There’s only one reason Old Town Club, home course of the Wake Forest University golf teams since the campus relocated to Winston-Salem almost seven decades ago, isn’t “officially” regarded as the nation’s top collegiate golf course.
Though the club has several ties to the university, dating back to the ownership of the property, Old Town isn’t a “college course”. It’s a private club with a history intertwined with the university. In fact, until 1968, Wake students and faculty could play the course for $1. Regardless, the several media sources that have ranked college courses in recent years, disqualify Old Town for consideration.
No other college golf team has a comparable course to call home. A classic design by heralded Depression-era architect Perry Maxwell, the layout has enjoyed a spurt of increasing appreciation over the past decade since renovations by the celebrated team of Bill Coore (a Wake alum) and Ben Crenshaw, becoming a consensus top 100 U.S. course in rankings compiled by major magazines.
For example, Golf Magazine ranked Old Town No. 38 among U.S. courses and No. 84 in the world in 2023. Also last year, Golf Digest listed Old Town No. 54 in its U.S. rankings. No “college” course is on those lists.
The 2013 changes included the removal of many trees, creating stunning views of the entire property and making it possible to maintain firm turf conditions, as well as a redesign of bunkers that brought them more into play while giving them a more artistic, natural look, often surrounded by natural vegetation. The greens also were expanded more than 30% to a total of about 110,000 square feet, bringing them close to Maxwell’s original sizes and bringing them closer to the bunkers.
“It has really shot us up all the charts,” Dunlop White, Old Town’s golf chairman, said of the Coore and Crenshaw renovations. “We have catapulted up not only all the lists, but we seem to be on everybody’s radar, too. The changes were very transformative. I can’t believe how far the bar has been raised.”
Old Town remains very much an integral part of Wake golf, a major enticement to many of the nation’s top golf recruits. Almost adjacent to the campus and only a short golf cart ride away for men’s coach Jerry Haas and women’s coach Kim Lewellen, and a few minutes by car for their players, the course has a strong Wake Forest presence — from the many alumni members to the portrait gallery of former Wake greats such as Arnold Palmer in the venerable brick clubhouse.
On the eve of the recent Wyndham Championship, Will Zalatoris, the latest Wake golfers to become a standout on the PGA Tour, returned to Old Town to catch up with former teammates and men’s coach Jerry Haas.
“The whole membership has been awesome to the team,” said Zalatoris, a few days before the start of the Wyndham. “They treated us like members. There was no time we couldn’t play, including Mondays.”
Though Wake has a 17-acre, state-of-the-art indoor/outdoor practice facility on campus, Demon Deacon golfers enjoy that continuous access to the Old Town course, which is not only revered for its classic routing and meticulous grooming, but its rolling topography that forces players to hit shots from all types of uneven lies.
Maxwell’s other heralded designs included Southern Hills and Prairie Dunes. He also made significant improvements to Augusta National following the death of his former design partner Alister MacKenzie. For the design at Old Town, Maxwell had his choice of 165 acres out of the more than 1,000 acres or so offered by Charles and Mary Reynolds Babcock for the new Wake campus and surroundings.
Old Town has a distinctive open look with continuous fairway grass (estimated at 80 acres), connecting several holes and providing scenic vistas over much of the course, which makes good use of Silas Creek on several holes.
The markers in the open tee areas can be adjusted to create significantly differently angles of attack. Red flags mark the front nine pins, yellow identify the back nine pins – important to note because a sprawling, double green serves Nos. 8 and 17.
Though the wide fairways and lack of heavy rough seem inviting off the tees, precision is required to obtain proper angles and ideal lies to attack the pins.
The undulating greens, converted to Tif-Eagle Bermuda last year from bent grass, feature trademark “Maxwell rolls,” small rises sometimes described as “muffins” that require precise putting to properly navigate. Most of the putting surfaces include two or three of these rolls, making them an important factor on approach shots.
“Old Town is very wide open, but the greens are very severe,” said Zalatoris, who stressed the importance of placing tee shots to allow favorable angles for approaches.
Many subtle touches add to enjoyment of the course. No cart paths line the fairways, eliminating bad bounces into trouble areas. Flags on the pins are yellow on the front nine and red on the back, important to note considering the double green. Pin sheets with exact yardage are provided.
Coore and Crenshaw, keeping with their natural, minimalistic phi, acquired Yadkin River brown sand for the bunkers.
“it’s now all about coordinating maintenance with design,” White said, “Most design improvements are in the rearview mirror.”
White said that future plans for the course may include expanding the greens to 115,000 SF, which he said would approximate the original sizes.
From arrival, the experience at Old Town is unique.
The small golf pro shop is behind the impressive brick clubhouse, leaving a short walk through a courtyard flanked by the open teeing areas for Nos. 1 and 10. The casual openness of the courtyard and the flat, non-distinctive teeing areas make for a striking introduction. There are no tee times – just wait your turn in the courtyard and tee off when the fairway is clear.
The routing includes an opening three-hole south loop that leads back near the clubhouse to No. 4, where “The Big Reveal” from the fairway hill provides a view of much of the property. On the back nine, a spectacular, panoramic view back toward the clubhouse can be viewed from the volcano-shaped 16th green.
The most memorable holes include No. 5, a sharp dogleg left par-4 with a largely blind uphill tee shot, and 14, a short par-4 reachable off the tee for the biggest of hitters willing to risk bogey or worse to a fairway and green that slope perilously left toward the creek.
Of course, the par-4 8th and par-5 17th are the signature spots, featuring a double green running along the creek where the pins are typically more than 200 feet apart.
The blind tee shot at 8 travels down a vast fairway sloping toward water on the right with the vast double green a mostly horizontal target. From the right side of the fairway, the red flag is positioned on the left side of the putting surface, leaving players with the unique position of aiming away from the closest pin in their approach over the creek.
At 17, the second shot should be to the lower right side of the fairway, leaving a flatter lie for a short approach over creek to a smaller portion of the green guarded in front by the creek and a small bunker.
Old Town finishes with an uphill, par-4 to a green flanked by the clubhouse.
