The Matchbox

Caption: The Matchbox
Credit: Carolina Pines Creative

By Lee Pace

Tobacco Road Thinks Small With The Matchbox

When Tobacco Road Golf Club was built in the mid-1990s, there was a pond on the southern edge of the property just 200 yards from Rocky Fork Church Road that designer Mike Strantz tried to work into the routing. In the end, it just didn’t quite work, and instead the 12th and 13th holes of the unique layout carved out of a sand-mining pit skirted the area without the pond ever being in play.

The course opened in 1998 to rave reviews, with golfers delighting at the gargantuan mounds and hillocks, the mottled grasses and railroad ties. The course established its niche on the perimeter of the Sandhills golf experience as a fun option to play on the way past Sanford into the Pinehurst area at the beginning of a buddies trip or vice versa on the way back north.

Tobacco Road co-founder and owner Mark Stewart kept his eyes on that outparcel over nearly three decades and watched as Mother Nature bestowed it with trees, pine straw, brambles and underbrush.

In the summer of 2025, Stewart was talking with Mark White, one of the shapers on the original course and now the owner of a golf course construction company. Stewart wondered if that area might be good for a short course of some kind.

“Before we built the golf course, that was farmland, there were no trees on it,” Stewart says. “Over the years, trees grew up and it’s just evolved. I thought it was a cool piece of property. I thought it would be fun to create a new golf experience.”

“I said it would be awesome to build some holes around that lake,” White adds.

“Alternative golf” is all the rage today. We have massive, multi-story driving ranges that operate like a bowling alley. At indoor simulator lounges, you can “play” Pebble Beach and quaff barrel-aged beer. Tom Fazio is partnering with CityGolf USA to launch the first 18-hole indoor golf course to be located in Nashville. And venues like The Cradle at Pinehurst Resort have easily had a quarter of a million golfers traipse through with three clubs and a putter since it opened in 2017.

Caption: Tobacco Road

Stewart acted on his idea in 2026 and created The Matchbox, the name popping into his mind as an arena to play matches and one of Lilliputian scale reminiscent of the line of toy cars introduced in the 1950s. The course opened in August, and on opening weekend nearly 500 golfers came through.

“The Matchbox is all about buddies having fun together and hitting a few shots,” Stewart says.

The course features 12 par-3 holes measuring 40 to 105 yards, and the tees and greens are all synthetic. The course has the feel of hitting regulation wedge shots in a Putt-Putt environment – but there are no wooden railings to the holes and mishits can go careening into the lake or the woods.

“We wanted to keep the tree canopy and probably could have grown grass, but it might have been challenging,” Stewart says. “We thought if we had short holes and a lot of contours, it would be fun to use synthetic. We have no irrigation, and that’s a positive, and have pretty consistent conditions day to day. The maintenance is mostly blowing off straw and leaves and brushing off the greens. We are really happy how it turned out and been received.”

Though Strantz died of throat cancer in 2005, Stewart maintained a connection to the course’s roots through White, who had popped in and out of Sanford over the years to handle various projects on the course as it aged and evolved. When Stewart tossed out the idea of a short course, White said he knew of a design resource with experience in synthetic golf courses.

They brought in Justin Carlton and Lee Marshall to design the course, and White and his Land Innovations company coordinated the construction.

“There’s a direct line from our past to the present, and we believe the Matchbox will become a must-play experience in its own right,” Stewart says.

“Mike Strantz was a master of scale,” adds Marshall. “Having Mark White on the project provided an experienced knowledge of Strantz’s vision that we’re incorporating into our design.”

Golfers at the Matchbox are asked to hit shots over and under tree canopies and through tight windows of pines and crevices carved out of the sand. Some of the greens have a foot of elevation change. The greens are firm, and part of the challenge is figuring out where to land the ball.
Caption: The Matchbox

“The greens are challenging, and you have to be able to hit a softly landing shot, whether that’s a high shot or more of a chip shot,” Stewart says. “It takes a couple of holes to get used to it. It will certainly identify the gaps in your short game.”

“I was surprised the way greens kind of hold the shots,” White adds. “You lay the turf down and then put sand in the turf, and it helps absorb the shot.”

Stewart considered running the Matchbox out of the Tobacco Road golf shop, but the logistics of getting golfers to cut through the main course to the short course would have been balky. So instead, he built a parking lot just off Rocky Fork Church Road a quarter of a mile from the Tobacco Road entrance, and to traverse some wetlands built a bridge that meanders through the woods to a tidy little golf shop designed to mirror the main clubhouse. They went heavy on the details – ball retrievers laid out beside greens bordering the pond, Sunday bags available for golfers to tote two or three clubs and a putter, Adirondack chairs around the golf shop for cigars and cold beverages.

“It’s a really cool bridge through the shady bottom, kind of a mystical, magical little walk,” Stewart says. “It’s a little walk in nature with a couple of clubs and your buddies. The Matchbox is a great way to spend some time outdoors.”

Lee Pace is a freelance golf writer who has written about Sandhills area golf for four decades and is the author of club histories about Pinehurst Resort & Country Club, Mid Pines, Pine Needles and Forest Creek.

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