Carroll National Golf Club will forever hold a place in NBA lore.
The Athletic's Brendan Quinn recently reported that the site in western Iowa was where NBA superstar LeBron James was potentially sold on signing with the Philadelphia 76ers. Quinn reported that Carroll native and 76ers head coach Nick Nurse returned to the course for an extra round of golf after playing in a charity tournament there honoring his late brother, Steve.
During the round, he received a call from James, the 22-time All-Star and newly available free agent, about joining his team.
"Nurse walked off the green, down a little hill, and over to his golf cart. He sat down, saying, yes, he was definitely free to chat," Quinn wrote. "James, in the midst of the summer's most closely followed free agency bonanza, told Nurse he had some questions; an effort, he said, to do his due diligence. James asked about offensive roles, defensive roles, team schemes, how he might fit. The greatest player of this generation wanted to know how Nurse might use the greatest player of this generation."
"...What Nurse told LeBron, we can't be totally sure, but it seems like it ultimately helped," Quinn wrote.
Then, two weeks after their conversation, on July 24, the day of Nurse's 59th birthday, James announced on social media that he was signing with Philadelphia. According to a Carroll resident Quinn spoke to who was at the club the day James called, Nurse entered the clubhouse afterward and said something to the effect of, "You'll never believe who I just got off the phone with."
Nurse, however, disputed that account, telling Quinn, "I kept that to myself. If anybody back there is embellishing that, that would not be accurate.”
Nick Nurse buys hometown golf course in Carroll
Nurse purchased his hometown's golf course in February 2024.
From its opening in 1922 until Nurse's purchase in 2024, it was known as the Carroll Country Club. He told the Carroll Times Herald that he and his family were members of the club for more than three decades while he was growing up and that he and his eight older siblings would often join their father for games.
"You'd spend all day out there. You'd play some golf, have a barbecue, do some swimming [and] watch some fireworks," Nurse said. "It seems like it's a place where we grew up and had a lot of good memories."
After buying the course, Nurse renamed it Carroll National Golf Club to shed what Quinn called its "perceived country club vibes." The property has undergone improvements, including renovations to the clubhouse bar and the addition of an annual multiday golf-and-music festival.
How Nick Nurse became an NBA head coach
Nurse has coached the 76ers for three seasons, beginning in 2023-24, and has taken the team to the playoffs twice.
The Iowa native began his NBA head coaching career with the Toronto Raptors in 2018-19 after five years as an assistant with the team. He led the Raptors to their first NBA title in his first season with the team.
Before reaching the NBA, Nurse, a former basketball player at Northern Iowa, worked his way through the coaching ranks across the United States and Europe, including local stints as head coach at Grand View in the early 1990s and at the Iowa Energy, now the Iowa Wolves, from 2007 to 2011.
The 76ers play their regular-season opener on Tuesday, Oct. 20, against the New York Knicks.
Cooper Worth is a service/trending reporter for the Des Moines Register. Reach him at cworth@gannett.com or follow him on X @CooperAWorth.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: The story of LeBron James calling Nick Nurse at an Iowa golf course