Old Barnwell (2024)

Golf architecture is at a crossroads. While it might not be panic time yet, Tom Doak and Bill Coore are now approaching forty years into their impressive careers. Granted, Pete Dye, their mentor and entryway into the trade, built golf well into the twilight of his life and Doak and Coore show no signs of retiring anytime soon (Coore currently has five projects on the go; Doak has seven), but in order for the trade to continue the momentum into future generations, new firms, architects, and voices need to pop up in order to establish the way forward when the kingpins mentioned decide to retire. To Doak & Coore’s credit, they have created an impressive list of “up-and-comers” who seem poised to take on the crown, when the time comes: Angela Moser, who impressively ran the Pinehurst No. 10 job for Tom Doak; Kyle Franz, hot off the press with Cabot Citrus Farms (Karoo), Broomsedge, Cabot Citrus Farms (Roost) and the forthcoming Luling; Keith Rhebb & Riley Johns, who continue to work for Bill Coore & Ben Crenshaw at places like Point Hardy and Crazy Mountain Ranch, showed their skill set at the charming Winter Park 9 in Orlando; Mike Nuzzo, who, like Franz got his shot to show his talents at Cabot Citrus Farms with the Wedge, Squeeze, and Roost as well as the under-the-radar Wolf Point Ranch (now named TXo); Trev Dormer, who recently partnered with Tad King and Rob Collins, who is actively shaping at Coore & Crenshaw’s Torch Cay but has his own new contributions in British Columbia, Saskatchewan, and Nebraska; and of course, Gil Hanse, who has cemented himself firmly in any “Big Three” discussion with Doak and Coore long ago.

Much like Tom Doak and Bill Coore did upon leaving Pete Dye’s stable of up-and-coming architects who were working for him in the 1970s and 1980s, it is largely up to the names above to showcase their talents on their own, virgin sites without the helping hand of their established mentors. They have, by and large, set the next generation up for success: it is up to them to capitalize. With that in mind, and the pressures of living up to the legacy the previous generation have left them to continue to build off, Doak and Coore are not retired yet—still active and busy, in fact, as evident above—and as a result, anyone who worked under Doak or Coore have the difficult reality of having to go against their mentors in job interviews. This is further complicated by the principles that separated Tom Doak and Bill Coore apart from their contemporaries when they were the ‘new kids on the block’—width, angles, undulating greens, minimal land work or minimalism, and more—have now become industry standard, though architects like King-Collins and Kyle Franz are mutating off that concept. Not only does it make it difficult for a developer or board of directors to trust your vision over the bigger and more established name that taught you the trade secrets (especially if you fail to differentiate yourself enough from them, or continue to work for them—why hire X architect when you can get X architect as well by hiring Y?), but it can be a hurdle to overcome for those hiring to see the appeal of a name less established and—if we’re being honest—less marketable than the gentlemen who built places like Sand Hills, Pacific Dunes, Friar’s Head, Tari Iti, and numerous other World, USA, and best-in-state golf courses (and that’s not including their superb restorative work!).

Old Barnwell’s plan, drawn by Don Placek. Note: there are elements on the plan that changed in the field and it does not 100% represent the finished product, but as with most new builds, in-the-field decisions were made in order to maximize the site.

Enter: Brian Schneider and Blake Conant, who, like most of the contingent above, worked under Tom Doak. Brian Schneider’s career at Renaissance Golf Design began at Stonewall outside Philadelphia in 2002. Since then, he was the lead associate at notable jobs like Barnbougle Dunes, The Lido, and Dismal River, as well as having a hand in Cape Kidnappers, St. Andrews Beach, Sebonack, Ballyneal, Stone Eagle, Rock Creek Cattle Company, and Old Macdonald, among others. Blake Conant, on the other hand, entered Renaissance Golf Design a decade after Schneider, beginning at Dismal River, continuing at the overhaul of Medinah’s No. 1 course, and then further at high-profile jobs like the restoration of Bel-Air, St. Patrick’s, Pinehurst No. 10, and Childress Hall (among others). The duo had their fair share of experience separate from Tom Doak— notably, Stoatin Brae, Llanerch Country Club’s overhaul, and Tin House Club—but upon the opening of Old Barnwell in 2023, they were, largely, unproven on their own.

