I once had the opportunity to spend time around Jackie Burke, Masters champion and owner of Champions Golf Club in Houston. He described an analogy about tournament golf that has stuck with me: “Battlefields are special places because something historically significant happened on that soil. Similarly, that’s why tournament golf matters to courses.”

In that spirit, Wakefield Plantation hosted its 16th Rex Hospital Open in May. Trey Mullinax - a Birmingham native who played collegiate golf at the University of Alabama - was the champion of the event with a 14-under-par total. Wakefield’s own Web.com Tour players, Cameron Percy and Grayson Murray, each posted top-10 finishes. During the final round, there were only 14 total scores under par. We will have to see how the rest of the year plays out, but the 73.65 final round scoring average (par 71) might be the highest on the Web.com this year.

This annual golf tournament is about much more than the game. Rex Hospital has a longstanding commitment to PGA Tour golf in the Raleigh community, and this was the 29th professional golf tournament the health care system has sponsored. This year’s event proceeds will go to a new Heart and Vascular Center.

Over 450 volunteers helped make the event a success. Wakefield Plantation’s head starter Bob Bidwell was named the 2015 Web.com volunteer of the year and hit the ceremonial tee shot. Bidwell, a beloved part of the Wakefield community, also announced his 60th tournament this year.

Overall, it was another opportunity for us at Wakefield to witness history being made on our battlefield. We’re already looking forward to next year.

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Eight years ago, McConnell Golf launched its high school golf scholarship program. Young golfers are nominated by their high school coaches or local industry pros based on talent, need, and commitment to the sport, as well as their proven dedication and value to the future of golf. The innovative program offers limited membership opportunities to the chosen scholars, who often otherwise lack the opportunity to play challenging courses. Scholars earn access to all McConnell Golf facilities and enroll in a structured program designed to help them elevate their game. They usual­ly become familiar faces around their respective adopted clubs, and many go on to promising collegiate careers. Here’s a look at where a few scholar recipients — two former and one current — are today.

TRAILBLAZER

South Carolinian Hunter Nichols’ writing was on the wall: He lettered in golf at Clinton High School after placing third at the 2013 South Carolina 3A Champi­onships and earning four all-region hon­ors and two All-State selections. Nichols was a shoo-in for Musgrove Mills’ first scholarship. Today, he’s thriving at Fur­man University, where he is an asset to the men’s golf team.

FAMILY AFFAIR

Danielle Mirovich is a rising senior at Mount Pleasant High School in Mount Pleasant, North Carolina and she’s made her mark through golf. The Miroviches only arrived to Mount Pleas­ant a few years ago after losing their home in Hurricane Katrina. What kept them grounded was a dedication to the game: Two older Mirovich daughters are already playing at the collegiate level. Danielle is following in her sisters’ foot­steps with a scholarship at Old North State Club, which will last through next season. Her parents’ support is evident and has struck a chord with the entire community.

SPORTSMAN’S RESOLVE

Stephen Lavenets of Rougemont, North Carolina seized his scholarship at Trey­burn Country Club. It spurred him to win the Durham High School Invitational and cap off his tournament record with an eagle on the 18th hole at Treyburn — arguably one of the most difficult feats among all 12 McConnell Golf clubs. He joined the East Carolina Universi­ty men’s golf team, where a nagging hip injury led to major surgery almost immediately upon joining the team. It derailed Lavenets’ playing time, but revealed his true character. He emerged as a charismatic leader of his college team. Much like that difficult 18th hole, today Lavenets is on track despite his injury to graduate in four years with a finance degree.  

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The region’s top collegiate talent competed at McConnell Golf courses during two consecutive weeks this April for the Atlantic Coast Conference Men’s and Women’s Golf Championships. Virginia took home the women’s title at Sedgefield Country Club on April 17 and Clemson won the men’s championship on April 24 at Old North State Club.

