Sweetens Cove Golf Club, the beloved nine-hole course in rural Tennessee, faces a question familiar to punk-rock bands that hit commercial pay dirt: how to appeal to a growing market without compromising what made you popular in the first place?
It’s a fine line but Sweetens has been straddling it. Born in 2014 as a bootstrapping operation just west of Chattanooga, the course shed its underdog status soon enough. Instagram helped with that, flooding feeds with alluring posts from the game’s nascent influencer set. When, three years later, the New York Times rang in with feature coverage of the Rob Collins/Tad King design, Sweetens’ standing in the mainstream was firmly sealed. Never mind that golfers — and golf writers — continued to refer to it as a “cult favorite.” The course had become a juggernaut.
Today, Sweetens belongs to an ownership group that includes Peyton Manning, Andy Roddick and Reef Capital Partners, a prominent investment and real-estate development firm. It’s a burgeoning business. But its brass seems intent on staying true to the property’s original ethos, as recent expansion plans make clear.
The blueprint, which was rolled out earlier this month, calls for what might sound in broad strokes like familiar stuff: more golf, more amenities, more merch, and so on. Look closer, though, and you see that the line items are very much on brand. Topping the list is a new 13-hole short course, laid out to overlap with the existing 9-holer to allow for pick-your-pleasure cross-country play — a hallmark of the original Sweetens experience.
Other additions include what are described as a “casual” collection of “gathering places.” A restaurant and bar are in the works, along with a bottle shop and micro-distillery, the better to showcase the spirits line that Sweetens launched in 2020.
Ever since it opened, Sweetens has been a day-trip destination. That’s set to change. Plans also call for the property’s first “hospitality experience” — press-release speak for accommodations in the form of one-bedroom cabins with single or double occupancy. Those are slated to open in phases, starting late next year, followed by a putting green, three golf simulator bays, club fitting and retail. Down the line, a fishing dock, a skeet shooting range and an octagon-shaped barn and events space will be constructed, too. You get the picture. Sweetens aims to be a full-fledged stay-and-play. Or, as Collins puts it, “the ultimate 24-hour golf playground.”
What won’t change is the operating model, which is built not on traditional reservations but all-day passes, with no tee times on weekends. In recent years, those passes have been selling out for the season almost the instant they’re released.
Early adopters — whether they discovered a band before anyone else or found a golf course before the Instagram crowd did — tend to be a proprietary bunch. They’re the first to evangelize, and the first to cry sellout when they think that the object of their love has lost the plot. By all appearances, Sweetens ownership understands what it’s sitting on and is proceeding accordingly. The Dead Kennedys managed to build a robust following without softening their edges or alienating their original fans — no small feat for a band that made a point of being uncommercial. Sweetens strikes me as something closer to the Green Day of golf, now more pop than punk but still proud and protective of its roots.
3 things I’m thinking
Holding the line at Bandon: A lot of people build courses for the love of the game. But let’s be real — they’re also in it for the money, and there’s plenty of that in golf travel these days. Given demand at top resorts, a place like Bandon Dunes could raise its rates substantially and still sell out in an instant. Which makes this news especially refreshing. In an era when most marquee properties increase prices every year, Bandon has decided to hold steady. Green fees at the Oregon resort — currently ranging from $130 to $375 depending on the season — will remain unchanged in 2027.
Tiger Funds: Private equity doesn’t really own everything in golf. It just seems that way sometimes. If the name Reef Capital rings familiar, for instance, that’s because it keeps coming up. Aside from Sweetens, the firm’s portfolio includes Black Desert Resort in Utah (where expansion plans are also underway), Cornerstone Club in Colorado and Marcella Club (also in Utah), where a TGR Design course opens in July. Now comes word that Reef Capital’s Tributer Resort in central Virginia has tapped Woods for a second private layout — an 18-hole course that will join the existing Cutalong Golf Club. Construction is slated to begin in 2028.
East Lake and beyond: Tee times are one way to experience special courses. Tournaments are another. On that front, ESPN is reporting that the Tour Championship — long held at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta — will remain at that venue through 2027 but that the Tour is exploring the possibility of moving the event to more luminous surrounds. Pine Valley, Cypress Point, and Seminole are among the names being tossed around by the fast-moving online rumor mill. Sounds far-fetched. Then again, you would have said the same if we’d told you years ago that Augusta National would someday allow influencers to fling Frisbees around Amen Corner.
