Finley Golf Club, Re-Imagined

A year-long renovation and overhaul of UNC's Finley Golf Club ends this month with the dedication ceremony on Thursday and the course and practice facility opening to members and the public on a limited basis starting next Wednesday, October 18.

The design changes were engineered by Love Golf Design and its founder, former Tar Heel Davis Love III (1982-86), company president Mark Love, also a Carolina graduate (1988) and former Tar Heel golfer, and lead architect Scot Sherman.

"I honestly don't remember a lot about the original Finley we played in the '80s," Davis says. "I remember it was wet a lot. And I remember several par 4s were routinely drivable. What we have now is a completely new golf course, reimagined. It's a lot more interesting, more classic and timeless. I think it looks like some 'Golden Age Era' designs. It's good for the university community and good for the expert players to give them the training they need."

"When Davis and I were in school, we played Finley out of convenience," adds Mark. "But if we wanted a more stern test of golf, we drove to Pinehurst. Now the team has it right here. It will be a great benefit to the men's and women's golf teams."

Davis Love III with the first shot at the new Finley Golf Club. — **Davis Love III makes the ceremonial first swing on the new first hole at the renovated Finley Golf Club. He stuck it close, of course.**

And so begins era No. 3 of a facility that has been rebranded as Finley Golf Club.

The first chapter began in the summer of 1950 when Carolina Athletic Director Chuck Erickson, golf architect George Cobb and Raleigh construction magnate A.E. Finley pooled their vision and resources to build a course on land donated to the university by professor and noted botanist William Coker. Cobb returned in 1982 when three holes were remade into intramural and athletic fields and three new ones built in the woods around the Highland Woods Road neighborhood. That was the course Davis played while earning All-America honors three times from 1983-85.

The second iteration came in 1999 when architect Tom Fazio was retained to re-design the entire course and build a new one on the same site. He used some of the original corridors but not much else, and Finley was added to the portfolio of arguably the nation's most prolific architect of the 1980s through the global financial collapse of 2008. One of the highlights of the project was a modern drainage system that helped solve the age-old problem of the course sitting in a low-lying area and being prone to flooding.

Two major dominoes inspired the Love's rendition of Finley, which cost $13.5 million funded through donations to The Rams Club. First was the fact the previous course was 23 years old and in need of an agronomic upgrade (the greens were still the bent grass popular in 1999 that has been usurped the last decade at many Mid-Atlantic courses by ultra-dwarf Bermuda that can be maintained to quick and firm conditions 12 months a year). Second was the Carolina golf teams' need for a more sophisticated and expansive practice facility than what it used on the east end of the driving range.

The greens have been redesigned and recontoured and are planted with Tif-Eagle Bermuda with a three-foot band around them of Tahoma 31 Bermuda. The tees, fairways and rough are 419 Bermuda and all areas have been sprigged with new turf. The bunkers have been lined with the state-of-the-art Bunker Solutions method that delighted course maintenance officials when 14.5 inches of rain fell in a short in late summer and left no bunker washouts. Trees and underbrush in some areas have been cleared out to improve air flow and sunlight.

Some 16 acres of ground previously occupied by the 10th and 11th holes have been converted into a practice area conceived by Carolina coaches Andrew DiBitetto and Aimee Neff, the Love team and consultant Darren May to offer the golf teams every conceivable lie, grass length, corridor and target imaginable. May's involvement brought an interesting piece of Carolina connection to the project as he is the golf coach and designer at Grove 23, Michael Jordan's private facility in Hobe Sound, Fla.

"This practice facility is absolutely insane," said Kayla Smith, a two-time All-ACC player. "You can practice every shot you could ever think of here, shots that not a lot of people can create and shots you'll see on the course all the time."

"For a kid chasing his dream, it starts with hard work," added Austin Greaser, a graduate student and three-time All-ACC player on the Tar Heels' No. 1-ranked men's team. "With this facility and this course, we have the opportunity to chase greatness like never before."

One of DiBitetto's missions upon taking the men's head coaching job in 2017 was to re-engage former Tar Heels like Love and nine-time professional winner Mark Wilson on a more consistent basis. Love in 2018 committed to underwriting the Davis Love III Scholarship for Men's Golf, and bringing Love's firm into the loop to coordinate the Finley redesign was another offshoot of the relationship.

