Sweetens Cove Golf Club

Overview: Sweetens Cove Golf Club is a nine-hole inland-links course in South Pittsburg where Rob Collins and Tad King turned a modest valley site into one of the most discussed modern designs in American golf. The fairways are unusually broad, the rough is largely absent, and the large, contoured greens invite more than one route to a target. Bold landforms, tight mowing lines and sparse bunkering put the emphasis on ground play, imagination and choosing the right angle for another pass around the loop. It is an intimate course in scale but a surprisingly deep architectural puzzle.

History: The property was formerly Sequatchie Valley Golf Course. Work on a complete redesign began in 2011, then stalled after the original project lost its backing and the course sat in poor condition through much of 2012 and 2013. A new operating partnership revived the project, and Sweetens Cove opened in October 2014. The course was the first built project of King-Collins Golf Course Design, and its survival helped establish Collins and King as a distinctive voice in contemporary course architecture.

Did You Know? Sweetens Cove was designed to remain nine holes, not as a temporary first phase awaiting a second loop. That decision gave Collins and King permission to make the fairways extremely wide, remove conventional rough and let players replay holes from different angles. It is also the first project credited to King-Collins Golf Course Design, the partnership between Rob Collins and Tad King.