Cape Fear Country Club was established in 1896 and is the oldest private country club in North Carolina. In the early days the club relocated twice, however, the course in play nowadays is a 1922 Donald Ross creation which Ross subsequently revised more than once.
The club’s rolling property has seen more than its fair share of tournament action down the years. Cape Fear was the permanent site for the PGA Tour’s Azalea Open from 1945 until 1970, counting Arnold Palmer and Jerry Barber among its winners.
The course has undergone numerous modifications: John LaFoy (1986), Willard Byrd (1993) and Kris Spence (2006). But it’s Andrew Green’s $5m restoration, which returned Cape Fear to prominence in 2019.
Andrew Green takes up the story: “The existing greens were struggling to drain and had bentgrass on them. In order to switch to Ultradwarf bermuda putting surfaces and solve the drainage problems, it was determined that the greens needed to be rebuilt.”
The ground game has returned to Cape Fear. All greens have been lowered “to get them back to a Ross-like elevation and allowing players that don’t spin the ball to be successful. The greens have been shaped in a way to pick up a lot of the Ross-inspired character in their shape and surface. Using the interesting shapes on Ross’s plans as a guide, we have putting surfaces with a wide variety of hole locations.”
Bunkers have also been rebuilt. “The bunker style is inspired by Ross, which I feel is unique and fun without being penal. The bunkers are of a modest depth in accordance with the Ross notes. Most are 3.5-4 feet deep, but they look intimidating and have tremendous character.
The property is a great rolling piece of ground and once held encampments and batteries from the Civil War – we have tried to accentuate those landforms left by time.”
