Porter Plays Golf Again

Edwin Warner, who served on the Park Board for eighteen years, was known as the "best friend Nashville golfers ever had." This statement rings true when pulling into Harpeth Hills Golf Course. Nestled in the hills of Percy Warner Park on the very edge of the county, this 6,900-yard championship layout was designed by the team of Allen Brown and Hershel Eaton in 1965 and was remodeled in 1991 to enhance playability.

Coming up the road, you’ll see the clubhouse on the side of the hill. Inside, it’s very spacious, with a great grill and generous beer selection. Similar in size to Two Rivers, the large locker rooms boast shower facilities—a rare feature for any course these days. The driving range is all downhill, so it’s very hard to dial in your yardages here; but other than that, this is a great place to practice 100-to-150-yard approach shots.

The putting and chipping greens are the absolute hardest of all Nashville public courses. When I worked in town, I spent countless lunch hours trying to master these fast greens with their hidden breaks.

🏉 Transgender Sports Ban General Skrmetti has joined an amicus brief challenging the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals’ repeal of Idaho’s Fairness in Women’s Sports Act. As the Tennessee Lookout reports, a coalition of 25 attorneys general is seeking to challenge the federal ruling, which struck down the Idaho law banning transgender women in female sports under the Equal Protection Clause, in the Supreme Court. Tennessee passed a similar law three years ago that’s currently facing legal challenges from Lambda Legal and the ACLU. 

📖 Language Discrimination The Our State Our Languages Coalition has filed a complaint against the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security alleging insufficient language options for driver’s license testing. While the state provides English, Spanish, German, Korean, and Japanese options, the group argues the state’s Kurdish, Arabic, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Somali-speaking populations are sizable enough to warrant available translation or interpretation services under federal law. 

🏠 Affordable Housing Nashville’s housing crisis may finally be improving. As Axios reports, Metro’s efforts to improve its “dire” housing situation have resulted in improvements to affordable developments. Median rent prices have dropped 8.4 percent in the past year as 30,000 new units have begun construction since 2021. In fact, reports Reventure Consulting, around 299,000 homes are currently for sale in the South, with prices dropping. However, this could be a negative indicator of the South’s housing bubble and decreased speculative interest. Redfin calculates that a household income of $124,095 is still needed to afford a median house in Nashville.

🗳️ Tennesseans For Trump Republican State Representative Clay Doggett wrote to The Tennessean making the case for Trump this week. He defended the former president's record, chiding Biden and Harris for overseeing widespread economic disenfranchisement and border crises. “Tennessee is united behind the former president because we know another Trump administration will make the Volunteer State more prosperous.”

DEVELOPMENT

• Electric vehicle battery maker Microvast suspends construction in Clarksville (NBJ)
• Tim Hortons eyes another Nashville spot (NBJ)
• Luxury French retailer set for Wedgewood-Houston (Post)
• Zoning board OKs Elliston Place plan (Post)
• Mixed-use building eyed for 12South (Post)

THINGS TO DO

View our calendar for the week here and our weekly film rundown here.

📅 Visit our On The Radar list to find upcoming events around Nashville.

🎧 On Spotify: Pamphleteer's Picks, a playlist of our favorite bands in town this week.

👨🏻‍🌾 Check out our Nashville farmer's market guide and yearly festival guide.

TONIGHT

🎸 Ben Nichols @ Exit/In, 8p, $27.37, Info

🎸 Yarn @ The Basement, 7p, $19.27, Info

🎸 The Ozark Mountain Daredevils @ Ryman Auditorium, 8p, $35+, Info

🪕 The Po' Ramblin' Boys Instore Performance, Album Signing & Record Release Celebration @ Grimey's, 5p, Info

🪕 Greenwood Rye @ Jane's Hideaway, 8p, Info

🪕 Ralph Stanley II & The Clinch Mountain Boys @ Station Inn, 9p, $25, Info

🪕 The Cowpokes @ Acme Feed & Seed, 12p, Free, Info

🍀 Live Irish Music @ McNamara’s Irish Pub, 6p, Free, Info

🎸 Kelley’s Heroes @ Robert’s Western World, 6:30p, Free, Info

✹ WEEKLY FILM RUNDOWN: August 16-22

The latest releases and special screenings hitting Music City this week. For a complete list of upcoming releases, check out our 2024 Film Guide.

Alien: Romulus  (Dir. Fede Alvarez; Starring Cailee Spaeny) If anyone can pull off succeeding Sigourney Weaver as a rough-and-tumble heroine fighting oozing extraterrestrial monsters, it’s Priscilla and Civil War star Spaeny. Not to mention, Alvarez has an enviable track record for resurrecting moribund horror franchises (2013’s Evil Dead) and creating a sense of compelling claustrophobia (2016’s Don’t Breathe). Reviews are stellar. Now playing in theaters. 

Defy Film Festival Now in its ninth year, Defy promises two days of unconventional indie shorts and features from all around the world that “defy” expectations. Highlights include locally produced short “Where the Bullets Go,” an experimental documentary program, and “Jack”--the new horror short from frequent The Pamphleteer livestream guest Jay Curtis Miller. Friday and Saturday at Studio 615 East Nashville. 

Skincare (Dir. Austin Peters; Starring Elizabeth Banks and Nathan Fillion) An esthetician on the cusp of launching her own product line fends off saboteurs in this wild LA satire. Now playing in theaters. 

The Greatest Surf Movie in the Universe (Dir. Nick Pollett; Starring Luke Hemsworth) When a mandatory vaccine wipes out humanity’s ability to surf in a dystopian future, a band of the sport’s all-stars unite to save their way of life. The most leftfield of COVID claymation allegories. Now playing at AMC Thoroughbred 20.

📰 Check out the full newsletter archive here.