Chocolate Drops: A New Public Golf Destination Breaks Ground Outside of Charlotte

Happy Thanksgiving week, FEGC members! Below are a few bits and pieces from the world of golf architecture. Consume with care; you need to save room for turkey and mashed potatoes.

→ Candyroot Lodge, a new public golf facility in the sand hills outside of Charlotte, North Carolina, marked the end of its first week of construction with an Instagram post. Mike Koprowski, who collaborated with Kyle Franz at Broomsedge Golf Club and joined Andy Johnson on the Fried Egg Golf Podcast last year, is designing Candyroot's first course.

Initially, Koprowski was engaged by Candyroot's owners to build a single course, tentatively named Downbonnie. Since announcing that venture in May, however, the owners have brought on additional investors and developed bigger ambitions. Koprowski now tells me that Candyroot will feature multiple regulation layouts (three or four), plus a short course. An architect has not yet been selected for the second course, but interviews are ongoing.

If Candyroot Lodge follows through on its plans, it would be one of the largest and most exciting public-golf projects of the 2020s undertaken by developers not named Keiser.

→ Hear ye, hear ye! Golf.com has published its latest ranking of the top 100 golf courses in the world! And it's... remarkably similar to the 2023 edition!

Seriously, what's the point of going through this exercise every two years? The list has barely changed.

Oh, right. Golf media outlets need to sell magazines and drive website traffic in November.

Also: I need something to talk about, and here I am. I'm part of the problem.

Anyway, I spent about 10 minutes comparing the 2023 and 2025 lists, and here are the main differences I spotted (I may have missed a few):

New-course debuts:

• Childress Hall (Upper) at 73
• CapRock Ranch at 84
• Te Arai (North) at 98

Some of my colleagues have been to Tom Doak's Upper Course at Childress Hall, which opened last December, and they tell me that the hype is real. Amazing golf course. But I remain opposed to the idea of ranking a course ahead of Old Town Club and Machrihanish before it's even a year old. At least give the place time to grow in fully.

Double-digit risers:

• New South Wales from 64 to 26
• Royal Troon from 66 to 53
• The Lido from 68 to 48
• St. George's Hill from 71 to 57
• Lofoten Links from 88 to 66
• Bandon Trails from 90 to 76
• Royal Melbourne (East) from 92 to 82
• Shanqin Bay from 95 to 64

The Lido appears to be holding strong after a big debut on the 2023 list. It now out-ranks every Dream Golf course except for Pacific Dunes.

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New South Wales recently underwent a renovation by Mackenzie & Ebert and seems to be reaping the benefits.

Double-digit droppers:

• Ballyneal from 51 to 63
• Cabot Cliffs from 52 to 78
• Cape Kidnappers from 55 to 65
• Woodhall Spa from 58 to 74
• Rye from 72 to 90
• Rock Creek Cattle Co. from 73 to 88
• Cabot Links from 79 to 96
• Winged Foot (East) from 80 to 91
• Ohoopee Match Club from 81 to 99
• Les Bordes (New) from 83 to off the list

I wouldn't read much into any of these declines (or into the rises I mentioned earlier, for that matter). A lot of the reshuffling from year to year is basically random. But I do think the new-car smell is starting to wear off of some of the modern courses listed above. The really good ones will bounce back in the panel's esteem.

Since I find this ranking somewhat boring, I'll try to spice things up: what do you think is the most overrated course on the list?

I'll stake my flag on No. 60, the East Course at Oak Hill Country Club.

→ The National Links Trust announced yesterday that Rock Creek Park Golf Course, a municipal facility in Washington, D.C., is now closed for the first phase of a "full-scale rehabilitation project." I detailed the plans for this project back in 2023. The National Links Trust holds the lease to operate D.C.'s three National Park Service-owned golf courses: Rock Creek Park, Langston Golf Course, and East Potomac Golf Links.

From the press release:

"Currently, we are continuing our adaptive management approach to invasive vine, shrub, and tree removal and finishing site work before we begin vertical construction on the new, modern maintenance facility and clubhouse, driving range, and putting course. Vertical construction will begin in the coming weeks.

"Next spring, our intention is to reopen at least nine holes of golf with a modified routing to accommodate for clubhouse and maintenance facility construction. The holes that reopen will continue to improve in playability and conditions, like we saw this year, as the turf receives more sunlight and better airflow and the corridors expand to their historic widths."

Whereas phase one of the Rock Creek overhaul will focus on the property's buildings and practice facilities, phase two will include Gil Hanse's redesign of the golf course. Hanse plans to split the current 18-hole course into a nine-hole regulation course and a nine-hole par-3 layout.

The news that work has begun at Rock Creek comes amid concerning chatter out of NLT-managed East Potomac Golf Links, where the Trump administration is dumping rubble from the ongoing East Wing renovation project.

→ Todd Eckenrode is restoring William P. Bell's mid-1920s design at Annandale Golf Club in Pasadena, California. Annandale has good potential (the historical aerials are tantalizing, but sadly not much can be done to bring back the property's former vistas and openness), and Eckenrode knows Bell and California Golden Age architecture as well as anyone in the industry. This is a project to track.

→ Trey Kemp, a Dallas-based golf architect, has started the first phase of his master plan for Hogan Park Golf Course, a 36-hole municipal facility in Midland, Texas. Hogan Park is an important hub of the game in the growing (but somewhat golf-poor) Midland-Odessa region. Over the past decade, Kemp has developed a specialty in reviving Texas munis. His work at Stevens Park and Rockwood Park in the Dallas-Fort Worth area has been especially well received.

→ Architect Nick Campanelli and influential golf writer Bradley Klein have been hired to renovate Willie Park Jr.'s design at Shuttle Meadow Country Club outside of Hartford, Connecticut. Campanelli and Klein plan to adapt some ideas from Huntercombe Golf Club, Park's strange masterwork in the English heathlands. Golf Course Architecture has a thorough writeup on the project.

→ Kansas City Country Club posted some drone footage of its A.W. Tillinghast-designed course, which recently underwent a historical renovation by Andrew Green. Lots of cool-looking holes out there. I'm not a fan of the all-green-everywhere turf presentation, but just about every club does it these days, so I can't fault KCCC specifically.