Finley Golf Club Renovation Hitting Final Stages

Carolina's men's golf team was set to leave for Chicago and the Fighting Illini Invitational at Olympia Fields Country Club the second Wednesday in September, and Kenan Poole, a graduate student from Raleigh in his fifth year on the team, had some free time that morning and ventured out to the new practice facility at Finley Golf Club.

The 16-acre expanse sits where the 10th and 11th holes of the golf course once stood and now offers in the words of one course official a "Disney World of golf"—vast hitting areas, uneven lies, dozens of target greens, varying grass lengths, trees strategically positioned for shaping shots, and practice greens planted with Bermuda and bent grasses.

Poole wanted to fine-tune his driver before the Tar Heels, ranked No. 1 in the nation, teed off against a strong field at a course that has hosted a U.S. Open and is known for its length and tight driving corridors. The 18th at Olympia Fields was particularly lurking in his mind—a 498-yard par-4, dogleg left, trees hugging the left side and an expansive bunker on the right. Assistant coach Noah Goldman happened to be on the practice range, and they began wondering how they could best use the fairway lines, target greens and tees to replicate the 18th at Olympia Fields.

They found one of the new tees tucked into the woods near where the green of the 10th hole once stood. There is a fairway 25 yards wide (the average of a U.S. Open driving corridor) in the distance, a stand of trees to the left, a pair of tall pine trees in the middle and the facility clubhouse in the deep background. The sightlines almost perfectly reflected the view the golfers would have that weekend on the finishing hole.

"I had played Olympia Fields and remembered how narrow that hole is," Poole says. "We tried to replicate that tee shot. I hit drivers trying to hug the tree on the left as close as possible and hit a tight draw. The American flag in front of the clubhouse was my target, where I wanted the ball to come down. I hit drivers for probably 45 minutes. Noah wouldn't let me leave until I hit three perfect ones in a row. I'd cut one a little and he'd say, 'Nope, that's in the bunker, try again.'

"We got to Olympia Fields and I stood on the 18th tee. I felt totally comfortable with the look, I knew exactly what shot I needed to hit. It's pretty crazy. Our first tournament after the new range opened, and it replicated the exact shot."

That same week, fellow Tar Heel Austin Greaser had recently returned from the Walker Cup at St Andrews, with Greaser and fellow Tar Heels David Ford and Dylan Menante comprising 30 percent of the American team that clipped the Great Britain-Ireland squad, 14.5 to 11.5. Greaser, the runner up in the 2021 U.S. Amateur at Oakmont and participant in the 2022 U.S. Open at The Country Club where he made the cut, was accustomed over his four years at Carolina of playing a Finley course built in 1999 before the advances of the Titleist Pro-V1 golf ball and titanium-headed drivers rendered the course into a drive-and-pitch snooze for the elite player. The greens were also more than two decades old, with the bent grass planted in 1999 now obsolete in the Southern summers following the advances in the early 2000s in the hybrid Bermuda putting surfaces that could remain firm and fast during the sweltering dog days of July and August.

Finley Golf Club 5th hole (old 15th)

Greaser set off on the course redesigned by the firm of Love Golf Design, with former Tar Heels and brothers Davis and Mark Love and chief designer Scot Sherman taking the Tom Fazio-designed course from 1999, giving it a complete agronomic overhaul, adding two new holes to make room for the practice facility, recontouring greens and fairways and adding and deleting bunkers at various junctures. They also added new tees in a handful of locations to provide the Tar Heels playing from the tips seven par-4s playing 465 yards or longer.

"I was amazed," Greaser says. "It's a completely different golf course now. One of the cool parts is it's actually pretty hard now for the top players. It can play significantly longer than before. We're hitting more 7, 8 and 9 irons into greens now, where before we played a lot of wedges. It's now a really good test of our game rather than being a course where you could wake up and shoot 3, 4, or 5 under no matter what.

"The greens make a huge difference. Before, they were pretty soft, and you could fire right at the flagstick. Now, you have to understand where the slopes and ridges are and where you have to land the ball. I really like what they've done."

While the Tar Heel men's team is established in six years of Andrew DiBitetto's tenure as head coach (including top-five NCAA finishes in 2021 and 2022 and a third-place finish last spring), the women's team is just getting its ballast under third-year coach Aimee Neff.

"The golf course is outstanding, Davis and his team did a great job," Neff says. "It's a more demanding golf course. The green complexes are much more challenging because there is so much more undulation. They're big in size, but that can be misleading. Just being on the green doesn't mean you have an easy two-putt. Before, the greens were pretty soft. Now approach shots and recovery shots are going to require a lot more skill.

