Grassing is now in progress at the new Kyle Franz and Mike Koprowski-designed Broomsedge course in Rembert, South Carolina.
“We’re excited to kick off the grow-in phase and begin bringing even more life to the site,” said Koprowski, who bought the site in 2022 and expects the course to open for preview play in October 2024. “This is an important time for the project and we’re fortunate to have club superintendent Shawn Fettig managing the process. He’s the perfect person to ensure we remain on track for our anticipated soft opening this autumn, thanks to his extensive professional experience with Bermuda grass.”
Fairways and tees have been sprigged with Tifway 419 bermuda and greens will be sprigged with TifEagle bermuda once temperatures increase. With fairways designed to bleed into native areas, which include the club’s namesake broomsedge grass, the course will not have any maintained rough.
Franz and Koprowski have set out to capture the tenets of Golden Age course design and have taken inspiration from the work of Donald Ross, George Crump and George Thomas.
Design highlights include greens with classic contouring that ties into the surrounding topography, enough width to maintain the fundamental importance of angles, incorporation of property boundaries into lines of play, and several holes that may change par from day to day.
There are 20 green sites for the 18 holes, to allow additional flexibility in set-up.
“As newbuilds have been increasingly focused on maximizing size and scale, ours is a departure from this trend,” said Koprowski. “From the first tee, players will be able to see no fewer than 15 different green sites. We’re creating something a bit more scaled down than what’s currently popular in golf design, and reflective of how courses were conceived and routed 100 years ago.”
The course will occupy 156 acres of the club’s 235-acre site, which boasts unusually dramatic elevation changes for the Carolina Sandhills and features an assortment of valleys, ridgelines, spines and chasms. These attributes have enabled Franz and Koprowski to move a minimal amount of earth.
“The piece of land Mike found may be the best I’m working on right now,” said Franz. “It’s not only a great site, but the design is really cool as we’ve created a course that will challenge the best players yet still be extremely fun for higher handicaps.”
Koprowski and his co-founders hope that Broomsedge will host amateur championships in the near future. Once the club is open, Koprowski will turn his attention to developing onsite lodging and cottages, which are expected to be available by summer 2025.