A Triad public golf course has a new owner.
Bobby Evans purchased Pine Knolls Golf Club in Kernersville from Jim Butler, according to the Kernersville News. Evans and Butler each live in the community surrounding the golf course.
Evans told the newspaper that he wanted to preserve the golf course and prevent it from a sale to corporate owner. He also said he did not want to develop the property.
Forsyth County listed the excise tax as $7,400, making the sales price $3.7 million.
The new clubhouse at Tanglewood Park opens Tuesday morning. TriadGolf.com and Triad Golf Magazine took the below photos late last week as workers moved furniture, equipment and merchandise into the new facility.
The two Forsyth County public courses had operated in a trailer adjacent to the first leg of the par-4 ninth hole for more than a year during construction.
The dramatic ascents and cascades from tee to green combined with the spectacular vistas of the surrounding Blue Ridge Mountains from the Olde Beau Golf Club consistently leave visitors in awe with one overriding question.
Check that. Two overriding questions.
How did Billy Satterfield manage to craft such an outstanding – and playable — golf course on the rugged Olde Beau Resort and Golf Club property?
Who or what is Olde Beau?
The first question remains a wonder. Carving a competitive and fun golf course though the mountainous terrain in isolated Roaring Gap was an amazing achievement.
The second question is easy, a big clue coming from the English bulldog on the Olde Beau logo. Olde Beau was the faithful companion of Satterfield, who developed the resort in the early 1990s, two decades after developing Bermuda Run.
Somehow, Satterfield accomplished his mission. Olde Beau is a course like no other. It’s mountain golf at a beautiful extreme, requiring shots not encountered anywhere else.
“It’s instantly memorable,” said Olde Beau general manager Tommy Maines. “You’ll play it one time and remember most, if not all, the holes. It was some of the most dramatic and awe-inspiring views of any golf course in North Carolina.”
There’s no more memorable experience than the spectacular panoramic view of the Blue Ridge Mountains from the hilltop green at No. 15. From the back of the green, which sits on a bluff, players can see for miles into Virginia.
The Roaring Gap location is also unique among mountain golf hot spots. Located about 25 minutes north of Elkin on twisting U.S. 21, the tiny summer destination has a post office, a church, a gas station/convenience store, a few charming local shops and three golf courses – the other two are private. That’s about it.
Fortunately for visitors, Olde Beau offers a variety of accommodations – from rental homes to studio and two-bedroom villas – plus a restaurant and various activities. Stay and Play packages with lodging and discounted golf rates are available.
The golf course is also open to non-resort guests at a price comparable to many Triad courses.
The resort is especially popular during the summer, when temperatures are significantly milder than non-mountain areas, and the fall, when spectacular fall colors add another attraction.
Other amenities include a fitness center, a seasonal outdoor pool, tennis and pickleball courts.
What makes Olde Beau different?
Several holes force players to hit blind approaches to hilltop greens. Some include blind tee shots, including the par-5 17th featuring the most jaw-dropping approach on the course.
Shots hit short of the green can roll back several yards, leaving blind uphill pitches or nestle down in grass. Either way, the pitch is from a steep sidehill lie.
Once reaching the greens, players want to stay below the hole on the quick bent grass putting surfaces.
“Greens are always in fantastic shape and roll true,” Maines said.
While the rough can be rough, including some awkward sidehill lies, the fairways are maintained in pristine conditions.”
But the descriptions are deceiving. Golf at Olde Beau is fun. Though filled with challenge, the course is highly playable. Club selection is important – driver isn’t always the best choice off the tees. Taking an extra minute to ride up ahead and look for targets is especially crucial on some holes.
The par-72 layout measures only 6,482 yards from the tips, but most holes play either shorter or longer due to the significant undulations. From four other sets of tees, the course plays to 6,036 to 4,455 yards.
“The course places a premium on accuracy off the tee,” Maines said. “You can get in trouble if you miss the fairway, but it’s very scoreable if you’re in the fairway.”
Each of the four par-5s are reachable with heroic options.
