Golf course architecture is often viewed as a sequence of projects. A club hires an architect, work is completed, and attention turns elsewhere until another renovation becomes necessary years later. At Carmel Country Club in Charlotte, North Carolina, the approach has been different.
For more than four decades, the club has worked with Rees Jones to continually refine its South course to reflect changes in the game, advances in maintenance practices and the evolving expectations of its membership.
“They’ve always wanted to make their courses appropriate for the way the game is played at the time,” says Jones. “Our work there has focused on gradual improvement; it has been a continuous design project for a club that wants to stay with the times.”
Jones first carried out remodelling work on the Ellis Maples design in the early 1980s, with a more substantial redesign completed in 2004. While the original routing was largely retained, Jones used additional land to introduce a new fifth hole, reverse the first and eighteenth holes and remove the original second. The work focused on rebuilding greens and adjusting several holes to improve both strategy and to create a championship challenge.
More recently, attention has turned to bunkers, and the revisiting of strategic questions throughout the course.
Every bunker on the South course has now been rebuilt and fitted with CapillaryFlow liner. Jones and design associate Steve Weisser sought to create bunkers that were easier to enter and exit, more consistent to maintain and, importantly, more strategic.
“Now, when players go in the fairway bunkers, they can hit different types of shots rather than just a recovery shot,” says Jones.
New bunkering and surrounds on the fifteenth provide more strategic options (Photo: Carmel CC)
Bunkers at Carmel are not just about punishment, they define strategy and provide visual guidance. “The good players will use the bunkers as targets,” says Weisser. “The bunkers are very recoverable and serve as a roadmap on how to play the hole.”
As part of the process, the design team met with a range of member groups, including low handicappers, high handicappers, seniors and members who regularly play only nine holes. “We made sure the South remained a championship golf course and that it was fair for all the members,” says Weisser.
In several areas, bunkers have been converted into closely mown chipping areas. Rather than presenting the same challenge repeatedly around every green, the new surrounds introduce greater variety and encourage different recovery options.
Jones believes this evolution has been one of the most significant developments in recent golf architecture. “What chipping areas have done is enable architects to make every hole distinctive,” he says. “Years ago, you often had elevated greens with bunkers in front and you felt like you were playing the same hole repeatedly. Now, with different heights of cut, slopes, false fronts, rough and chipping areas, every hole can present a different challenge.”
One of the clearest examples appears at the fifteenth hole, a par four where McAlpine Creek crosses directly in front of the green. Prior to the latest renovation, a bunker sat behind the putting surface. The hole already required a long carry over the creek and could prove particularly challenging for average golfers. “It is one of the most demanding holes on the golf course,” says Jones.
The area behind the green has been reimagined to create more thought-provoking strategic options. A smaller bunker behind the left side of the green now defends left-side hole locations, while the space beyond the right side has been reshaped into a receptive chipping area. These changes give players various shot options to hit their second shot depending on where their drive lands. “Approach shots remain demanding, particularly to a front-left hole location,” says Jones. “But average players now have a viable alternative. They can choose the aggressive play to the right portion of the green, while knowing there is a forgiving area beyond it where a missed shot can be recovered.”
The challenge on the sixth hole – one of the sternest on the course – is driven by angles and options (Photo: Carmel CC)
Increasingly intense rainfall events have placed greater pressure on water features and pond edges, prompting stabilisation work around the course.
New retaining walls were constructed near the sixth and seventeenth greens, while ageing infrastructure elsewhere was replaced to protect against erosion.
“That’s how golf courses mature,” says Weisser. “The land changes. Even after 15 years, you can see areas that behave differently than they used to.”
Regarded by many members as the South course’s most demanding hole, the sixth was significantly altered during earlier work when Jones straightened the hole and brought the pond more directly into play. “The pond didn’t come into play very effectively before,” says Jones. “Now players have to make decisions from the tee depending on their length and the line they choose.” The hole remains one of the course’s sternest tests, but the challenge is driven by angles and options rather than difficulty alone.
That balance between championship challenge and member enjoyment has underpinned Carmel’s relationship with Jones for more than 40 years. The result is not a golf course that has been repeatedly reinvented, but one that has been carefully refined.
This article first appeared in the July 2026 issue of Golf Course Architecture. For a printed subscription or free digital edition, please visit our subscriptions page.