Old Barnwell

Overall Thoughts

A marker of the quality of a golf course is that, when you finish playing it, you want to play it again. This year, the course that most made me want to go out and play more golf was Old Barnwell.

The brand-new design by Brian Schneider and Blake Conant brings to life a new style and ideology for modern golf architecture. For the past 30 years, the theme of naturalism has dominated the best-regarded new golf courses. Whether or not they moved a lot of earth, the top design teams have taken pains to tie in their hazards and greens to the surrounding landscape. Schneider and Conant are doing something different. While their work at Old Barnwell is sympathetic to preexisting landforms, they also go for provocative, in-your-face contouring, some of which resembles the shaping done by Walter Travis early in the American Golden Age of golf architecture. Mounds and green contours rise up from the grade, and bunkers and other hazards come in all different shapes and sizes. Many of these make no attempt to look natural, but they all work together on the broad canvas of Old Barnwell’s property.

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Speaking of land, a common practice in the Golden Age was for golf architects to tour multiple proposed sites before recommending one. William Flynn, for instance, was known for having a say in selecting many of the properties he ended up working on. Today, it’s more typical for a developer to purchase a plot of land before hiring an architect. In the planning stages for Old Barnwell, however, owner Nick Schreiber visited over 60 sites across the Southeast. He took Schneider and Conant to see several of his favorites, and the architects recommended the one Schreiber ended up buying. Part of the calculus had to do with soil. “We—mostly Nick—found soil maps for various properties,” Conant told me, “and this one had the best sand, particularly where we knew we’d have golf holes. It helped a lot to know we had a good soil profile to work with.”

The property that Schreiber, Schneider, and Conant settled on has both large- and small-scale topographical features. “We knew the deep valley through the center of the property would make for dramatic holes and views, both through the bottom and around the edges,” Schneider explained, “but we really liked the subtle movement of the high ground on either side. There was just the right amount of slope in those areas—a lot of three to seven percent—enough to move water but not so steep that balls wouldn’t stop on the side slopes. These slopes turned out to be perfect for the hog’s back fairways on holes like 3, 10, and 13, and for the side cants of 1, 5, 12, and 16.”

Hiring your architects first and giving them a voice in site selection seems like a smart move, even an obvious one, though it’s rare these days. Other developers should take note.

While Old Barnwell is Schneider and Conant’s first high-profile new-build project, it should come as no surprise that their approach to design is so mature and fully formed. Both came up in the industry working primarily for Tom Doak and Renaissance Golf Design, and like Doak, they are incredibly active in visiting courses across the world. Schneider’s Instagram page is packed with photos of under-the-radar courses he has seen on his long road trips, and Conant has amassed a terrific map of courses he has seen on his travels, along with a bunch he’d like to see. Their thorough education and respect for all types of courses (Schneider has an odd Jim Engh fetish) paid off in their design at Old Barnwell. They learned methods and attitudes from the modern greats and blended them with ideas from a wide range of architecture of all historical periods. This melting pot of influence resulted in Old Barnwell’s fresh style, which will challenge and delight the tastes of discerning golfers.

3 Eggs

Maybe there’s some recency bias at play here, and maybe I’ll eventually want to change this rating, but I would be thrilled to play Old Barnwell every day the rest of my life. It’s a design that makes you lose track of conventions like the concept of par. Until doing this writeup, I hadn’t realized that the course had three par 3s and a par of 73. Each hole is so intricate and individual that your mind becomes completely absorbed by the challenge, and you just don’t have time to think about petty matters like par.

Course Tour

No. 1, par 5, 535 yards

This opening par 5 introduces a couple of Old Barnwell’s key themes: vertical hazards and strategy. Vertical hazards: golfers enter the symbolic arena of the course through the gap between two berms that stretch across the front of the fairway. Strategy: playing right, close to the profusion of fairway bunkers, gives players the shortest path to the green and the best angle to reach in two.

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No. 2, par 4, 305 yards

If the first hole hasn’t gotten your attention, the second surely will. This drivable par 4 works with the slope of the land away from the player. Those with intentions of driving the green will need to land their tee shot just short and left of the green while avoiding the bunkers. The green has docile internal contours, but it slopes hard from left to right, making it easy to putt off the green.

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No. 3, par 4, 385 yards

The hog’s back in the third fairway plays a strategic role: find the right side of it and the green becomes much easier to hit; find the left side, away from the fairway bunker, and big contours will feed your ball toward a collection area.

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No. 4, par 3 , 185 yards

The first one-shotter at Old Barnwell features a green with a small left side and a more receptive right side. The key is not missing long.

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No. 5, par 4, 450 yards

The first hole that interacts with the central valley of the property, the fifth plays along the top of the ridge. Tee shots that hold the riskier left side without plunging over the edge are rewarded with a superior angle into the green.