There’s where Nick Schreiber, Old Barnwell’s founder, comes in, deciding on the relatively unproven design duo of Brian Schneider & Blake Conant. Architect selection is just half the battle, and often times, clients get in the way of the design team, putting emphasis on this or that, or having a specific mandate or a set of principles they want to see in their development. It is hard to blame them given its their money, their vision, and their golf course, but past history reflects the reality that when a client is as hands-off as possible and lets the talented team they hired do that they are experienced at, the results speak for themselves. And so, Schreiber largely stayed out of the way of Schneider and Conant, letting the two experiment and be as creative as possible. While Doak and Coore might closely relate to and draw from Pete Dye, Perry Maxwell, Donald Ross, and Alister Mackenzie (especially in Tom Doak’s case) as influences, Scheider & Conant drew more from their time restoring Walter Travis golf courses at places like Hollywood and North Jersey, as well as the National Golf Links of America.

The first tee’s visual immediately introduces you to Old Barnwell’s unique identity: a row of cops bunkers, grassed down faces, and of course, short grass to play with.

In doing so, Old Barnwell, opening nearly 30 years after Sand Hills largely slingshotted the bold, wide, ruggedness of minimalism into the mainstream of the world of golf (further popularized by Bandon Dunes in 1999 and Pacific Dunes in 2001, especially opening the publics eyes), has seemingly expanded on the genre. There are many of the calling cards we have come to know about Doak and Coore golf courses, with ample width, short grass, and large-scale bunkers etched into the sandy site, but an immediate difference is the choice for a classic grass-down, almost heathland-esque bunker style, rather than the sandy scrapes Schneider & Conant have worked on at places like Barnbougle and St. Patricks. Even further, it feels like a mutation of minimalism, morphing some of the Golden Age’s most underrated, almost forgotten features into the present zeitgeist for the first time in nearly 100 years.

It is not “minimalism” in the way a Sand Hills or Childress Hall is, but it’s certainly not audacious in its choices. There is an understated elegance in the routing, beginning with the upper fix holes before diving into the property, looping around, and climbing up and out of the valley to finish. In total, seven holes sit on the high side of the property and at the same elevation as the clubhouse, and eleven holes in the bottom. On the plan above, that would be the 1st-5th, 17th-18th above, and 7th-16th below. Its close, tight-knit routing is a natural stroll around the property, and its width is anything but contrived. In fact, numerous moments in the routing begin to squeeze golfers into awkward pinchpoints, should they choose to pull driver. That includes the 7th and 14th in particular, which feel uneasy and nervy given the freedom on many of the holes prior.

With such strong influences of Walter Travis and National Golf Links, one would expect the set of greens to shine, and they do: some big, like the on-grade 18th, and some smaller, like the driveable, National Golf Links-infused 14th, but they’re never dull, and if anything sit on the more extreme side, leaning more towards some of Tom Doak’s more provocative sets. They favour those who are able to play multiple times, as if the “home field advantage” of other sports—like the Yankees at Yankee Stadium or the Montreal Canadiens in the NHL—has been injected into Old Barnwell’s golf course to benefit members who bring their friends from nearby golf courses.

Certainly, Old Barnwell is unlike any golf course built in the post-COVID 19 world, and at the very least, uses influences not seen yet to draw from whilst merging them with the current flavour of its era.

Holes to Note

Second hole, 305 yards; Drivable par 4’s are uniquely modern, with many of the Golden Age architects favouring the “drive-and-pitch” model (perhaps the frequency of a par 3 being a driver back in the day being a factor in that), but as the golf ball and driver continue to further, architects have to get creative on how to trick golfers into making a mistake. The addition of data and statistics into golf has largely made drivable par 4’s merely just a par 3, with the numbers suggesting never laying up even on the best iterations. Even so, drivable 4’s are a fun additive.

