The new club, which is located near Aiken, S.C., expects to have seven holes grassed and ready for preview in early 2023. The remaining holes will be shaped over the winter and grassed in the spring. The grand opening of the Old Barnwell club is scheduled for September 2023. A 13-hole short course and third course are also planned for the property.
The mission at Old Barnwell—a new golf club that is under construction approximately 11 miles from downtown Aiken, S.C.—will be to “bring together people through golf,” Morgan Purvis, the club’s Director of Partnerships, told the Aiken Standard. He works for Old Barnwell’s founder and owner, Nick Schreiber, who lives in the Charleston area.
Purvis provided a timeline for Old Barnwell’s development on a 575-acre tract that features sandy soil and a rolling terrain, the Standard reported.
“We are basically at the point where we are going to finish, we hope, seven holes this year that will be grassed and ready for what we call preview play next spring,” Purvis said. “The holes we are trying to finish are one, two, three, four and five and then 17 and 18.
“We will continue to shape and build the additional 11 holes starting this coming winter,” he added. “We will start to grass those holes in the spring of 2023. Then we’ll shut down, which we will always plan to do, from mid-July through August for our normal agronomic practices.”
The grand opening of the Old Barnwell club is scheduled for September of next year, the Standard reported. Plans also call for the construction of a clubhouse with upstairs rooms and a 10-room lodge.
A 13-hole short course also will be built, the Standard reported.
“We’re calling it our ‘Kids’ Course,’” Purvis said. “We want to use our resources to introduce kids to the game.”
A third course, which Purvis described as a “holiday course,” is expected to be ready for play in 2025 or 2026, the Standard reported.
“Initially, we thought it was going to be closer to 14 holes, but it will actually probably have the full 18,” he said. “It will likely be somewhere between a par 62 and a par 68. It won’t be a full par 70, par 72 championship golf course.”
The “holiday course,” will be called The Gilroy, and it will be a place where beginners can hone their skills, the Standard reported. Novices will be able to “learn the game on a course rather than learning it by hitting balls on a range,” Purvis said.
He also provided an update on the Old Barnwell club’s efforts to attract members, the Standard reported.
“In the past six months, we have ended up signing up 170 members, which exceeded our initial goal of 125 by the time we open next year,” he said. “We think we’re going to have 225 members total. We’ll be taking a little bit more time in the next 14 months to find those next 55 people.
“We’ll also make sure that it’s a family friendly atmosphere. We want to make sure that we support juniors as well as provide opportunities for people that haven’t had the opportunity to play golf in partnership with a group like First Tee or any sort of kids’ program that’s around here.”
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