"One of the first things I did was call Davis," DiBitetto says. "I admit, I was nervous making the call. But Davis said, 'Whatever I can do, just say so.' It's been a great partnership."

The practice facility and a golf course with a half dozen lengthened holes as played by the elite college golfer have been designed with player development in mind. But the new Finley will provide an upgraded experience for the public—university students, faculty, staff, donors, visitors and townsfolk.

"The bar has been raised in college athletic facilities," says Finley GC general manager Rob Jeske. "This new Finley was created to provide a championship practice and developmental venue for the golf teams. But it's going to be an outstanding experience for the university community."

The first thing golfers returning to Finley will notice is the nines have been reversed, the primary reason being the Loves believe the previous ninth hole, a par 4 with a water hazard to the right of the green, will be a better finishing hole, particularly when Phase II of the masterplan is completed with a new team building on adjacent ground. That means the previous 12th hole, a par 3, is now the starting hole.

It's rare for a course to begin with a one-shot hole, but Finley operations staff has accounted for the time it takes a foursome to putt out in spacing tee times out to 12 to 15-minute intervals. The Love brothers talk of their affection for having "quirks" on a golf course, and the new opening hole fits that theme. The course has five par 3s and three par 5s. The par for the course is 70 and that's split 34-36. The back tees will play 7,084 yards with five more sets ranging from 6,513 to 4,368 yards.

"They asked if we cared about length and if we cared about par," DiBitetto says. "I said no. I said, 'Give us the best 18 holes you can and give us variety.' We've got a great set of par 3s and a reachable par 4 and a handful of par 4s at nearly 500 yards."

Losing the two holes on the east side of Finley Golf Course Road necessitated finding and installing two new ones on the west side, the new front nine. Needless to say that was not an easy task with commercial development to the north, residences to the west and UNC athletic fields to the south. The new holes are the fourth, a short par 4, uphill at 320 yards, and the sixth, an uphill par 3 routed between the previous 15th and 17th greens.

The greens have some of those quirks the designers talk about with several 90-degree corners, some that flow seamlessly into the fairways and many greens with "green-within-a-green" compartments. The Loves borrowed on their affection for Winged Foot Golf Club, where Davis won the 1997 PGA Championship, and projects like their restoration of the A.W. Tillinghast-designed Belmont Golf Course in Richmond, Va., for inspiration for the putting surfaces and bunkers. "Chocolate drops," small mounds covered with thick rough, are scattered about the course. The traditional touches extend to the wooden bunker rakes and flagsticks.

"This design has to be modern, it has to have 500-yard par 4s to challenge these guys," says Sherman, who cut his teeth in design working for Pete Dye and has been on the Love team for 11 years. "But we blend that with an old-school look. We're inspired by Winged Foot and Oakmont and all those classic golf courses. Old-school in a modern context. I think you'll experience that here now."

There's an expansive new putting course, practice tee and short-game area available to the public. The operation will further add a private-club feel by closing on Tuesdays to allow a maintenance staff that's doubled in size unfettered access to groom the course. Golf carts will be restricted to cart paths for the first eight months of operation to allow the fairways to fully knit in leading up to the NCAA men's regional May 13-15.

Golf fees will vary depending on weekends or weekdays, time of day, time of year and an individual's connection to the University. Memberships are available. Jeske estimates fees in general will be approximately 20 percent higher than when the course closed in October 2022.

"The priorities have been adjusted at Finley," Jeske says. "Number one, this is a facility for the golf teams. And it's an excellent amenity for faculty, staff and students. We're building fewer rounds into the budget to protect the course and maintain the investment."

In remarks to guests at a grand opening ceremony late Thursday afternoon, Love spoke of having learned of the culture of Carolina basketball and Coach Dean Smith during his time at Carolina, of having helped baptize Michael Jordan into the game of golf, of being part of a team that included construction workers, agronomic consultants, university and town officials and many more to make the new Finley happen. He talked of his travels around the golf world the last month and proudly chirping at any opportunity about the Tar Heels' three participants on the recent victorious Walker Cup team.

"I'm glad to be a small part of it," Love said. "I'm on one text chain and people are texting about Carolina golf all the time. Andrew's created something special, and there's a lot of buzz. I was always a fan but was kind of on the sidelines. We just needed a reason to get involved."

University of North Carolina Athletics

Players Mentioned

Austin Greaser

Kayla Smith

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