The first eagle opportunity comes at No. 2, which officially measures 540 yards from the back markers, offers a second shot of about 180 yards over water to the green with a well-placed tee shot. A safer option is to play left on the dogleg right and lay up.
The last is at the unforgettable 17th, where a solid blind drive left of a target boulder in the middle of the fairway puts players on the precipice of a deep gorge, offering a carry of 200 yards or so to a green built atop another slope.
Can’t hit it that far? A modest-width fairway extends back from the green perhaps 100 yards at the bottom of the gorge. The front of the putting surface is guarded by steep slopes, sand and gnarly grass.
Of the par-4s, a dramatic descent down a hill from the clubhouse at No. 10 provides a good preview of what’s to come. At No. 15, first-time visitors should bring their phones to the green to capture the panoramic view across the mountains.
The par-3s are more fun than scary with dramatic drops with greens guarded by terrain that often funnel wayward shots back into play. At No. 8, which spans the sides of a ridge, correct usage of a two-tiered putting surface can direct approaches toward the hole.
Olde Beau is an ideal destination for visitors, especially golfers who have never played anything like it.
“It’s a challenge, but a ton of fun for players of all levels and abilities,” Maines said. “As our profile has grown over the past few years, we’ve seen more players make the trip up from Charlotte and also the Triad region — and they come back year after year and bring their friends.”
Wake Forest won the Bryan National Collegiate Sunday by 25 strokes at Bryan Park Champions Course.
Wake’s Nicholas Prieto, who transferred this summer from Arizona State, won the event by two strokes with 13-under-par 203.
The Demon Deacons shot 24-under 840 for 54 holes. Wofford finished second in the 14-team tournament. UNC Greensboro placed fifth at 877.
The Triad has a handful of players on Division I men’s teams this fall as the season kicks off locally at Bryan Park with the Bryan National Collegiate, hosted by UNC Greensboro on Saturday and Sunday.
Kyle Haas, a junior who played at Forsyth Day, was a regular in the Wake lineup last season. The son of coach Jerry Haas has three top-5 finishes in his first two years at Wake. Haas shot 66 in the final round of the Amherst Regional to help the Demon Deacons rally to qualify for the NCAA Championship.
The Deacons will also play at Bryan Park.
Tanner Cadieux, who played sparingly as a freshman last season for N.C. State, has transferred to Virginia Commonwealth. Cadieux played at Page High.
Alex Martin, a senior from Thomasville, is a senior at Appalachian State. He had four top-25 finishes last season for the Mountaineers.
Jack Boyer, who played at Ragsdale High, will be a junior at Gardner-Webb, also in the Bryan Park tournament. Boyer was a second team all-Big South Conference selection last season.
David DeLille, who played at High Point Central, is a senior at East Carolina. DeLille has played in 10 tournaments for the Pirates. His top finish in four events last year was a tie for 20th place.
Hayden Magnussen, a recent Wesleyan Christian graduate, is on the roster for Western Carolina.
Several Triad women fill the rosters on NCAA Division I teams entering the fall season.
Macy Pate will start her junior year as the top returner at Wake Forest. She’ll be joined by former Reagan High teammate Morgan Ketchum, a three-year standout at Virginia Tech who will finish her career as a graduate student.
Pate has been chosen as a third-team preseason All-American by Golf Channel, which named Wake No. 12 in its preseason rankings. North Carolina was No. 15 in the rankings led by Stanford. Pate received ACC Freshman of the Year and has been All-ACC.
Ketchum won a tournament at Oklahoma last season and led the Hokies in scoring average as a freshman and as a sophomore.
Wake opens the fall season Sept. 8 at the Annaka Intercollegiate in Minnesota.
Anna Howerton, who played with Pate and Ketchum at Reagan, returns to High Point University as the Big South Conference Player of the Year in 2024-25. The junior won Big South Freshman of the Year in 203-24, when she was also All-Big South. Howerton has two collegiate victories. HPU opens Sept. 7 at the Golfweek Fall Challenge at Caledonia in Pawleys Island, South Carolina.
