Sweetens Cove Golf Club

Favorite Hole

No. 5, par 4, 283 yards

Perhaps no hole represents the principles and ethos of Sweetens Cove more than the fifth hole. The drivable par-4 follows the signature “King” par-3 and is the heartbeat of the round. The 283-yard par-4 provides several options off the tee to a fairway that can push 100 yards wide in spots. The angle from the left side of the fairway is often ideal. Attacking the right pin can be the most challenging and demands some courage to take on off the tee, and even on a pitch up the steep front slope. You can send lumber up around the green, with many bailing to the opening on the left side. You can pop an iron down the left side for an ideal angle into multiple pins on either side of the lion’s mouth bunker in the front. A backstop on the left half of the green promotes creativity on some pitches to pins on that side. The lone bunker is a real hazard.

Sweetens regulars tell tales of trying to drive the green, barely living to tell the story of the 10 they made, and never pushing a wood up around the green again. In short, this is Sweetens in a nutshell: a great boomerang green with multiple cool pins, several ways to get there in both direction and distance, and a blast whether you’re making birdie or getting punched in the face.

Overall Thoughts

Sweetens Cove is the opposite of a hidden gem at this point. But the final miles of the trek to South Pittsburg, winding through the last stretch of Tennessee road to get there could not be more in contrast with what you see when you finally pull into the parking lot. It feels like you’ve pushed through a hidden door in the wall. If you didn’t know it was there, it’s probably the last thing you’d expect to see driving along that road. You wonder how in the hell this rumpled nine-hole golf course got there. And at this point, there’s plenty of source material to learn about how it all happened!

Fewer courses have received more attention over the past decade than Sweetens Cove. There have been countless blog posts, podcasts, YouTube videos, and a whole-ass book written about the little course that could. It’s been referred to as the first “social media course,” with word-of-mouth reviews and shares from early digital golf outlets like this one, pushing its virtues to a wider audience and some of the most dire times. It was maybe the Augusta National of the hipster Internet golf scene. Was it too hipster? Did it become too popular? Is this the vibes-iest golf course on earth and if you don’t think so then you probably just don’t get it? Do its boosters have to join some cult or mafia?

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The attention, however much deserved, transitioned to new topics beyond the golf course. The “phenomenon” of Sweetens Cove overwhelmed the actual golf course of Sweetens Cove. These subjective discussions getting at the questions above were often around everything but the course, which remains among the most unique in American golf and was the cause for the attention in the first place. Buy fully into the vibes and culture of the place. Ignore them. Lament its recent influx of PE capital to expand. Or applaud its success as hard-won. Take whatever approach to all that you want, just play the golf course. It will be a blast.

While the land may be terrible for a golf course, it is hardly an unattractive setting. Regardless of what sits in the valley, it is beautiful to look all around the tree-covered Tennessee hillsides and mountains and the amazing panoramas that come as the sun moves across the sky. What sat there once was a dead-flat “shitty golf course” in a flood plain. After the kismet that brought Collins to the setting, and nearly 15 years of ups and downs since, what sits there now are nine holes over man-made tumbling terrain. It is well-documented how much earth needed to be dug, moved, and built up to start creating what Collins had in mind. The land is full of many human-sized humps, bumps, and fall-offs. At its most dramatic, Collins created a ridge a couple dozen feet above grade at a spot along the right side of the second hole that was once below grade. This was and needed to be a maximalist build.

The most “significant” piece of land movement that existed on the prior course was a small bump in the flat terrain where Collins would eventually pin his version of Prestwick’s Himalayas par-3 hole. His version is the semi-blind fourth hole, named “King” after King Oehmig, the Tennessee golf legend who initially tipped off and matched Collins with the dilapidated course and potential for a new job when he needed it most. The King hole is a particularly cherished idol for both the Sweetens mafia and newcomers, with a semi-blind tee shot to a green that is 90 yards long. This is where initial shaper Gus Grantham, who Collins brought on in the earliest, most improbable, and fantastical days in the valley, was allowed to run free and build this meandering, massive green. The tee shot can be a relatively simple wedge up and over the blindness to a front pin with benign banks pushing the ball closer to the hole. Or it can be a menacing mid iron to a back pin that must land precise and soft to stay near the pin. They are two very different shots, different par-3s, and a spot where the two-pin system is put to effective use for replays.

