BATESBURG, SOUTH CAROLINA | Zac Blair, his face covered by a thick auburn-colored beard and a wool cap pulled down to his eyebrows, looks like a man who just walked out of the mountains after a solitary trip along the Appalachian Trail.
Blair is sitting behind the wheel of a mud-spattered ATV with an engine that doesn’t sound like it’s enjoying its work while the scent of wood smoke drifts in the February air, floating across the property from one of the towering heaps of underbrush cleared on the 500 acres of what will soon be the Tree Farm, a golf club dream brought to life by the 31-year old PGA Tour player.
Located off a two-lane blacktop about 45 minutes northeast of Augusta National, the Tree Farm is being created on a patch of land that someone had to go looking for and even then it would be easy to miss in this rural part of South Carolina.
To Blair, who created a club without a golf course – he called it the Buck Club and architecture enthusiasts flocked to the social media posts and bought the merchandise – this is the real thing.
Not the Buck Club. That’s on hold for the moment but he intends to get back to his Utah project.
Meanwhile, the Tree Farm is alive and getting more real by the moment.
Getting it right the first time is Blair’s priority and it led him to abandon his initial notion of designing the course himself. This project is more soul than ego in Blair’s case.
How does it feel when you’ve spent so many days and nights imagining what you might do if you could build the course of your dreams?
The beard can’t hide Blair’s smile.
“Every step of the process has been neat. When we got the property, it was like, ‘Oh my gosh this is amazing,’ and it was just raw woods,†Blair says, driving across dark dirt that will be a fairway later this summer.
“Then they staked the course. It was still just woods with poles in it and it was still, ’Oh my gosh.’ Then when they started doing a center line, ‘Wow, this is insane.’ Then the trees came down and that was probably the biggest wow moment.â€
There is a boyishness to Blair that borders on inspirational. The son of a golf pro who has built and opened courses in Utah, Blair has been a good but not great PGA Tour player, relying on a brilliant short game and good putting to be competitive.
He’s never going to be Brooks Koepka and he knows it. He’s currently on a major medical exemption, allowing a torn labrum in his right shoulder to heal. He and his wife, Alicia, are also expecting the birth of their second child this year.
Through it all, Blair’s heart has tugged at him for years to build a course.
When the pandemic stopped the world, Blair was home in Utah doing nothing like most everyone else. He was looking for golf course land on the internet, found what is now the Tree Farm and, with the help of others, arranged the financing to create this by-invitation club.
Asked to describe his title, Blair pauses for a moment as the ATV churns up a slope.
“I’m the founder and president, I guess,†Blair says.
Given the curiosity surrounding the project, Blair also finds himself in the role of “glorified tour guide.â€
At this point in the project, there is not much to see but also so much to see.
All 18 holes have been cleared and there are dozens of piles of debris dotting the property. Caterpillar tracks from bulldozers decorate most of the dirt and there are small depressions dug where the greens will sit.
For a place once covered in trees, the clearing has revealed a spectacular golf landscape. There are ridges and hills and from the tee that will be shared by the fifth and eighth holes, it’s possible to see 11 of the 18 holes.
“I didn’t know when we bought it that it was this good,†Blair says, looking at a crew working in the distance. “Now it must seem like I knew at least a little bit of what I was talking about.
“I knew it was cool enough and it turned out to be better than I thought. It’s really just uncovering golf holes.â€
That may be the ultimate beauty of the place, which got its name when one of Blair’s friends nicknamed the land the Tree Farm. There was some tree farming done decades ago, Blair says, but it’s mostly been used for hunting until now.
Eventually, the Tree Farm name stuck.
When Blair asked Tom Doak if he would be interested in helping, Doak was intrigued. He offered to help find a few holes and offer some options or he could be all in.
“That seems like the no-brainer. You get the Michael Jordan of that to help out,†Blair says.
Whose name will be listed as designer?
“I’m not sure yet,†Blair says. “It could be Tom, it could be Tom and Kye Goalby and it could have my name on it with theirs.â€
“There are a handful of holes from when I did the routing that are in the same spots or used the same land similarly,†he adds. “I could always find a couple of cool holes. But how do we get from this hole to that hole and he did it in a way where there are 18 cool, unique holes. He worked the puzzle extremely well on the property.
“There are some fairly dramatic valleys. He did a good job of not just going up and over things all day. You have this nice, gentle walk.â€
At a time when the distance debate rages, the Tree Farm will play approximately 6,800 yards from the tips. It will have two par-5s that measure less than 500 yards, including one that plays downhill.
It will start with a 170-yard par-3 and finish with a 257-yard downhill, drivable par-4. The fairways will be generous and the rough will be minimal.
Hearing Blair describe what’s unfolding, it’s like the scene at the end of Field of Dreams when Kevin Costner’s character, Ray Kinsella, walks with his father, John, on the baseball diamond in the cornfield. Costner is asked if “this is heaven.†His response: “It’s Iowa.â€
In this case, it’s South Carolina.
After lurching up a hill in his four-wheel drive vehicle, Blair parks behind the spot for the 18th green where a gaping bunker has been dug out to protect the right side of what will be a horseshoe-shaped putting surface.
Pink ribbons show which trees are staying and which are going. Blair describes the clubhouse and the back patio that will overlook the 18th green with a view up the hill to the 17th green.
A handful of cabins are planned and the clubhouse will have a small number of rooms, allowing 52 people to stay on site at a time. It will never be crowded.
Still raw at the moment, Blair can see the finished product in his mind.
“Having that drivable finish was the only direction I gave to Tom,†Blair says, looking at the orange-brown dirt that will be the 18th green. “The theater aspect of everything around the clubhouse was huge to us. Being able to watch all of that and have it be a lively place.
Obviously the golf is the main star but everything else is very important. You have people staying on site, they’re doing everything here.
“This is a place you bring people that love golf and you’re choosing who you bring so you can connect and have a good experience,†Blair says.
After completing another tour of the Tree Farm, Blair – still bundled inside a puffy coat and tall rubber boots – guns the engine on his ATV and heads away.
There is a bulldozer and an afternoon’s work awaiting.
Top: Zac Blair has been getting his hands dirty as his Tree Farm course takes shape
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