover.

"This is part of the master plan," said Nail, an avid golfer who opened the 18-hole course in 1993. The resort is on Quail Creek Drive, east of Interstate 65 between Hartselle and Falkville. All of the rooms are furnished with two queen beds, refrigerators, microwaves and high-speed wireless Internet access. "We want people to feel at home," Nail said.

Mayor Dwight Tankersley said he expects downtown Hartselle to benefit from the resort. "When you have families to come and stay there, they are not all going to be playing golf," he said. "I think it's a good possibility that downtown will be the destination of some of those people." Quail Creek also has several corporate retreats booked, and this, the mayor said "will bring people to our town to spend money." Word about the resort has apparently spread across America.

Tuesday morning, four golfers from Indiana checked into the resort for a three-day stay. "We did a search on the Internet, and this place came up," Denis Jarrett said. Jarrett and his friends live about 30 miles south of Indianapolis, where the temperature was about 6 degrees when they left. "We were seeing how far we had to go south to play golf, and this place came up," he said.

Before Nail opened the resort, he said, one group as far away as Michigan came to Quail Creek Run to play golf. "They pulled up and asked if the greens were frozen," Nail recalled.

In 1990, Nail's father-in-law, attorney John Eyster, developed the idea of building a resort in the middle of a golf course. "The night my wife and I announced our engagement was when he (Eyster) announced that he wanted to build a golf course," Nail said. "He wanted to do something for young people and families."

Because of his ministry background, Nail said, Eyster's plan was a perfect fit for him. "I was dealing with families and children," he said. They co-designed the course's master plan and opened Quail Creek in 1993. The Conference Center, which has hosted everything from weddings to business gatherings to class reunions, opened in 1996.

The resort, Nail said, was the next phase in the 440-acre master plan. He said future plans include constructing between 200 and 400 golf cabins. "We're excited about what we have here," he said. Tankersley calls the golf course Hartselle's hidden treasure. "It is one of the most beautiful courses you will play on, especially if you love the view of the mountains and small streams that flow through there," the mayor said. Nail said the need for the resort has been there from day one. "People would always tell us they loved the course and view, and that this would be a nice place to spend the night," he said. On the Net: Quail Creek Golf Course, www.quailcreek.com.

-----

Copyright (c) 2005, The Decatur Daily, Ala.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail [email protected].