It is here in the middle of the nine-hole course where Sweetens turns the volume up and reveals the efforts Collins took to blend both fun and strategy. Prior to the King hole is the 582-yard par-5 third, the longest on the card, with a lone centerline tree in front of the green that Collins holds dear. A steep bank in front of a relatively shallow green provokes multiple plays around, over, or under the tree depending on the pin and whether you’re coming from deep in two or up close in three. The front-of-the-green tree presents an unconventional challenge with multiple solutions leading into the varied par-3 fourth and the drivable par-4 fifth outlined above.

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Does it ever get to be too much? I asked Collins about a nine-hole course imposing some urgency to not hold much in reserve, to call deep shots over and over trying to score as much as possible in a shorter timeframe. He suggested he worked to create holes that were flashing lights at you to immediately grab your attention, and they often do whether you’re a skilled player and architecture aficionado or a novice dilettante. Collins added that he felt there was not room to offer a breather hole or get bogged down with much convention just moving you from one place on the property to the next. He succeeded in this with two very fun par-3s at King and the closing hole, the par-5 third down the boundary of the property, and three par-4s that illustrate the options of both distance and angles at Nos. 5, 7, and 8 (Andy Johnson’s favorite hole upon his first ever visit). Does the nine-hole sprint to create stunners lower the degree of difficulty or allow this to be graded on a curve compared to a full 18-hole course? Maybe, but that does not matter to Collins or the impact the course is trying to make on the player. It’s singular and purposefully wild trying to overcome the challenge of a once-bland site. The point was to put things up in lights so people could find it in the middle of nowhere.

Where Collins does get most conventional is at the sixth, a par-4 that bends around a water hazard up the left side that is the one spot on the course where a ball can truly be lost if a draw is overcooked or a cut doesn’t cut. I’m not sure there is truly a “great angle” to get at a front pin, or a major angle advantage into the green.

While the fairways seek to provide options and varying angles of the attack, the Sweetens success story starts with Collins building a great and provocative set of greens. He started here, succeeded most of the way around, and then worked back. Those greens outshine the land, and the routing that had to be squeezed in on it. There are some bumps in the routing – such as the walk back to the fifth tee — as Collins tried to drop his nine-hole vision in the valley. But his vision has by and large succeeded, and the personal investment, both in money, time, and elbow grease, has resulted in a course that is as identified with its architect as any in recent memory.

No modern architect has as much sweat equity and personal investment in a single golf property. Most architects put their heart, time, and pride into their work. Collins’ entire professional life and identity were dependent on it succeeding. There can be a burden to that success and a natural question about what comes next. But 10 years on, Sweetens has succeeded, thanks to his work, financial assistance from friends, and many small miracles along the way.

1 Egg

(How We Rate Courses)

There is a critique that great shots are not rewarded at Sweetens. But don’t we want the golf course to be the determiner of what’s a great shot? Controversy and provocation are not always a bad thing. The course’s remarkable history and hype certainly play into its allure, but it is a memorable golf playground in a valley. The land is the land, and it would never be exceptional. While there are many alternate routings for the Sweetens regulars, the conventional one has hiccups as it works the limited plot with three boundary holes to start and proceeds to bounce internally from there. It confronts the challenges of the land with some great greens and creative holes that try to educate or re-emphasize the importance of strategy and angles to the player. As a nine-hole golf course and a singularly unique experience in American golf, it is well deserving of a one-egg rating.

Course Tour

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Additional Content

Unforgettable: Sweetens Cove (article by Andy Johnson)

Short but Full of Options: The 9th at Sweetens Cove (article by Andy Johnson)

Jumping Off the Cliff (article by Andy Johnson)