How a PGA Tour Player Built His Dream Golf Course | Golf Digest

Having dreamt of building his very own golf course, PGA Tour player Zac Blair bought land in South Carolina in 2020 and set out to design one of the best courses in the State. With help from Tom Doak and others on the way, The Tree Farm opened in 2023 and we visited with Zac and his Head Pro, Drew, to play the course and hear about the challenge of designing a golf course from scratch.

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It has like similarities to Augusta National in the way the property moves and some of the big slopes and it has some dramatic stuff like You’ see at Pine Valley you can certainly see those characteristics out here and you know the property kind of speaks for itself

Which made it easy to build you know Great Golf holes um and and that was kind of the goal the vision of the club was come as you are come have fun you can come in a collared shirt or you could also come and you know play in a T-shirt and listen to Music our goal is to kind of allow both those parties to come together and and really enjoy one special place here for a place that doesn’t have a lot of tradition yet we have the ability to have a blank canvas to say you know what

Do we want our our our overall Aura to be the one rule was basically not affecting other people’s experience all day opening day ho in one first first tall Thomas Godfrey pretty wild get up get up yeah number one as you can see you know par three which is

Super unique you know usually you just kind of see people hit their shots and you don’t get to really see the kind of finality of the hole you know we thought it would be kind of a unique tone Setter and something very different than than what you typically see you know I can’t

Think of too many 18 whole courses in the states at least that start with a par three so it should set it apart putting green right there back patio right there 18 right there just gives kind of everybody the chance to see what’s going on we got the land under contract early

Or mid 2020 and kind of had a you know long due diligence process to figure out if it was possible and so you know fast forward uh it was actually my birthday that we bought the property which was a cool birthday present and you know then

Got to figuring out how do we get all the things that are needed basically to turn it from you know an overgrown Forest into a golf Course I was fortunate to meet Zach in person uh a couple months prior to him purchasing the land here he was traveling to the club I worked at in Georgia and the one thing I remember when I first met him is he had a tape

Measure on him and he was in the golf shop at a hoopie measuring you know displays and and hat racks and in our back storage room you know uh looking at you know cubby space and and what we had for hangs space and back storage and how

Big our lockers were and and how big our driving range was and I’ve heard stories from other professionals during this stretch of a couple years when he was really kind of getting down to the nitty-gritty of of starting this whole project here at the tree farm and he was

Doing the same thing at other courses oh wow easy first time putting on camera easy for well my dad you know developed golf courses and you know had a few little kind of executive golf courses driving range kind of mom and pop type places so you know from a very young age

Kind of saw him sketching golf holes out so I kind of just wanted to be like my dad so I think that’s where it really kind of started and then I think college and when I got on tour started to be able to see a lot of really cool places

And get to go play a lot of the best clubs around the whole world and that also kind of peaked everything of hey this isn’t like some of the stuff I’ve seen in Utah um you know started kind of researching it a little more and it was obviously something that kind of caught

My attention so 13 this was actually like the first hole that we started working on big kind of dog leg right par five over the we call it the Badlands I think it’s like 13 acres yeah so so it’s a big hole I think it’s a really cool hole though cuz

It doesn’t really matter how far you hit it it’s really how close you can get it to kind of the right edge of the Fairway to be able to go for it in two I think this is honestly like a pretty unique hole um so no real real no

Real kind of like template or anything was used when we were building it it was just kind of like hey let’s make a really cool risk reward par five that has some options on the second shot this was kind of the first stretch of holes

We built 13 14 15 16 and this is you know I would say one of the fan favorites when they come it’s pretty you know uh aesthetically pleasing hole especially when you get up to the Fairway and this is kind of one of the one of the handful of like really really cool

Reveals he’s an amazing listener he’s an amazing Communicator I mean it’s so funny we’ll have a prospective member out he’s been emailing back and forth with Zach and Zach’s on tour you know uh trying to win golf tournaments on the PGA tour and he’s emailing these people

About hey you know call me you know I want to talk to you about the tree farm and this guy’s like well you tea off in about 45 minutes on the p PJ tour I’m looking on my PGA Tour app you’re wanting to kind of talk about this place

And you know I think it’s it’s given him a great balance out on tour too to kind of have this as a as a project I mean I think as you travel and you’re on the road for work and and any any sort of kind of business I think having a having

A side you know not a side Hustle but something to kind of keep him away on downtime to really sink his teeth into has been has been great for him uh uh so I first met Kai goldby on my way down to a golf trip with you know a