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No. 6, par 4, 460 yards

The long sixth takes golfers down into the valley with a dramatic tee shot. The left half of the fairway opens up an approach to a vexing green, but from any angle, the hard left-to-right cant and shallowness of the green mandate a precise approach. One of my favorite features on the course is the small bump in front of the green, which wreaks havoc on anyone who comes up short.

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No. 7, par 4, 445 yards

On this hole, Schneider and Conant used inspiration from H.N. Wethered and Tom Simpson’s book The Architectural Side of Golf. Old Barnwell’s seventh is a mirror image of one of Simpson’s sketches. Off the tee, players have many options: challenge the center-line bunker complex; go long and right over the bunkers; or play safe and left, leaving a blind approach. The green is severe, with a small, high left side and a larger, bowl-shaped right side, so position in the fairway really matters. It’s a marvelous hole that can play extraordinarily hard with a pin on the left plateau or very scorable when the hole is cut in the bowl on the right.

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No. 8, par 4, 370 yards

Situated at the low point of the property, the eighth—the final valley hole until the 16th—has an extraordinarily wide fairway. Those who can find the elevated ridge on the left gain a considerable advantage to most pins because the big contours right of the green will collect approaches from that angle. Beware, though: this approach shot plays a bit longer than you think.

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No. 9, par 4, 315 yards

Like many of the best short par 4s, the ninth at Old Barnwell forces players to make a decision. It toys with one’s ego by presenting two options: go for the green, an extremely difficult but achievable-looking shot; or lay up with a mid-iron, a frankly undesirable thing to do. The layup results in a wedge to a tiny green that repels in every direction. Going for the green and missing yields a difficult recovery, likely from deep bunkers on the left.

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No. 10, par 4, 455 yards

Are blind bunkers fair? I say golf (and life) are inherently unfair, but the 10th hole is sure to ruffle feathers, as the tee shot is blind and any shot left of center is in danger of finding a bunker. Avoiding these hazards consistently requires local knowledge. The left side of the fairway is ideal, as the green slopes with the land from right to left, but the trouble is figuring out the club, distance, and line most likely to evade the bunkers. Members will have a major advantage here.

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No. 11, par 3, 230 yards

One of the more severe greens at Old Barnwell, the 11th has a small, raised right side that drives players nuts, requiring a well struck, and left to right, long-iron. A deep trough through the center of the green makes putts from the wrong tier quite a challenge.

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No. 12, par 5, 535 yards

This is the widest fairway at Old Barnwell, but anyone with designs on making eagle will need to be precise. The left side of the fairway is inviting and flat, but it’s nearly impossible to hold the green with a long iron from there. The right side hangs above the property’s main valley and sheds balls into the rough. From there, however, the green opens up, and the pronounced contours on the left half of the green funnels balls back as opposed to kicking them away. On layups, the right side is advantageous, too.

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No. 13, par 4, 405 yards

In the running for my favorite green at Old Barnwell, the 13th was inspired by the first at National Golf Links of America. It has a large central knob that rewards outstanding approaches and messes with putts or chips that have to traverse it. The left half of the fairway offers the major benefit of visibility.

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Favorite Hole

No. 14, par 4, 285 yards

For this thrilling short par 4, Schneider and Conant used the second hole at National Golf Links of America as a model. Those who want to go for the green have to just barely carry the bunkers in front of the approach fairway. From there, everything runs toward the green, which is one of the most provocative at Old Barnwell, falling away and featuring two tiers. Great tee shots yield eagle opportunities, but the surrounds are loaded with severe bunkers. The other option is to lay up to the right for a short wedge in.

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No. 15, par 5, 625 yards

The longest hole at Old Barnwell has a number of hazards to avoid. The second shot here is vital: you can shorten the hole by going left, but it’s important to avoid the mounds and wispy centipede grass along that side. A miss here sticks you with a brutal angle and tough lie.

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No. 16, par 5, 545 yards

The last valley hole at Old Barnwell boasts a dramatic, sweeping tee shot and a stunning reveal from the fairway. The green sits at the base of the ridge, with dramatic bunkering in front. Its shaping resembles a blown-out version of the 11th at Cape Arundel, one of the best greens in the game: a built-up left plateau and a pinnable bowl in the back. This will surely be one of the holes most photographed on the course.

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No. 17, par 3, 135 yards

This is the rare short par 3 with strategic options for players of all trajectories. The right section of the wavy green has space for a pin in one pocket, and the roomier back section is incredibly difficult to get to.

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No. 18, par 4, 430 yards

The strikingly understated 18th green has prompted some chatter, yet this might sneakily be the toughest green on the course. It sits on a hillside, tilting away from the player, which makes the approach shot difficult to judge. I enjoy the cheekiness of the concept, especially after 17 intricately contoured greens. It’s one final surprise in a round full of them.

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Additional Content

Design Notebook: The Great Aiken Debate

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