The Virginia women held off Wake Forest in the final round to repeat as ACC Women’s Golf Champion. With three of its golfers finishing in the top five of the individual leaderboard, Virginia posted a team score of 855, 11 strokes better than the second-place Wake Forest.

Leading the Cavaliers was tournament medalist Lauren Coughlin, who finished with a 9-under 207. Walking to the 18th green tied with Wake Forest freshman Jennifer Kupcho for the individual lead, Coughlin birdied the final hole to become the second Cavalier to capture the ACC individual crown.

The Clemson men shot a 25-under 839 on the weekend to claim the ACC Men’s Golf Championship. The Tigers posted rounds of 273, 284, and 282 to win the 10th title in Clemson program history and first since 2004. The victory came one year after matching the best team score in the field before falling to Georgia Tech in two playoff holes.

Every Tiger posted at least one round below 70 on the weekend, a first for Clemson in ACC Championship history, and all five finished at par or better. Austin Langdale and Bryson Nimmer led the way, tying for fourth at 7-under 209.

Louisville’s Robin Sciot-Siegrist, who tied for individual medalist honors last year, posted a 10-under 206 to claim the title. The junior from Rueil-Malmaison, France, entered the final round tied for sixth at 3-under, four strokes behind the leader, but shot a 7-under 65 on Sunday. Sciot-Siegrist is the fourth in league history to win back-to-back individual titles.

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I'm sitting in sunny Scottsdale, Arizona on a third-story patio admiring the purple glow of the McDowell Mountains. Chatting with friends over pulsating music and a cadence of “whoosh … ping” on the perimeter, I order appetizers and a round of cocktails. Moments later buffalo chicken sliders, crab cakes, and a myriad of margaritas arrive for the group.

Turning my attention to the “whoosh … ping,” I watch our host settle into his stance and send a golf ball soaring toward a netted outfield. It lands on its target, and a microchip within the ball instantly pings distance and accuracy data to a nearby monitor. The group cheers  and jeers as points are assigned and a new champion emerges on the leaderboard.

NEW FRONTIER

At this point, I’m half expecting a spaceship to cruise by on a routine connection between Sky Harbor airport and Mars. What strange planet is this? “It’s fun,” a friend tells me as she chooses from a color-coded rack of clubs, “but it’s not really golf.”

First arriving from the UK in 2005, TopGolf describes this scene as “golf entertainment,” and it has quickly become a popular urban hangout. (One can draw parallels to the evolution of the arcade hall that Dave & Busters spearheaded in the ’90s.) Though certainly not for everyone, it caters to the shorter attention spans of this modern “Age of Instant” and offers a new opportunity for entry into an otherwise less approachable sport. 

Whether mixing elements of the game into an altogether new experience, or amplifying teaching tools with video and Doppler radar, there’s no question that technology has crossed paths with our beloved, age-old sport.

MODERN ENHANCEMENT

Let’s travel now to a more utilitarian setting, the Golf Learning Center at TPC Wakefield Plantation in Raleigh, North Carolina, where Director of Golf Josh Points puts his tenured teaching methods to work. Lined up across from a television screen, a student swings purposefully while a nearby camera records the motion. They review the footage together, and Points uses slow-motion to provide precise instruction.

“Our Learning Center lets us focus on improving longstanding fundamentals in a technology-forward environment that creates the ultimate student experience,” says Points. “Visual learning is by far the most efficient way to improve any type of motor skill, and we see it in practice every day with our students’ growth.”

Also equipped with FlightScope® technology, Raleigh Country Club and The Reserve Golf Club of Pawleys Island, South Carolina are able not only to enhance lessons, but also help golfers determine their best set of clubs based on the club head speed and ball speed data it generates. Both Ross and Dye courses at Sedgefield Country Club and Holston Hills Country Club in Knoxville, Tennessee use the TrackMan system for swing analysis. On the mobile front, members and pros across all McConnell Golf clubs use the V1 app on their phones or tablets to improve their game.