Leah Edwards got the nod for the No. 1 slot for Western Kentucky, which opened its season on Labor Day at the Boilermaker Classic at Purdue University. A freshman, Edwards won back-to-back Class 4A individual state high school titles for Northwest Guilford.
Macie Burcham, a regular member of the East Carolina lineup the past two seasons, returns for a redshirt senior year with the Pirates. The Wesleyan Christian graduate has won three Carolinas Golf Association Parent-Child tournaments with father Jeff Burcham.
Ellen Yu of Greensboro is a freshman on a UNC team that returns all five members of its starting lineup. A homeschooler, Yu won an AJGA tournament in 2022 at Carolina Trace in Sanford and won the 2019 U.S. Kids World Championship. The Tar Heels open Sept. 8 in Michigan at American Dunes Golf Club in the Folds of Honor Collegiate.
EC Niebauer, a grad student at Western Carolina, finished 31st in an 11-team field Aug. 26 at 7-over 149. Niebauer played at University of the South and Queens after graduating from High Point Central.
Katelyn Griggs, who played at Gray Stone Day in Lexington, is a senior at Gardner-Webb, which opens the season Sept. 15 in a tournament hosted by Elon.
Local teams wins CGA Mixed Team
Reece Hart of Winston-Salem and Joseph Cansler of Clemmons won the CGA Carolinas Mixed Team Championship on Aug. 17, in a three-hole playoff over Davis and Tina Morrison of Raleigh after both teams finished regulation play with a total score of 11-under 133 at Kiawah Island’s Oak Point course.
Kris Spence’s work at Starmount Forest Country Club is nearing completion, and the Greensboro-based architect is gearing up on a few new in-state projects.
Though heavy summer rain – 15 inches in July – caused delays, Spence now expects the Greensboro course to be ready to open by sometime in October.
Rain, including several “pop-up” storms, washed away many of the sprigs planted in the past few months, making sod necessary to get many of the tees and fairways ready this fall.
“We got the first 10 sprigged and the hard rains hit within a few days,” Spence told TriadGolf.com.
Spence has made significant renovations, especially to the green complexes, planned to bring a more classic style to the layout.
The multi-million-dollar project also included a new irrigation system, some new tees and the instillation of fast-draining concrete capillary bunkers.
The course now has hydrid ultradwarf TifEagle Bermuda greens, Tahoma 31 Bermuda collars, Tif-Tuf Bermuda fairways and Zeon zoysia tee boxes.
Originally designed by Wayne Stiles and John Van Kleek, Starmount was given a major facelift in 1999 by Virginia-based architect Lester George, whose new projects include Contentment Golf Club in Wilkes County.
As TriadGolf.com reported recently, Spence did a rapid restoration while making ongoing improvements at Hound Ears Club, flooded during Hurricane Helene.
Starmount and Hound Ears are two of several significant current Spence projects, which include:
RALEIGH GOLF ASSOCIATION
Raleigh Golf Association, which owns 27 holes on both sides of Tryon Road only a few miles south of the N.C. State campus, is making some major changes.
Spence was hired to merge and create a new 18-hole course south of Tryon. Construction began in April. RGA’s public course is often noted as perhaps Raleigh’s most-played course.
A unique organization that had 18 holes open to the public and a separate nine holes reserved for “stockholders,” RGA has sold at least 44 acres north of Tryon that were home to five holes on the former public course. An apartment community was planned for the sold property.
RGA is managed by McConnell Golf, which owns Sedgefield Country Club, The Cardinal by Pete Dye and Old North State Club in the Triad.
Spence said John McConnell instructed him to add as much length as possible and add a little flair to the layout. Much of the work — what was the Stockholder course is under construction — involves greens and bunkers.
Spence’s design will measure about 6,200 yards – more than 100 yards longer than the previous 18-hole layout. The Stockholder course measures less than 2,800 yards. The project includes the building of a large, lighted practice facility.
