Years in the making, PGA Tour Pro Zac Blair’s love of golf courses and golf architecture has inspired his mission to build a course and create a club where he can bring his friends and members together to simply have a great time.
Years in the making, PGA Tour Pro Zac Blair’s love of golf courses and golf architecture has inspired his mission to build a course and create a club where he can bring his friends and members together to simply have a great time.
Zac Blair realised his dream by calling upon the routing talent of Tom Doak and the building expertise of Kye Goalby. The Tree Farm is a golf course laid out over 500 acres of sand-based rolling topography and opened for members play in the fall of 2023.
It launched into the Top 100 USA to rave reviews with likeness and parallels being drawn between it and Pinehurst, Augusta National, and the Surrey Heathlands.
The premise and ethos of the club is pure golf, played quickly by good golfers. Width and angles matter here with the ground game being rewarded. The topography of the course was used instead of a plethora of fairway hazards to create drama, fun, and intrigue. In contrast with the level lies and soft, springy turf encountered by tour pros most weeks on tour, The Tree Farm puts a priority on firm golf from uneven, tight lies.
Tom Doak wrote that intimacy with the clubhouse was an important factor in the routing - never being more than 2 holes away from the clubhouse from any point on the golf course.
The kernel for the courses started with inspiration given by Zac to Tom. One of his favourite holes is the par-3 5th at Pine Valley. Tom Doak found a location on-site that was capable of providing the needed elements to create a template of it. From there, a triangle of 3 holes was laid out and once locked in, the rest fell into place.
The latest ranking of the Top 100 Golf Courses in the World serves as the ultimate global golf bucket list. Most members of our World Top 100 Panel are seasoned golfers, each playing 20-30 of these courses annually while travelling extensively over decades to form their opinions on others. We recognise that opinions vary—even among our panel members. Rankings are subjective, and there are undoubtedly 50 or more courses in the UK and USA alone that could easily fit onto this list. Links Golf Pilgrimages The rankings
California, United States
New Jersey, United States
Northern Ireland, United Kingdom
New York, United States
New York, United States
Overall rating
5.0
Overall rating
5.0
