Owners of Two Top Carolina Clubs Pay to Play

The semi-private and Jack Nicklaus designed Pawleys Plantation golf course in Pawleys Island, SC, closed for renovations on May 22 and reopened in the last two weeks, pretty much restored to its original design but with some significant design changes that will reduce maintenance costs and speed up play especially among those visiting golfers unprepared for the tough course that Jack built in 1989.

Based on notes from Founders International, owner of the club, and the accompanying photos provided by my son Tim, greens pulled closer to their adjacent bunkers and the elimination – or downsizing – of a few hundred yards worth of fairway bunkers will make the course more playable for higher handicap players while retaining the challenge for the big sticks. For example, on the long par 4s, some of which play to around 450 yards, bunkers closer to the greens, as originally designed, will make pin-seeking a higher risk play. The signature par 3 13th, whose green was smaller than the famed Sawgrass #17, has added a bit more putting surface on the right side but still shows a narrow landing area front to back; props to those big hitters who try to land a ball from 170 yards, with prevailing ocean winds, onto that narrow runway. On the par 3 3rd, whose green is guarded on the left by a lake, the one pot bunker that stood guard over the center of the green has been replaced by two round and smaller bunkers. Any pin position on the left two-thirds of the green remains problematical given the bunkers and the slope down to the lake; you won’t make birdie from the bailout on the right side of the green, but you are unlikely to make double bogey either. Pick your poison.

The par 4 8th at Pawleys Plantation (top photo) and the par 4 12th exemplify the most obvious and dramatic changes to the layout. On both, long sand bunkers extended from right of the fairways to greenside. Both are now gone, replaced with two separate bunkers guarding the right side of #8 green and a row of fairway bunkers on the 12th, with a greenside bunker also protecting the right side.

The $2 million renovation included a much-needed expansion of Pawleys Pub, the combination 19th hole and club restaurant. (The adjacent clubhouse serves meals only for special organized events for members, which are scheduled about once a month.) The Pub will now have a much-wider view of the 18th green and adjacent lake (more a large pond, actually, and with an attractive fountain in its middle.)
Gone is the 120 yard long bunker on the right side of the 10th fairway at Pawleys Plantation. A brand new fairway bunker now guards the left side of the fairway. It's a short hole but an approach over water from that bunker to a front pin position will be treacherous.

As Pawleys completes its work, The Peninsula Club on Lake Norman, north of Charlotte, NC, just announced it closed for renovation in October with work ongoing for a full year and reopening scheduled for October 2024. Beau Welling Design is doing the work on a layout originally designed by Rees Jones in 1990 and renovated by Jones in 2007. The course’s rating and slope from the tips – 74.9 and 141, respectively – are not quite as robust as the corresponding numbers for Pawleys Plantation – 75.2 and 150 – but still enough challenge for members with single-digit handicaps. In a recent video shot at the grand breaking ceremonies on October 2 and posted at the Peninsula Club website, Beau Welling indicated that infrastructure changes (including upgraded irrigation) and reshaping of the layout will “make the course more challenging for better players and, perhaps, easier for [higher handicap] players.”
A bunker now surrounds the base of a live oak tree right about where your correspondent typically aims his second shot at the par 5 14th at Pawleys Plantation.

The private club did not announce how much the renovations will cost but given the full year the course will be closed, seven months more than it took at Pawleys Plantation, with more infrastructure work than at the South Carolina course that, I estimate, will be two to three times more expensive. Members of the member-owned Peninsula sure love their club.