Tot Hill Farm Golf Club is evolving into a bucket list golf destination experience as architect Mike Strantz intended, and its new owners took great care in restoring the course back to its look on opening day 2000.
The late architect’s intent on providing visually stunning and challenging designs came from his hero of golf course architecture, Dr. Alistair MacKenzie. From MacKenzie’s book The Spirit of St. Andrews, he noted, “It frequently happens the best holes give rise to the most bitter controversy. It is largely a question of the spirit in which the problem is approached, depending on the player. Whether he looks at it from the ‘card and pencil’ point of view and condemns anything that disturbs his steady series of 3’s or 4’s, or whether he approaches it in the ‘spirit of adventure.’ Tot Hill Farm is 100 percent adventure, yet as Strantz stated, is extremely playable for all.”
Said Golf Digest: “(Strantz) Worked from the pure rock of the Uwharrie mountain range and carved fairways that look like ski slopes and one green that seems to tumble into another. Like any Strantz design, expect the unexpected.”
The on-going restoration of Tot Hill Farm is coming in various stages. Phase 1 priorities were to resurface all 18 greens with Prizm Zoysia, convert the 150-plus-year old farmhouse to the clubhouse, clean up items that affected grass growth on several tee boxes and greens, level and sod teeing areas, repair cart path damage, and repair several bridges.
The new greens feature a new zoysia variety developed by Bladerunner Farms that has the ability to grow-in very quickly, has no collar transition to manage, only needs half the mowing of typical greens, is very shade and cold weather tolerant, needs 50 percent less chemical application, and heals very quickly from ball marks.
Remember the club motto: Enjoy the day surrounded by breathtaking beauty. Soak up the precious time with your friends, and don’t look at the day from the ‘card and pencil’ point of view. Go. Make memories instead. The unforgettable starts here.