LAKE NORMAN GOLF CLUB
Spence another major project at Lake Norman Golf Club, formerly known as Mallard Head Golf Course, on Lake Norman in Mooresville.
Purchased in June, the new owners are bringing in Spence to make major renovations to the high-potential property, which includes a racquet club with indoor courts pickleball. A marina has also been considered.
Spence said the project has similarities to his renovation and restoration of Woodlake Golf Club near Pinehurst, where he took a flood-ravaged property and created a high acclaimed course.
“This place has really been let go,” Spence said. “We’ve reimagined a design for it. I think they’ll end up being private club. It’s a lot like Woodlake in potential.”
PINE VALLEY AND OTHERS
Spence will begin a remodel at Pine Valley Country Club in Wilmington next year. Projects at Hope Valley Country Club in Durham, Country Club of Lexington (South Carolina) and Fiddlesticks Golf Club in Ft. Myers, Florida are on the future calendar.
When he arrived at Hound Ears Club only a few days after Hurricane Helene flooding wreaked havoc on the High Country, Kris Spence was astonished at what he saw.
Just getting to the club was difficult. Roads and bridges were demolished. Trees and homes were leveled. Power lines were down. Debris was everywhere. Many residents were trapped in their homes.
The club, located along the Watauga River in a valley surrounded by peaks, looked nothing like the posh summer retreat built 60 years ago with its Bavarian-style clubhouse and meticulously manicured golf course.
“It was just utter devastation,” the Greensboro-based golf course architect told TriadGolf.com. “The river bottom had covered the course. There were rocks and debris scattered around the course. Deep holes were torn in the turf. Bunkers were washed away. Some greens were gone, others were covered with silt.”
The clubhouse and some of the homes inside the gated community suffered significant damage as well. The bottom level of the clubhouse was filled with a few feet of water. Damage and debris was everywhere.
“I’d never seen what water traveling with that kind of velocity could do,” Spence said. “There were kids’ toys 12 feet high up in the trees.”
Only 11 months and $4 million later — more than half was paid by insurance — there’s little evidence of the damage from the storm. Hound Ears, like many of hardest hit areas in Watauga and Avery counties, has either returned to normalcy or has made significant steps to recovery.
“We had capital reserves,” said Hound Ears director of communications Sarah Peppel. “The members had set aside millions in case of emergency. It really helped we had money sitting there waiting.”
Hound Ears wants outsiders who saw images of flooded holes and captions describing devastation to know that Hound Ears and the High Country community are well on the road to recovery.
“The biggest issue is we want to put out to the world is that we were not destroyed or washed off the planet,” Peppel said.
“After the storm, it was hard to picture a full comeback in under a year,” said Hound Ears general manager Joseph McGuire. “But thanks to the determination and craftsmanship of our team, the course is not only playable — it’s better than ever.”
Spence and his crew played the biggest role in restoring the Hound Ears course, an original George Cobb design later renovated by Tom Jackson and tweaked by Rick Robbins.
Like much of the rescue and aid provided to hundreds left homeless, recovery was a team effort throughout the High Country community with important help from organizations such as Boone-based Samaritan’s Purse. At Hound Ears, a member brought a grill and food down to the clubhouse and provided meals.
Club employees and members helped clean the massive amount of debris strewn all over the property.
Since Covid-19, Hound Ears has experienced a substantial growth in permanent residents. In the past, the club and the surrounding community swelled in the summer with Florida winter residents. The club also has dozens of members who work at Appalachian State University or have local businesses.
Director of golf Peter Rucker, who has been at the club for four decades, said the snowbird population has largely been replaced by people from the Triad, Triangle and Charlotte.
“You don’t see as many Florida license plates in the summer as you used to see,” Rucker said.
“It’s been amazing in the last 5 or 6 years ago to see how many more people are living here year-round,” said Peppel.
Within three weeks of the hurricane, Spence had a crew of at least 20 with the help of some Hound Ears staffers were cleaning up the debris, which included cars and homes that had washed away. The task was made by the destruction of a water pump station that made it tougher to wash silt off the greens.