The tee shot view of Old Barnwell’s second gives just enough preview, but doesn’t reveal all its secrets too early.

Having a drivable par 4 so early in the round helps balance the risk-reward nature of the hole—early in the round, those playing might not be fully warmed up and as a result, two middle-length swings become more appealing than one long swing and a potentially touchy chip-shot—but the hole sets up for a wide variety of approach shots in. With the direct route being directly over a large bunker awaiting a mishit and the gentle left-to-right tilt, anything left of the bunker is the obvious preferred angle, with two muscular bunkers up the far left side awaiting the timid.

Like nearly any notably famous drivable par 4, the green complex and its impeding doom is what makes the hole of note. Much like the fairway’s gentle, on-grade tilt, Barnwell’s second ever-so-gently slopes away from the line of play, especially for those playing further up the left; even more terrifying is the mild fall-off up the left side of the green, with any pin up the left or in the back directly having to negociate with the short grass run-off.

Third hole, 385 yards; In the first two holes, there are cameos of Old Barnwell’s influences popping up here and there, but none more obvious and apparent than the third’s brilliant green complex. Off the tee, a graceful topographic ridge cuts across the line of play, working from the longer left side carry to the shorter right side, albeit closer to the bunker eating into the corner of a dogleg right. The third’s short yardgage does allow a variety of clubs off the tee, with driver likely getting around the corner and over the ridge, and a shorter wood or iron leaving the golfer back of the ridge.

Turning the corner, one sees the mouth-watering complex seemingly emulating Walter Travis’ notable nobs and internal contours that highlight his green complexes, with its ridge running perpindicular across the line of play and flaired up back edges feeding off the high knobs off the back corners. The bunker on the inside corner dictates a lot of the strategy off the tee, especially when working in tandem with the topographic ridge, which reveals itself more as the golfer turns the corner.

From the middle of the fairway presents a better, unobstructed view of the surface. For those who are able to get the tee ball over the ridge, this is the view that greets the aggressive swing.

Fourth hole, 185 yards; As golf course critics, we get wrapped up discussing strategy, numerous ways to play holes, and variety, but what happens when a hole so audacious and unequivocally themselves stands on its two feet in a way that makes it bold and daring? After all, there are three schools of design—strategic, penal, and heroic—and when one is able to make a penal hole feel captivating, engaging, an intruiging, it is worthy of mention. Par 3’s in nature are more one-dimensional—hit it here, or pay the price—but the 4th at Old Barnwell is distinctly its own flavour and variety. After the reachable, gambling par 5 opener, a short drivable hole at the Second, the middle-length par 4 at the Third, the Fourth is a true “what you see is what you get” hole, but of the highest quality.

Be it the splashed up bunker two bunkers flanking the right side, or the deep, grassed-down bunker over the back of the surface, the fushion between the two styles is never intrusive, nor jarring.

Seventh hole, 445 yards; Old Barnwell’s routing works in a way that gently the low portion of the property on the opening stretch, but at the Sixth, the hole finally plunges down into the valley. In the background, the daunting, yet attractive, Seventh looms and immediately juxtpositions against the Sixth’s spaciousness. Here, the Seventh hole’s bunkering seemingly eats into the middle line of play from the outsides in a similar way to Stanley Thompson’s Banff Springs, meaning, at some point, the golfer will have to carry and take on a bunker to score. With no easy line off the tee, feeding the ball between the gap up the left or a big tee ball carrying 305 yards over the far right side of the bunkers from the medal tees awaits.

