Not many sites have been home to three golf course designs by the likes of George Cobb, Tom Fazio and Davis Love III.
But that’s the history of the University of North Carolina’s Finley Golf Club in Chapel Hill. Same property, same name, three different designs with different routing.
The third version opened last fall after revisions from a team headed by Love, his brother, Mark, and architect Scot Sherman. If you haven’t played Finley in the last nine months, you haven’t played the course.
UNC spent $13.5 million on the facility, taking land from the former 11th and 12th holes to build a new practice facility intended to rank among the best in college golf for the UNC men’s and women’s teams.
“The catalyst was to create the premier practice space for the UNC golf teams,” said Finley pro Rob Costa.
The clubhouse and pro shop received renovations. A vast, new, putting green, includes a putting course. Harvie’s, a new snack bar/restaurant, reopened in late July named for former UNC great Harvie Ward. The UNC golf teams’ indoor facilities will be built in the next few years.
Many of the greens have been reshaped with a variety of undulations and new tiers, making it more important for players to hit approaches to the right sections. Grassy mounds border many of the fairways.
The putting surfaces are also different. Tif-Eagle Bermuda has replaced the former bent grass greens, allowing them to be faster and easier to maintain during hot weather. A collar with a distinctive strain of Bermuda should prevent mowing patterns from reducing the greens’ size.
“From 60 yards in, the holes are vastly different,” said Costa.
The nines have been reversed, making the former No. 9, a challenging par-4 with water guarding the right side of the green (pictured above), the finishing hole. The new holes, a short par-4 and tough par-3 with a large elevated green, were incorporated into the layout as Nos. 4 and 6 on land near an apartment complex, the only buildings easily visible along the course.
One of the reasons for the changes, which included a few new tees, was to toughen it up for the best college golfers. This past spring, the course hosted an NCAA Regional.
UNC built two new holes, inserted as No. 4 and No. 6, to replace holes eliminated for use to build UNC’s planned new team facility.
As a result of new holes and rerouting, the former 12th hole, a relatively simple downhill par-3 guarded by bunkers, is the opening hole. Several trees were also cleared, improving some views and providing more options for shots from off the fairways. Though measuring 7,084 yards — modest by current pro standards — from the black tips, the reduction to par-70 makes the course plays longer. The tougher greens complexes will defend par for college players.
“The strategy was to make it harder for good players, but playable for everybody else,” Costa said.
The need for the new practice facility is easy to understand given the facilities arms race among college golf programs. The changes in the course are also understandable. Cobb designed a solid college layout in 1950. In 1999, Fazio was brought in with instructions to improve the layout but keep it playable for students and the public.
The Love brothers, UNC alums, needed to build new holes to replace the holes lost to the practice facility while making the greens and fairway target areas tough enough to challenge players averaging significantly more length off the tees than players in the 1990s.
Finley remains easily walkable. The course is filled with rolling terrain, but there are few steep climbs and only shorts distances between holes.
The course has six sets of tees and two combos with ratings and slopes. Gold tees measure 6,529 yards and the blue member tees are 6,011, with shorter tees at 5,453, 5,013 and 4,368 yards. The rating is 74.6 and the slope 141 from the back tees. The blues drop to a 69.6 rating and 130 slope. Measuring 6,254, the gold/blue combo is especially popular.
Public play at Finley takes some planning. Tee times are available no more than five days in advance with no same-day availability. Weekday prices are $95 to walk and $125 with cart in the mornings, and $70 and $100, respectively, in the afternoons. Range balls are included.