Spence was in the midst of a project of renovating all of the course’s the greens and bunkers, enabling him to move quickly. His relationship with the club goes back more than two decades when worked he rebuilt the greens and bunkers on two par-5s, Nos. 5 and 15.
“Helene sped our schedule up,” said Spence, whose crews were already busy with a major renovation at Starmount Forest, expected to be completed this fall.
So Spence split up crews between Starmount and Hound Ears until snow hit the High Country in mid-December. Spence found a subcontractor to help out at Hound Ears in the spring. Jim Harbin, a longtime ground shaper with Spence Golf, was the project manager supervising the day-to-day work at Hound Ears.
Spence said his company and Hound Ears realized that repairing a golf course was not a regional priority given the hardship faced by many who had lost homes. He praised Hound Ears director of agronomy Allen Storie and his crew for spending long days doing double duty providing assistance in the community and working on the course and grounds.
On the course, Spence Golf, superintendent Allen Storie and Ron Hart of TDI Golf received significant help from Hound Ears Greens and Grounds committee chairman Danny Young, who worked with his father Larry Young, to develop five golf courses in the Myrtle Beach area and Stonehouse and Royal New Kent, Mike Strantz designs in the Williamsburg, Virginia, area.
Spence Golf was able to have all 18 holes open in May. While doing restoration from the flood, the company was able to complete rebuilding most of the course’s greens and bunkers. Some that had been completed before the flood had to be repaired. A few new sets of longer tees were also added, stretching the par-72 layout to more than 6,400 yards from the tips.
Spence hopes to have the remaining few green complexes rebuilt before the end of the year.
With Cobb, Jackson and Robbins all working on the course over the years, Spence said Hound Ears “was sort of a mixed bag of architecture.”
“We need to make it a cohesive golf course in philosophy and architecture,” Spence said.
“Hound Ears has always been known as a fun course to play. We’re Boone’s country club,” said Rucker. “The course is challenging. We are doing things like adding some length to the course to attract more young members.”
Spence said the new greens, which remain a mix of bent grass and poa annua, are more traditional or “classic” in style. He eliminated mounding around the greens, and added shaved areas allowing a variety of chipping options. Some bowls on the putting surfaces were also re-contoured into more crowned greens.
“This fall, they’ll all be Kris Spence greens,” he said.
Though his recent design at Quixote Club in Sumter, South Carolina, and massive restoration and renovation of the flooded and abandoned Maples Course at Woodlake Plantation in Vass, have received national acclaim, Spence is also well-known for his renovations of high-profile Donald Ross designs, including Sedgefield, Roaring Gap and Holston Hills outside Knoxville, Tennessee.
Hound Ears was not the most damaged course in the area. Elk River Club, a Jack Nicklaus design just outside Banner Elk, had six holes along the Elk River destroyed and has not opened this year.
Grandfather Golf Club had to repair extensive damage to its 17th, which winds over creeks, and 18th, which finishes next to the community’s recreational lake.
Linville Ridge Golf Club was reported to have lost thousands of trees.
As TriadGolf.com reported earlier over the weekend, Sugar Mountain Golf Course has 13 holes open and hopes to have all but No. 16 ready before the end of the season.
Boone Golf Club and Mountain Glen Golf Club in Newland, two highly regarded public courses, escaped major damage.
We now know whether Cameron Young will be on the U.S. Ryder Cup team.
The former Wake Forest standout was selected as a captain’s pick. Captain Keegan Bradley, who made the announcement Wednesday morning, will not play.
Bradley chose Justin Thomas, Collin Morikawa, Ben Griffin, Patrick Cantlay, Sam Burns and Cameron Young with his six selections. Scottie Scheffler, J.J. Spaun, Xander Schauffele, Russell Henley, Harris English and Bryson DeChambeau made the team by finishing in the top six of the qualifying points list.