The right grouping of three bunkers eating into the fairway affect play the most and as a result are sure to see the most action over the course of multiple rounds, with the photos below showcasing the variety in obstacles to overcome and the severity of missing here illustrated by the dramatic edges and bunker lips:

A common motif throughout the round at Barnwell is the spacious tee shot immediately greeted with a rollicking green complex, but rarely does the slope feel flippant or haphazardly. Instead, everything feels as if it serves a purpose: The approach to the seventh further reinforces that, with its high left side pad and low right side tier providing obvious separation between the two. Rather than the all-too-common game of angles, where a left pin is better approached from the right side and vice-versa; here, the ideal approach is to play to the side the pin resides in. For example, any pin up the left is best approached from the left, whereas the lower-right tier is better suited to recieve shots from the right side.

A closer look at the green complex from short of the green (left) and from the eighth tee (right):

Eighth hole, 370 yards; alongside the eighth at Barnbougle Dunes, the Fifth at Childress Hall, and the eighteenth at Sedge Valley, this is the third in a family of Tom Doak or Doak-affiliate boomerang-style greens, but the first to not be utilized on a drivable par 4.

After the tighter seventh tee shot, the eighth is back to being a spacious tee shot like the opening six holes.

The eighth’s presentation is so seamless into the landscape that it feels as if that boomerang green was not designed, but rather discovered. Upon further inspection below reveals the fruitful terrain the hole traverses, with the green nestled into the low:

After turning the corner on this gentle dogleg right, the boomerang green reveals itself. From the tee with a front pin, either side of the fairway allows a chance at getting the ball close, but when the pin moves around the back portion, a different story presents itself: to a back-right flag, the far left bunker’s location suggests the best angle in; to a back-left flag, challenging the right side bunker is the line of charm. The pin location is first revealed in the middle of the seventh fairway and those who remember the location are rewarded by playing to the proper side.

The variety presented as a result of not only the boomerang aspect of the green, but the severity of the slope surrounding the green, is sublime, and an easy mention as a standout hole in a golf course full of quality choices. Truthfully, it would be hard to see any writeup of Old Barnwell not including the eighth, whereas one could subtract or add a variety of other holes. By no means is this a difficult hole, but one that requires a bit of thought for the scratch golfer to score. Even though there is an abundance of width on such a short hole, there’s a sense of false-comfort upon completion: from the wrong side of the fairway, getting a wedge or short iron close to a make-able length is decidedly difficult and in a match play scenario, knowing you have to at least have a good chance at a birdie for all skill levels presents this as an equal mental test as it is an execution test.

Looking at the eighth’s green in reverse:

Below, the Sedge Valley rendition for context, which similarly uses the higher surrounds to enunciate the neccesary sides of the fairway to properly play the hole. At both holes, the green wraps around a hillside or knob on the left side, with the raised edges providing the neccesary means to feed balls towards the middle—but rarely the ability to get it close—if the tee shot is out of place.

Tenth hole, 455 yards; Much like the gentle tilt that elegantly defines Merion’s famed Fifth hole, the tenth at Old Barnwell is a graciously presenting hole. Off the tee, a slew of bunkers flanks the left side of the fairway with the complex eventually cutting in and across the fairway: the longer the tee shot, the further right one ought to play; up the left, and the bunkers directly come into the line of play, though it dramatically shortens the length of this middle to longer two-shot hole.

As seen below, the bunkering is extravagent and invasive to the fairway as the orientation of the hole gently swings around them to the left. To draw the Merion comparison once again, the gentle tilt to the left and away from the line of play is subdued and low-resting, with shots played to the front right corner benefitting greatly against those played deeper into the green.

From the eleventh tee, the gently sloping tenth green reveals more secrets than it does coming in from the line of play, and the continued use of Cops further illustrates Old Barnwell’s inspiration to the old English heathlands, Walter Travis, and C.B. Macdonald, among others.

Eleventh hole, 230 yards; After the low-lying, subdued tenth (although to be fair, a flamboyantly bunkered hole), Barnwell’s routing immediately juxtposes itself with the extravgent, in your face Eleventh. At such an eye-popping yardage, one would be hard-pressed not to think this is the hardest single swing on the entire golf course.

