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.
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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.
The Tree Farm
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.