A GAME FOR THE AGES

So, what will a golf club look like in the future? Will a set of monitors showing member’s daily scores illuminate the walls? Will a hole-in-one become a push notification on our mobile devices instead of an in-person celebration at the 19th hole? Maybe someday.

But I don’t see anything replacing mankind’s 500-year-old passion for the game itself. At the heart of golf lies a connection with nature’s simplistic beauty and the physical and mental contest between a player, the landscape, and himself. These classic elements need no improvement.

“McConnell Golf is always looking for technology that brings our members real value. From operational efficiencies to learning tools, we focus on advancements that embody the spirit of the game and enhance the service we are able to provide,” says McConnell Golf COO Christian Anastasiadis.

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2015 was an extreme weather year for McConnell Golf. From flooding to below freezing temperatures, few of the 12 courses were immune from damage to greens and fairways.

Most McConnell properties are located in a natural transition weather zone. Therefore, courses utilize a mixture of warm and cool season grasses to ward against tem­perature fluctuation; yet neither grass type is able to thrive under some conditions. When that happens, the task is to recover swiftly, which is where Director of Agronomy Michael Shoun comes in.

DEEP FREEZE

January and February 2015 brought some of the coldest temperatures ever seen in North Carolina — some areas saw temperatures 30 degrees below average — and associated sleet, snow, and ice. Raleigh Country Club, Sedgefield Country Club, and Wakefield Plantation, all located in North Carolina’s Piedmont region, dealt with temperatures 30 degrees below average and snowfall between 7 and 9.5 inches.

That didn’t bode well for warm-sea­son Bermuda grass. Those courses’ north-facing slopes, often lacking sun­light, suffered severe winter kill. Even if the greens thawed during the day, they inevitably refroze at night.

HUMID THAW

Already weakened from the winter, June brought sweltering heat to the Southeast, with 12 straight days of tem­peratures at or above 95 degrees in and around Raleigh. The extreme heat damaged the cool-season bentgrass greens on multiple courses, and was then followed by heavy rain during the late summer and early fall.

FLOODING

Torrential downpours led to flooding, and South Carolina’s record-breaking deluge made national headlines. Mus­grove Mill Golf Club, located along the Enoree River, was an unfortunate victim. Over the fall, the course flooded four times. Some areas were submerged un­der 20 feet of water, secured riverbanks were destroyed, and a transfer pump used for delivering river water to an irri­gation pond was entirely swept away.

SUCCESSES

But it wasn’t all havoc and recovery. Over the course of the year, the Dye course at Sedgefield Country Club was the one course to fully close for repair due to weather-related dam­ages. “Once we realized we were going to have major issues at most of our courses due to weather, it was all hands on deck,” says Shoun. “Fortu­nately we had the financial support to get the winter-damaged sod cut out and immediately put new sod down and grow it in.” The team at Musgrove Mill worked from sunup to sundown for two weeks to clean up the course after the flood damage, and used an over­seeding technique of putting down rye grass on top of Bermuda grass to make the greens playable during the winter until they could completely dry out the following spring.

During the eight-week closure of the Dye course at Sedgefield, the fairway damage was so extensive that the team had to essentially build a new golf course covering nearly 22 acres. The team used sprigs, small plant parts grown elsewhere then planted to cre­ate a playable turf. Sprigging is one of the only methods that can be used for destroyed grass.

THE FORECAST

As the year wrapped up with one of the warmest and wettest Decembers on record, it’s needless to say Shoun and his team hoped for an uneventful 2016. “One of the biggest drawbacks of this profession is that you can take every precaution you possibly can, and Mother Nature can still throw you a curve ball and change everything,” says Shoun. But for him, this is par for the course. “We just happen to be in a tough area but it definitely keeps things interesting. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

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McConnell Golf’s recent purchases of renowned Holston Hills Country Club in Knoxville and Providence Country Club in Charlotte mark inaugural ventures into a pair of new markets — while also tying together the membership network of 12 private golf club properties in the Carolinas and Tennessee. In mid-February, McConnell Golf made its long-awaited arrival to the Charlotte market when Providence became the 12th private golf club property in the McConnell Golf stable, which now includes a total of 225 holes around the Carolinas and Tennessee. Two months earlier, in December 2015, McConnell Golf added to its legacy with the purchase of venerable Holston Hills in Knoxville, a 1927 Donald Ross design that marks the first McConnell Golf club located outside the Carolinas. In line with the wellness initiative, both golf courses are easily walkable, a feature regularly taken advantage of by the membership.

