Fall Line, a new private club in Georgia’s Sandhills, near the city of Butler, has unveiled its 18-hole East and West courses, as well as its 10-hole short layout – all designed by Ogilvy Cocking Mead (OCM).
The site for the courses is close to the Sandhills Wildlife Management Area, a 4,200-acre property known for its sandy hills, pine forests and diverse wildlife. The ‘fall line’ after which the club takes its name is a 200-mile geological boundary, about 20 miles wide, that runs from Columbus to Augusta. Around 65-250 million years ago, the fall line was the shoreline of the Atlantic Ocean.
In an interview with Leighton Walker on The Greenprint podcast, architect Mike Cocking said: “I’ve been told that it’s a similar geological formation that goes up into the Carolinas. Ohoopee Match Club has also been built on similar ground. We had a few working titles, including Sand Mountain, before settling on Fall Line.”
After looking at three different potential locations for the club, OCM helped the ownership group select a site with consistent undulations, big dunes, long views off the property, pine trees, heathland-like vegetation and sand.
OCM has laid out two 18-hole courses and a 10-hole short layout on a 1,500-acre site in the Georgia Sandhills (Photo: Jeff Bertch)
“I remember a great black-and-white photo of Harry Colt building Swinley Forest, and they’re blowing up tree stumps with dynamite, but there are these copses of pine trees and long grades,” said Cocking. “Parts of our East course look exactly like that. You have no idea you’re in Georgia – we could be in southwest London or, if you switch out the pine trees for eucalypts, you would have sworn you were somewhere down around Melbourne.”
Originally, OCM started out by developing an 18-hole concept for the owners of the 1,500-acre site, before the plan became 27, 35 and then 36.
“It’s an interesting property in that you have this western ridge and an eastern ridge and a central location for a clubhouse,” said Cocking. “The clubhouse had to go there – the problem with putting it in the western or eastern ends was trying to get golf from one end of the property to the other; it was too far. And you couldn’t really explore all those regions on 18 holes. So, whilst it started as 18 holes, we ended up pitching the idea of 27. We had this really interesting concept, which we’ll hopefully use somewhere else one day, in that we would create western, central and eastern nines with alternate tees so you could sort of play it as 36 holes, but you’re only building 27. But there was just so much land that the owners were keen to have more golf.
“We held firm on this alternate concept, and we ended up having 35 holes for a while where the first hole was shared between two courses. I loved this idea that you play the first with alternate tees – there’s a left tee, a right tee and a central fairway – and then get down to the green, and you can either go left or right. It’s almost like a choose your own adventure hole.
“We were six holes deep and had completed tree clearing when the owners said, ‘we want 36’. We came up with a slight reroute and found another couple of holes.”
The East course, which is open for private play, has been created in homage to the heathland layouts near London (Photo: Jeff Bertch)
Tree removal was one of the first jobs at Fall Line. “We took our time,” said Cocking. “We didn’t want to clear-fell the site. Once we had the routing planned, we did centreline clearing and then slowly worked our way out. And even once we got it to 60 or 70 yards wide, which was wide enough to build the hole, we would then come back through and create much more irregular lines to the trees. When you’re walking around, it doesn’t feel like we’ve gone through and mechanically cleared the tree lines – that was a deliberate ploy.”
Cocking describes the courses as ‘big scale layouts’, which is supported by the fact that fairways are at least 60 yards wide, with some up to 80 yards. “There’s not really much rough,” he said. “So, it pretty much goes from fairway grass and then just bleeds out into sand and the heathland, plants and grasses. There’s about 75 acres of maintained turf on the West course, whereas the East is more like 50 acres of fairway and 20 acres of rough. There is more cut rough on the East, like you would see in and around London.
“Parts of the site felt like the old black-and-whites of Sunningdale and Swinley, but there were parts that felt more Sandbelt-like, bigger in scale and similar to Pine Valley. The heathland course [East] was intimate while the West was a little more open, with big broad contours. With our routings, the East lent itself to a shorter course – it’s 6,600 yards – whereas the West is fair bit longer.”
For the West course, OCM Golf took inspiration from the Melbourne Sandbelt layouts (Photo: Jeff Bertch)
Initially, construction was taking place on both courses simultaneously, but then the installation of irrigation led to the decision to focus on the East first. As part of OCM Golf’s process for developing the design style for the course, the team spent 10 days in England for a refresher of the heathland courses there. The superintendent and shapers were on the trip too, providing them with exposure to those layouts. “I don’t think we would have built the course quite as we did if we hadn’t had done that,” said Cocking. “The greens are fairly simple – a lot of them are at grade, a bit like you’d see at Walton Heath, but the bunkering style is very much inspired by irregular bunkers you see in old pictures of St George’s Hill. They’re more rolled in.”
The East has grown in and opened for limited play in October 2023, while the West and short courses are on track to open fully early next year, following soft openings in October 2024.
Listen to more episodes of The Greenprint podcast, including the full episode with Mike Cocking.