The green contours are particularly intrusive and demanding, but the front bunker jutting out to the front right and its surrounding contours do allow for a ground shot to swing around and feed to the lower portion. Much like the seventh, the distinct levels to the green allow a variety of choices into the green: with the pin on the higher right side, a straightforward shot awaits that is more about execution. When the pin is on the lower-left and more protected side, an increase in creativity is required, either through a higher shot coming in, or a lower draw swooping around the bunker.

Twelfth hole, 535 yards; Flanking the low side of the property to the right, most of this reachable par 5 tilts to the right. With that in mind, avoiding the bunkers on both the high side left and the low-right can be a difficult task for most who move the ball left-to-right.

The general tilt of the hole runs through the green, and as you approach the surface, the left side of the green is far more aggressive than the fairway even. At some point during play, the correct (and only) way to be able to play this hole is to get the ball to the right side of the hole… for those going for it in two, that means off the tee, and for a layup, it means playing out to the right. As expected with such an aggressive high left, low-right nature, short and right over the bunker is below the surface, though it provides a much easier shot in even with a more difficult visual.

It is imperative to play into the Twelfth green from the right side of the hole, as evident by the contour in and surrounding the putting surface.

Sixteenth hole, 545 yards; Following the long three-shot Fifteenth, the Sixteenth provides a reasonable chance at birdie with a good drive. The widest fairway on the golf course is more than decieving enough to trick most first or second time visitors: with the visual suggesting far more room left than right, the obvious line is what you can see. However, those hoping to gain a noticable advantage over their playing partners ought to cut the corner in hopes of getting down the hillside with a big tee shot.

The severely tilted fairway lets a low, screaming right-handed fade reap the benefits of getting around the corner, allowing a realistic chance of getting home in two for the longest hitters to use the feeder slope on the direct line over the bunker. For those missing left off the tee, a wide fairway allows the ball to still be played, but the front-left knob comes into focus.

Below, two more views of the tasty green complex cut into the hillside resting below the Sixth tee box, Fifth green complex, and the upcoming penultimate tee box. The front-left knob obstructs the visual for anything left of centre and played away from the deep, grass-down bunker face that protects the feeder slope coming inward. Missing left, as showcased above, features a grassed-down slope to the left of the green and from closely mown Bermuda, is no easy task to get it up-and-down!

Seventeenth hole, 135 yards; After back-to-back par 5’s of nearly 1,200 yards, the short, uphill Seventeenth acts as a amuse bouche coming home. This delicate little uphill wedge or short iron is played to a small, tilted back-to-front green with a severe drop-off left and long, and a touchy, but less abrasive fall-off right.

In truth, these ten holes are just an introduction to Old Barnwell. Depending on one’s taste, you could see any combination of eighteen holes in a Golf Club Atlas Course Profile such as this. The opening hole, as an example, with its cops bunker visual introduction to a green narrowing in the back is an exciting introduction, as is the National Golf Links-infused drivable par 4, 14th up-and-over the bunker complex. Even when its less visually exciting—like the uphill tee shot at the Fifth climbing out of the valley—it presents a unique puzzle piece in the large equation that is unlocking OB’s secrets. Upon completing the round, one has zero doubt that Old Barnwell only gets better with repeat plays and further examination. For that, it might be the perfect member’s course.

There is an argument that there is no such thing as an “instant classic” given a classic takes time to mature and establish itself with age over time, but Old Barnwell feels about as close as one can get to instant stardom in the golf architecture world. As a result, Brian Schneider & Blake Conant have quickly vaulted themselves into the contention for who could and should carry the torch for architecture moving forward, though time will tell. What we do know is Old Barnwell is a captivating, new expression in the world of golf architecture: by using old, unheralded inspiration and tapping into their own experiences in the modern flavour of architecture, Barnwell has a distinct identity that feels neither contrived nor forced, and given Aiken’s soils, foliage, and the property, fits in seamlessly. It is up to Schneider and Conant to continue to keep up the momentum after the success of this layout, but for now, they have firmly inserted themselves as some of the most exciting minds in golf architecture and a dynamic duo every golf architecture fan ought to keep an eye out for moving forward.