“I’m 100-percent certain this is the right choice,” Bradley said at the announcement. “I want to be the best captain I can be.”
Many prognosticators (not TriadGolf.com) had speculated that Bradley, who finished 11th on the list would pick himself for the team.
“The decision was made a while ago that I wasn’t playing,” said Bradley. “We had the team set. We weren’t scrambling at all.
“This was a really tough decision. There was a point this season where I was playing [after winning the Travelers Championship in June] and all these guys stepped up in a major way and played their way onto this team.”
The Ryder Cup matches are scheduled for Sept. 26-28 at Bethpage Black, a course where Young won the New York State Open in 2017. The Ryder Cup spot is the first for Young, who played in the 2022 Presidents Cups.
Young had an outstanding summer, including a victory at the Wyndham Championship at Sedgefield. His strong play has come after making former Wake Forest teammate Kyle Sterbinsky his caddie. He also switched to a prototype Titleist Pro V1 golf ball.
The 28-year-old Young, 14th in Ryder Cup points, seemed to campaign for a Ryder Cup spot last week.
“I think recent form is kind of a hard one to deny,” Young said on Friday. “Aside from that it’s obviously my home state, it’s a golf course I love. It’s almost exclusively a major championship venue, and my major record is pretty good. So I think there’s a few points that if I had to make my case to [captain Bradley], those are things I’d like him to know.”
Bradley was 11th on the list. Maverick McNealy (10th) and Brian Harman (12th) were not selected. The European team will be announced Sept. 1.
After nine holes in Sunday’s final round of the Tour Championship, Keegan Bradley seemed to have a needed scenario for picking himself to play in the Ryder Cup with little or no controversy.
That would have decreased the odds for former Wake Forest star Cameron Young, who was not only outside the top 6 for automatic inclusion on the team, but also outside the top 12, taking away any strong criticism for his possible exclusion.
But after the final nine holes, the situations seem reversed, though many pundits believe Young and Bradley will both be chosen for the U.S. team.
Bradley, trailing only eventual winner Tommy Fleetwood at the turn, faded to fall into a three-way tie for seventh. Did he feel pressure down the stretch, feeling he needed to nail down a spot? If so, is that a trait the U.S. team wants in the pressure-packed matches?
Young, knowing he needed a strong finish to help his captain’s pick candidacy, shot 66 to leapfrog over Bradley into a tie for fourth. Considering his strong play this summer, including a dominant victory at Sedgefield and fifth-place and 11th-place finishes in the first two playoff rounds, Young be picked for Bethpage Black, where he won a New York State Open.
Though he’s No. 11 in U.S. Ryder Cup points, Bradley would face certain scrutiny if he named himself as a player to the 12-man team and struggled as a player in the event. The argument is that dual roles could limit his ability to perform either one.
The guess here is that Bradley’s 2-over-par back nine at East Lake on Sunday is a factor in a decision to serve as captain and not play.
Regardless Bradley’s decision about his own role, Young’s impressive summer makes him an easy captain’s pick despite his finish at 14th on points list.
There are no American players whose current form or experience merit jumping Young. Not Jordan Spieth. Not Brooks Koepka or Dustin Johnson.
The U.S. roster should be qualifiers Scottie Scheffler, J.J. Spaun, Xander Schauffele, Russell Henley, Harris English and Bryson DeChambeau with top 12 points listers Justin Thomas, Collin Morikawa, Ben Griffin, Maverick McNealy and Brian Harman as wild cards.
Young, who is in good form, replaces Bradley, who has the burden of captain’s duties. Otherwise, the whole team selection is made based on merit (according to the points system). Win or lose the Cup, Bradley would be above criticism.
No matter the U.S. picks, beating Europe will be tough. The European team has the more recognizable and proven stars, including Rory McIlroy, Robert McIntyre, Fleetwood, Justin Rose, Tyrrell Hatton, Rasmus Hojgaard, Shane Lowry, Ludvig Aberg, Viktor Hovland, Jon Rahm, Sepp Straka and Matt Fitzpatrick.