HOLSTON HILLS COUNTRY CLUB OF KNOXVILLE, TENNESSEE 

“Our new relationship with McConnell Golf has been wonderful,” says Holston Hills Director of Golf Chris Dibble. “We’ve been truly overwhelmed by the welcome we’ve gotten from every other club in the McConnell Golf family — their entire staffs. Everyone has reached out offering to help in any way. It’s been really nice. We are very excited about the future.” Donald Ross was the most prolific golf course architect in history, with more than 400 designs bearing his signature. Yet today very few Ross golf courses exist as they were originally designed. Most have been altered through the years and lost much of the genius that Ross characteristically imparted on a course. One Ross design that has remained nearly untouched through the years is Holston Hills Country Club in Knoxville, which in December 2015 became the first McConnell Golf Course located outside the Carolinas. 

Holston Hills opened in 1927. Located just east of Knoxville near the foothills of the Smoky Mountains on 180 open acres of rolling old farmland tucked into a bend in the Holston River, Holston Hills immediately became recognized as the finest course in the state. Accordingly, it hosted every major regional tournament, including a PGA Tour event.

“If someone blindfolded you, you might think you were playing a golf course back in the late ’20s or early ’30s, playing the golf course the way Ross designed it,” McConnell Golf Director of Golf “Boomer” Kittler says. “You don’t find that much these days. You can stand on No. 16 green at Holston Hills and see all the way to the green of the fifth hole. No matter where you are on the golf course, you can see ten-plus holes without batting an eye. It’s pretty cool. The greens remind me of Sedgefield. 

“I’m kind of a ‘Ross guy,’” Kittler says, “but I think Holston Hills will be one of McConnell Golf’s best courses, if not the best.”

Founded by members of Knoxville’s prestigious Cherokee Country Club — itself a 1910 Ross design — where overcrowding had become a problem, Holston Hills further bolsters McConnell Golf’s reputation for having the names of the game’s greatest architects attached to its courses. “Holston Hills is the fourth McConnell Golf course designed by Donald Ross,” says McConnell Golf Chief Operating Officer Christian Anastasiadis. “We are particularly excited to be part of the Knoxville
community. We look forward to doing in Tennessee what we have done at some of the finest private clubs in the Carolinas.” Though relatively low-key and unknown, Holston Hills has been ranked among the country’s greatest classical (pre-1960) golf designs in the United States. The co-founder of the Donald Ross Society and noted golf architecture critic Michael J. Fay has said that he would rather play Holston Hills over any other golf course in the South on a consistent basis. 

The beloved untouched Ross layout takes on a broad, fan-shaped formation, with both nines returning to the clubhouse sitting on an upslope along the north side of the property. Holston Hills features more than 100 bunkers scattered across the property, with very few houses or other visual distractions taking away from the links-style playing experience. A 1937 aerial photograph hanging in the clubhouse shows that every tee and green is located just as they are now, and virtually every present-day bunker is accounted for in the image.

Perched on a hill with breathtaking views of the Great Smoky Mountains, the Holston Hills clubhouse overlooks the golf course and showcases bay windows, elegant arched doors, and a central ballroom with large cathedral ceilings and exposed wood trusses. An outdoor terrace on the south side of the ballroom offers members a space to relax and take in the view, while a magnificent centerpiece terrace surrounds the clubhouse, with its comfortable Tudor architecture.