"I am looking forward to seeing our players develop their skills on the new practice facility. If you want to be great, you have every shot you can imagine out there. There's no shot you can't create—over water, to a tight pin, long bunker shots, wedge shots of every length. There's no excuse not to be great, because you've got the training grounds to do it."

Therein lies the essence of the new Finley, which reopens to limited play in mid-October after a year-long closure. From infinite ways to practice and train to having to hit longer shots into firm greens, the renovated facility is now on par with other facilities for football, basketball, tennis, lacrosse and soccer across the Tar Heel spectrum.

"Finley has moved from being a local community, public golf course to one that is designed for our championship-caliber golf teams," athletic director Bubba Cunningham says. "It will offer a higher level of service and a higher quality experience than before. I think it will reflect very well on the university and is fitting for teams that play at national championship level. We now have a training environment for our golf teams on a level with all of our other sports. And it will be an outstanding experience and a lot of fun for the local golf community."

The course renovation cost around $13.5 million funded by The Rams Club and private donations. The involvement of the Loves was the result of the firm's resume of excellent work and the desire of DiBitetto, the Tar Heel men's coach since 2017, to re-engage the family with the program.

"We had good bones and a good routing to work with," says Davis Love III, a Tar Heel from the early 1980s who's gone on to win 21 PGA Tour events, including the 1997 PGA Championship, and serve as Ryder Cup captain in 2012 and 2016. "It all started with the question, 'How can we create a world-class practice facility for the golf teams?' That required losing two holes and finding two more somewhere else. It's turned out better for everyone—for the golf teams and the public. It's been fun to make regular trips back to Chapel Hill."

Finley Golf Club aerial drone image 2023

Finley Golf Club aerial drone image 2023

Among the key elements of the new golf course and operation are these:

* The 10th and 11th holes have been abandoned and turned into a 16-acre practice facility for the golf teams, designed in the image of Grove 23 that Michael Jordan has in Hobe Sound, Fla. Darren May, the golf coach at Grove 23 and designer of the facilities, drew on statistical data and consultations with PGA Tour players to recreate the toughest shots on tour and used many of the same ideas at Carolina.

* The nines have been reversed. The course will now start on the previous 12th hole, a par 3, and end on the previous ninth hole, a par 4 with a water hazard guarding the right side of the green. The course will play 7,084 yards from the back tees with a par of 34-36-70.

* Two new holes have been built on what is now the front nine. The first new hole, which is now the fourth hole, is a short par 4 inserted between the previous 14th and 15th holes. The second new hole is a par 3 playing uphill and inserted following the old 15th; it will be hole No. 6 on the new layout. In addition, the previous 13th and 14th (now the second and third holes) have been altered to allow room for the new fourth.

* Facility management has two new individuals in key roles. Rob Jeske brings three decades of experience as a player, coach and executive in the golf industry and a master's in business administration from Carolina's renowned Kenan-Flagler Business School to a newly created position of general manager. Kyle Gentry, who has worked on maintenance staffs at Pinehurst, Chevy Chase Club and Greensboro Country Club, is the director of agronomy. The maintenance staff has more than doubled in manpower and has at its disposal a new fleet of Toro equipment.

* To accommodate additional maintenance time, including the dedicated practice area for the men's and women's teams, almost a second course which requires daily grooming, the course will be closed on Tuesdays. There will be a 75-minute gap in the morning and afternoon tee time waves to allow maintenance staff access and tee times will be spaced out to 12 to 15-minute intervals to allow for the starting hole being a par 3.

* The course has had a complete agronomic overhaul. The greens are now Tif-Eagle Bermuda with a three-foot band around them of Tahoma 31 Bermuda. The tees, fairways and rough are still 419 Bermuda but all areas have been re-sodded.

* The public-access driving range and practice facility has been substantially upgraded with new turf and more acreage, a short-game area and a 22,000-square foot putting course.

* Memberships are available to the public beginning October 1, and practice amenities will open to members October 5. A private ribbon-cutting ceremony for university officials and project donors will be held October 12, and the course will open October 18 on a limited basis to members with some outside play available. All golf carts will initially be restricted to the paths to allow the fairways to mature in advance of Carolina hosting an NCAA men's regional May 13-15.

Information on fees, tee times and memberships will be available in the coming days at UNCFinley.com.

"The golf course we built in 1999 was terrific—for its time," says Rick Hopkins, a Charlotte businessman, Carolina grad and a financial backer of the project. "The golf world has changed. This project addresses every shortcoming we were dealing with. This new golf course is going to shock a lot of people. Those who've seen it are jacked. I think we've knocked the cover off the ball. I think this will be a real showcase. "

Players Mentioned

David Ford

Austin Greaser

Dylan Menante

Kenan Poole

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