Tot Hill Farm
Architect Mike Strantz is kind of like the great folk singer, Jim Croce. Both were taken from us way too early. Strantz died from cancer at age 50 in 2005; Croce perished in a plane crash some 50 years ago.
In his truncated career, Croce created a whole album of masterpieces in a very short time. We can only wonder what he would have come up in the following decades had he had the chance. The same for Strantz, who cut his teeth in the 1980s and early 1990s working on crews for Tom Fazio. As a solo artist he is credited with eight designs, six of them open to the public. Like Croce, all we can do is appreciate what he left us, which is why it’s so important to preserve the work that he’s done.
A few years ago, some of his courses actually closed, but new ownership has brought them back, thankfully for generations of golfers to come.
A Strantz course is unlike anything else you will play. His imagination, use of the land, and the way he gets you around were nothing short of genius. Some find his courses quirky, but we can assure you that there was a method to his madness. Strantz was truly an artist (his renderings of the holes on his courses are incredible). Even on the craziest holes, there’s always a reasonable option to succeed. You just have to look for it sometimes.
Love for Tot Hill Farm
We recently had a chance to play the one Strantz course open to the public that was still on our to-do list – Tot Hill Farm Golf Club in Asheboro, N.C. The newest owner at Tot Hill Farm, Pat Barber of Charleston, S.C., brought in superintendent Geoff Dail last year to lead a restoration to return the course to glory.
The work included new Prizm zoysia grass greens (look for more of this on other restorations and new courses), bunker work that included new drainage and sand (and the removal and restoration of a couple of bunkers), new cart paths, and a renovation to Tot Hills Farm’s clubhouse, formerly a farmhouse. About 1,200 trees were also removed to give the course the parkland feel it had when it opened in 2000.
Honestly, every hole on this 6,713-yard, par-72 layout is interesting and memorable. The course grabs you from the start with an elevated tee on a long par-4 that ends to an approach to a green that has a large hill on the right, perfect for banking a pushed or intentional shot to the right and getting the ball back to the green.
The course’s most notable hole is probably the third, a par-3 named “The Rock.” The hole only reveals itself after you pass by a large rock formation near the back tee. In other words, the only thing you can see from your cart as you drive up is that stone formation. The reveal is a large green fronted by a creek that passes in front and to the left, a large bunker on the right with a hill behind it that you could play off if you pushed your tee shot over the sand.
The rest of the golf course never lets up with super interesting, large sloping greens, a peninsula green on the 12th, a waterfall par-3 15th, and even Tot Hill Farm’s own version of a road hole on the 17th. We can’t say enough about how enjoyable this course is to play.
Tot Hill Farm
Other Mike Strantz public gems
One of the cool aspects about playing these Strantz courses is that they are clustered. If you play Tot Hill Farm, Tobacco Road isn’t far away. In fact, if you’ve got a trip planned to Pinehurst, adding both of these is pretty convenient as long as you have a car.
The same can be said for Caledonia Golf & Fish Club and True Blue, both of which are on the Grand Strand (Myrtle Beach, S.C. area). And if you head into the Williamsburg/Richmond, Va., area you can get in Stonehouse Golf Club and Royal New Kent.
All of these courses are unique and different from each other, but Tobacco Road is probably the most talked about among all the Strantz designs. Located about a half hour from Pinehurst in Sanford, N.C., Tobacco Road was built in and around an old quarry, so there is a lot of elevation change, crazy greens, and a few blind shots. It looks intimidating, and while it’s not easy, if you follow the plan – like playing with someone who’s played the course before and can direct you, or at the very least pay attention to the yardage book – you can figure this puzzle out. And if you do, what a joy it is in the end. You’ll never play another course quite like it.
Caledonia was Strantz’s first solo design in 1994, and really the course that put him on the map. It’s still revered today. Strantz’s creativity is displayed among the marshes and rice paddies of Pawleys Island, S.C., masterfully meandering about and through water features. It’s way more subtle than most of his other designs.
True Blue is actually Caledonia’s sister course, located across the highway. It’s much bigger than Caledonia with large greens, wide fairways, and lots of elevation change through rolling terrain. It’s quite the contrast to Caledonia in a great way.
Stonehouse is another course that actually closed for a while before new ownership brought it back to life in 2019. This one weaves through a heavily wooded property with a good bit of elevation change. Different parts of the course have different feels. It’s all wonderfully quirky.
And finally, Royal New Kent — known as The Tradition at Royal New Kent when it opened in 1997 just outside of Richmond in Kent, Va. — is another course that got new life after it was restored magnificently by Greenville, S.C.-based Wingfield Golf Management, which bought the course in 2018. This is Strantz’s tribute to the seaside links Ireland, with an emphasis on the character and feel of two of his favorites – Northern Ireland’s Royal County Down and Ballybunion. There are plenty of blind shots, but the fairways are very generous. The greens are big with lots of slope. And every hole, once again, is different and memorable.
Oh, and in case you were wondering, Strantz’s private courses are Silver Creek Valley Country Club in San Jose, Calif., and the Shore Course at Monterey Peninsula Country Club in Pebble Beach. And yes, those are on our radar, too.
True Blue