Tom Fazio, the Champion Hills golf course architect, describes the 18 holes here as a layout that “looks hard but plays easy” and somehow he’s routed the fairways such that fourteen holes play downhill.
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Tom Fazio, the Champion Hills golf course architect, describes the 18 holes here as a layout that “looks hard but plays easy” and somehow he’s routed the fairways such that fourteen holes play downhill.



Champion Hills
The eighteen holes at Champion Hills have been described by architect Tom Fazio as a layout that “looks hard but plays easy” and he somehow routed the fairways in such a way that fourteen of the holes play downhill.
Opened for play in 1991, this heavily forested mountain course features a number of engaging holes including the left doglegged 7th, the short par five 13th and the uphill home hole which plays to a tricky two-tier green.
Most memorable hole, though, is probably the par three 9th where the green lies more than 100 foot (or, as the architect says, the height of a 12-storey building) below the level of the tee - it’s easy to see why many consider this one of the most spectacular holes in the Tar Heel State.
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