“We think Holston Hills is a pretty special place, and we are excited to be a part of the McConnell Golf team,” says Dibble. “Holston Hills is neat because every hole is right in front of you. It’s very fair. There are no tricks or hidden hazards. [Noted golf course architect] Tom Doak says Holston Hills is the closest golf course around to what Ross originally left.”

PROVIDENCE COUNTRY CLUB OF CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA

Given the strategic location of McConnell Golf clubs throughout the Carolinas, the Charlotte market has long been the missing piece. The Queen City is as vibrant as it has ever been and the golf-crazed city stands geographically as a centerpiece destination connecting many of McConnell Golf’s 11 other golf properties around the Southeast. McConnell Golf’s February purchase of Providence Country Club changes all that.

Located in southeast Charlotte, Providence Country Club was established in 1989 and has developed a reputation as one of Charlotte’s premier family country clubs. Providence’s pristine 18-hole Dan Maples layout, redesigned by Mike Gleason in 2006, measures 7,021 yards and plays to a par of 72. As it relates to the McConnell Golf family, Maples is the son of longtime Donald Ross protégé Ellis Maples. When Ross passed away in 1948 during construction of Raleigh Country Club, the elder Maples finished the job and served as Raleigh Country Club’s original superintendent and head golf professional. Together, the team of Ellis and Dan Maples helped create 17 outstanding courses including Grandfather Mountain in Linville, North Carolina, and the Country Club of North Carolina Dogwood Course in Pinehurst.

McConnell Golf owner and CEO John McConnell says he has long sought to acquire a country club in the Charlotte market and that the Providence acquisition connects the proverbial dots. “Along with giving us a truly outstanding club in a fast-growing urban area, Providence provides close proximity to several of our other courses including Club of Asheville. Plus Providence is only 90 minutes from Musgrove Mill,” McConnell says. “This deal ties together our entire network of clubs, particularly our corporate memberships.”

McConnell Golf plans to spend the next few years renovating the course using an expert architect, while also providing numerous other substantial improvements around the club. Providence’s extensive amenities include 14 tennis courts and state-of-the-art aquatic facilities, with three swimming pools and a newly constructed outdoor bar and dining area with a fire pit.

“We are planning major improvements during the next several years, totaling around $4 million,” says McConnell Golf COO Christian Anastasiadis. “We will focus on new fitness and activity areas, along with the clubhouse and the golf course with a top recognized architect firm. We expect Providence to be the best club in the area.”

From tee to green, Providence is considered one of the most pristine and challenging golf courses in Charlotte. The layout provides a unique test to the accomplished golfer without polarizing the novice. The originality of Maples’ design equates to five par-5s (three on the back nine), five par-3s (three in the first six holes), and eight par-4 holes, which are always complex and exciting. The uniqueness and beauty of each hole, with bent grass greens and Bermuda fairways, complement five-tiered tee boxes designed to accommodate all skill levels. Practice makes perfect and Providence has it all; multiple first-class putting greens, two short-game practice areas and a full-swing driving range.

“Our club is very family-oriented. We have a lot of young members and a lot of kids,” says longtime Providence Director of Instruction Leslie Elmore, who spent four years after her college career at N.C. State trying her hand on professional tours in Europe and Asia. “We’ve got a very active membership. I give a lot of lessons. We have a warm, welcoming membership. People are very down-to-earth, not pretentious at all.”
A true neighborhood country club, the membership roster is mostly comprised of residents from nearby developments Providence and Providence Crossing.

“The Providence property reminds us a little bit of Wakefield, because it’s very big,” says McConnell Golf Director of Golf Boomer Kittler. “Big membership, big neighborhood, nice clubhouse, good swimming, and tennis facilities. Now it’s just a matter of what we can do to enhance it. Providence has the potential to be really good with the work we are going to do to the golf course. There are some incredible clubs around Charlotte that are tough to compete with — when you think about Quail Hollow, Charlotte Country Club, Myers Park, and places like that — but we think Providence has the ability to take it from a Big Four to a Big Five type deal.”

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