Handful of the people involved in the project I guess I didn’t necessarily go into it being like hey this I’m like interviewing this person it was more just hey this person’s a golf course architect and he would be a great person to at least kind of Bounce some ideas

Off and figure out like you know how does Zack Blair hire somebody to come build this project um immediately within 20 minutes you could just hear it in his voice like how passionate he was which you know kind of led into hey would you

Want to be the guy on this and you know he he uh ended up saying yes which was kind of the The Big Break in the project and you know in all honesty kind of right before construction we went over to England and played a bunch of places and we went to

Rye and one of the cool features there were what they call the Rye brows that are you know on the edges of greens and basically in place to stop you from being able to putt you know when you miss green so we did them with bricks instead of wood called them kybrows you

Know it was mine and Kai’s idea more Kai’s idea than mine um I think they turned out cool and people seem to like them I had messed around and done you know tons hundreds probably of routings on my own and then it was kind of like

Hey we should get Tom to help like he’s the best in the world at this so Tom do obviously uh golf course architect you know probably one of the two or three biggest Architects living right now I would say in terms of this kind of new new wave of like Golden Age architecture

Right he ended up being hired to to do the routing and you know we went out and did kind of like a a single pass clearing cutting down some trees but also with just like a a bush hog like cutting it down so you could see more

Than like 20 yards in front of you and then it was hey we got to hire uh like a Logging company to come clear the site and that was honestly one of the coolest parts of the whole process for me you know seeing all that kind of huge

Machinery and and really for the first time seeing like two or 300 yards of wow that’s like what the whole Corridor is going to be like this is crazy that’s when it really like felt super real you know I I hopped in a dozer every once in

A while and you know messed around which was fun the first time on property for me I just you know it was all dirt they had cleared the trees uh they hadn’t started grassing anything yet but I had a chance to watch Kai goldby and and Zach just

Kind of communicate together on you know just the smallest of detail what a certain green may do on the back side of a runoff or where a bunker should be but I think the one thing for me was just the amphitheater in which we

Have as a as a you know as a surrounds at this at this golf course you you know we cleared so much I mean it was very dense and you know you’re you know looking around you can kind of see the areas in which it kind of all looked

Like but what they were able to do from a clearing perspective to to still allow your Amphitheater to be like you feel like you’re in in an arena here short needed it a little more that way I I think it’s a green that you know kai particularly and me you know very

Much are like super proud of with how it came out just because it it is so much fun and um just gives kind of a lot of different options I wanted kind of big slopes where you could see you know which way putts were going and you could use maybe

Some of the external Contours to feed balls in you know I feel like on a lot of the modern golf courses you get some putts that might break like four or five different ways and to me those architects try and protect par kind of around the greens and it’s so hard to

Have a 10 or 12 handicap be able to see those little things 16 of the greens you could literally like putt from 150 yards out you know there’s nothing really in front of them real nice that’s where I felt like it it it reflected Zack Blair and

What I wanted I I wasn’t trying to build a place that was built for pro golf offers I I just wanted a fun place where people could come enjoy it and you know hit cool shots and hit cool recovery shots and and have fun it needs to come

This way and go that way I I mean I promise I mean that’s so far that way what I mean that’s I didn’t want to go that way that wasn’t even close to where we said I told you right at the black pipes didn’t I you’re in the freaking

Middle of the bushes over there what are you talking about mine ising perfect perfect right there that’s right where I told you that’s literally right where I told you I made it thanks for coming I think the first time Kai came he mentioned St George’s Hill like yes

Like that that’s so cool like we should go like that route but I mean it has like similarities to Augusta National in the in the you know way the property moves and some of the big slopes and it has some dramatic stuff like You’ see at

Valley you know and I’m not saying this place is those places but you can certainly see those characteristics out here and the you know the property kind of speaks for itself which made it easy to build you know Great Golf holes um and and that was kind of the goal come on W the shortterm goals are 52 beds an amazing Clubhouse food operation a golf course that continues to evolve and you know really kind of grow in I think the the buildup to get to this point from you know purchasing the land before Co going through Co going through some of

The changes in the construction side of things I think uh everybody is really excited to kind of you know as we’re looking here watching the the clubhouse and the Cottages come together and you know getting some heads and beds and some people really enjoying the overnight experience so you know in the

Next three or four years I think uh I think we’re really just looking forward to kind of you know reaching our goals of of what we’ve been talking about since 2019 2020 building a place where you could eat sleep and go golf is just kind of like a playground for people that that

Love the game and like that’s the vision it’s close you know a little little more to go um but definitely looking forward to it