Beyond the gates of Augusta National, private-club golf is booming

Because the golf world focuses on the Masters this week, let’s increase our lens and take inventory of the sporting panorama past Augusta Nationwide Golf Membership.

In recent times, a cluster of noteworthy golf equipment has cropped up within the surrounding area, bringing a constellation of programs — and programs within the making — to a Sandbelt that stretches throughout components of the Carolinas and Georgia. 

Right here’s a have a look at six of those notable newbies, all of which lie inside a 200-mile radius of the gated entrance of Magnolia Lane.

The Tree Farm

Location: Batesburg-Leesville, S.C.

In his practically 10 years on the PGA Tour, Zac Blair has by no means damaged into the winner’s circle. However he has made a reputation in structure circles because the uncommon touring professional with a ardour for course design. After pursuing a challenge for a number of years in his dwelling state of Utah, Blair pivoted to the positioning of a former pine nursery in Aiken, S.C., the place Tom Doak drew up a routing and Kye Goalby did the remaining. The result’s a nuanced lay-of-the-land course that marries components of Pinehurst and Pine Valley.

Previous Barnwell

Location: Aiken, S.C.

An elite membership with a social conscience, Previous Barnwell is the brainchild of the software program entrepreneur Nick Schreiber, who has put golf into play as a drive for higher good. With a melting-pot membership of slightly below 300, the membership has cultivated ties past its boundaries, partnering with HBCUs (traditionally black faculties and universities) to host apply rounds and tournaments, whereas sponsoring ladies’s and junior golf initiatives. The course itself is broad-minded, too. Designed by first-time lead architects Blake Conant and longtime Doak affiliate Brian Schneider, it performs to an unconventional par 73, with an creative routing that bucks and rolls by means of the guts and across the edges of a big sandy bowl.

Broomsedge

Location: Rembert, S.C.

To say that Mike Koprowski is invested on this challenge is an understatement. The up-and-coming architect not solely discovered the positioning, he bought the land himself — satisfied of its potential — earlier than bringing on different companions. In collaboration with Kyle Franz, whose praised work consists of the restoration of Southern Pines, Mid Pines and Pine Needles, Koprowski is now busy shaping a course on a rollicking canvas that has been likened to the terrain of esteemed Previous City Membership, in Winston-Salem. Amongst its many refreshing options, Broomsedge could have holes which may change in par from day and day, in addition to 20 inexperienced websites for 18 holes, permitting for various and shared placing surfaces. The membership may even function on the British mannequin, with a membership that will get precedence however tee occasions made out there for outdoor play. 

Fall Line Golf Membership

Location: Butler, Ga.

With enrollment anticipated to be capped at round 100, Fall Line could have a membership half the dimensions of Augusta’s however double the variety of 18-hole programs. Each are being designed by the Australian agency of Ogilvie, Cocking and Mead, who’ve drawn inspiration of their work from English heathland and Aussie Sandbelt layouts. Together with a 12-hole quick course and a Himalayas-style placing advanced, this self-proclaimed “sporting” membership may even have a clay-bird capturing facility and a strong providing of searching applications.

21 Golf Membership

Location: the Sand Hills between Aiken S.C and Augusta, Ga.

An invite-only personal membership membership, this unique redoubt is slated to have two programs. The primary would be the Hammer Course (as within the playing recreation), a match-play structure by Sweetens Cove designers Tad King and Rob Collins that can function numerous alternate routings and an additional three-hole loop for settling bets. When the Hammer is accomplished (the projected opening date is in 2025), the membership will get to work on the Mackenzie Course, a recreation of El Boquerón, a daring, never-built design that the famed architect dreamed up for a rich household in Argentina greater than a century in the past.

Cypress Shoals

Location: North Augusta, S.C. 

Lower than 5 miles down the street from the place he gained two inexperienced jackets, Tom Watson has been tapped to design the primary of two programs at Cypress Shoals, a 1,742-acre deliberate group that payments itself as “Augusta, Reimagined.” Phrase of the event first made headlines final yr, within the weeks main as much as the Masters, and whereas many particulars of the challenge stay unclear (together with the opening date), the identical guarantees endure on the Cypress Shoals web site, which, along with golf, requires 200 residential tons, 60 “membership condominiums,” 40 “luxurious cabins,” plus a fishing protect, expansive searching grounds and an equestrian facility, on acreage that borders the Savannah River.

Josh Sens

Golf.com Editor

A golf, meals and journey author, Josh Sens has been a GOLF Journal contributor since 2004 and now contributes throughout all of GOLF’s platforms. His work has been anthologized in The Finest American Sportswriting. He’s additionally the co-author, with Sammy Hagar, of Are We Having Any Enjoyable But: the Cooking and Partying Handbook.