Grassing begins at new South Carolina course

Broomsedge Golf Club, a new course in Rembert, South Carolina, has reached a major construction milestone with the commencement of grassing playing surfaces.

The Broomsedge design and build team, led by co-architects Kyle Franz and Mike Koprowski, selected Tifway 419 Bermudagrass for the fairways and tees. The greens will be sprigged with another strain of TifEagle Bermudagrass once average temperatures increase in late spring. The course will not have any maintained rough, as fairways will bleed into native areas containing the club’s namesake broomsedge grass and other flora. Sodding and sprigging of all 18 is expected to be completed by August, with the course ready for preview play in October.

“We’re excited to kick off the grow-in phase and begin bringing even more life to the site,” said Koprowski, co-architect and co-owner of Broomsedge. “This is an important time for the project and we’re fortunate to have club superintendent Shawn Fettig managing the process. He’s the perfect person to ensure we remain on track for our anticipated soft opening this fall, thanks to his extensive professional experience with Bermudagrass at well-known courses across the South, including Old Town Club in Winston-Salem.”

Broomsedge is located in the Sandhills region of South Carolina, 30 minutes east of Columbia. Amid a setting reminiscent of North Carolina’s Pinehurst Resort and Old Town Club, Franz and Koprowski are capturing the tenets of classic golf course design practiced by Golden Age architects such as Donald Ross, George Crump and George Thomas. Design highlights include:

• Putting surfaces with classic contouring that ties into the surrounding topography
• Preservation of shot values off the tee, while still providing enough width to maintain the importance of angles to strategic design
• Incorporation of property boundaries into lines of play
• Several holes that may change par from day-to-day depending on tee locations and weather conditions
• 20 green sites for 18 holes, further promoting setup flexibility

Blessed with an exceptional soil profile, the club’s 235-acre site possesses dramatic elevation changes for the Carolina Sandhills. The property is made even more unique by an assortment of valleys, ridgelines, spines and chasms. These attributes allowed Franz and Koprowski to move a minimal amount of dirt when creating playing corridors and green sites across the course’s 156-acre footprint.

Koprowski, who discovered the land in 2021, was so confident in its immense potential for great golf that he bought it before having any fellow investors.

“As new builds have been increasingly focused on maximizing size and scale, ours is a departure from this trend,” Koprowski said. “For example, from the first tee players will be able to see no fewer than 15 different green sites. We’re creating something a bit more scaled down than what’s currently popular in golf design, and reflective of how courses were conceived and routed 100 years ago.”

“The piece of land Mike found for Broomsedge may be the best I’m working on right now,” Franz added. “It’s not only a great site, but the design is really cool as we’ve created a course that will challenge the best players yet still be extremely fun for higher handicaps.”

Since purchasing the land in 2022, Koprowski has been gradually joined by a collection of co-founders, all of whom are passionate about creating a club that combines classic golf course architecture with a fun and relaxed vibe. Their shared vision for Broomsedge also includes hosting significant amateur championships in the near future.

 As golf course construction and grow-in concludes, master planning for the club’s next phase is well underway and highlighted by the development of onsite lodging. Comfortable yet well-appointed cottages are expected to be available by the second quarter of 2025. They will be built steps away from the driving range, practice putting green, clubhouse and first tee.

“Our goal at Broomsedge is to cultivate a small and engaged membership that shares a deep appreciation for the game,” said David McFarlin, a club co-founder and its director of membership. “Many of our initial members are accomplished amateurs, representing an impressive nationwide collection of private clubs, who’re seeking a place to gather with other elite players.”