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REMBERT, S.C. - "Here we are, now entertain us."
Remote golf has been popular ever since Mike Keiser took a chance on building Bandon Dunes a quarter-century ago. In that era, many of America's buzziest and highest-ranked new golf courses tend to be out in the sticks.
It is understandable that developers and architects feel an urgency to make the journey to these golf courses worthwhile. As a result, they have produced several gorgeous designs with significant variety and bold features capable of beguiling visiting golfers for multiple rounds.
The brand-new Broomsedge Golf Club is no different. Located two hours' worth of two-lane country roads west of the Myrtle Beach area and 40 minutes east of Columbia, it is the latest outpost looking to attract intrepid new members and guests to discover and enjoy it as a home away from home. It also plans to provide select opportunities for non-members to visit and play.
Open for preview rounds since late-October 2024 with a more complete unveiling slated for spring 2025, Broomsedge sits squarely on-trend for contemporary golf course design and development. Its course, laid out on 197 acres by architects Kyle Franz and Mike Koprowski, is an intense, dramatic experience that confronts golfers with compelling concepts and challenging questions relentlessly over the course of 18 holes.
Views across the property give a grand feeling, but the fact that 15 greens and their broomsticks - bound-up bunches of the titular Andropogon virginicus instead of flags - are visible from the first tee also lends a sense of cohesion. Peering across the course, seeing other groups enjoying the day, lends a sense of community to a round.
Tall, sparse stands of pine accent generous parallel hole corridors, with expanses of firm, orange-brown sand planted with broom by the thousands and expansive areas of reddish centipede grass bordering broad, rolling Tifway 419 Bermuda fairways. These colors comprise an attractive palette along with the white sand of the bunkers.
And those bunkers pop out at virtually every turn. There are nearly 150 of them at Broomsedge, ranging from deep to downright cavernous in a variety of sizes. They guard preferred landing zones and at least one side of 17 greens. The only unbunkered green, at the refreshingly uncluttered par-4 4th hole, trades sand for a different sort of penalty. The hole runs hard along the course boundary and a long line of white stakes.
Reliance on sand to confront and confound the golfer is characteristic of Franz's work; he has cited George Thomas as an influence, and bunkers define the challenge to a great extent at Riviera and Los Angeles Country Club, Thomas' most famous championship courses. Franz's own Karoo Course at Cabot Citrus Farms in Florida is a maelstrom of sandscapes of all kinds alongside wide fairways and heaving greens. Rake manufacturers rejoice.
Broomsedge's routing spirals outward in three loops, wandering the saucepan-shaped property in generally counterclockwise fashion. The first five holes sit in the panhandle; holes 6 through 9 form a triangle that returns close to the temporary clubhouse; and the second nine wanders the perimeter of the property, with occasional switchbacks keeping players off-kilter when the wind blows.
The course begins with a quartet of four long par fours out of the gate before an attractive par 3 - the first of two in a row and three in four holes - that plays across a valley to "The Pig," a squat pink house that predates the golf course and serves as the temporary clubhouse until a new one is erected soon. Players' long irons and hybrids will need to be sharp early, especially from various hanging lies.
The rest of the course unfolds on a broad, gently rolling paddock with uninterrupted views in all directions. This is where Broomsedge really gets good, with standout holes like the par-3 8th, whose maximum scorecard yardage is 311 yards (the whole-course tips stretch to 7,501 yards, par 70), and the par-5 9th, which plays diagonally across crackling sandy washouts to a sloping fairway that runs downhill to a green with all sorts of sucker hole locations.
The back is the stronger of Broomsedge's two nines, but it also features the one moment where the course bubbles over briefly. The par-4 13th is one of two "course-within-a-course" holes (another Thomas concept), where two different greens can be used depending on the day's setup. The high-right of these greens is guarded by one of the most audacious bunker complexes in America: 15 of them carved into a diagonal ridge like a chunky Bakelite necklace. Ultimately, the scene is more chaotic than attractive, interrupting what might be the best single vista on the course: the view from the 13th tee all the way back to and beyond The Pig.
The overheated 13th is followed by a shortish par 4 playing back the opposite way with a dozen bunkers of its own lining both sides of the fairway and green. Many higher-handicap golfers will end up failing to complete one or both of these holes, making for a dispiriting experience at a time that could otherwise be the most inspiring part of the round.
This stressful stretch amounts to a momentary departure, though. One place Broomsedge excels is on the greens, which are well-contoured but never threaten to abuse the golfer, except after a grave tactical error. Some of Franz's green designs elsewhere can feel overbearing, but here, the balance between concave and convex features is on point, with many seemingly foreboding hole locations becoming accessible via indirect routes. Several wide but shallow greens make tee-shot planning important due to fronting knobs or obscuring bunkers.
The best hole on the course is the dogleg-left par-4 17th, which tacks to the left around a nest of three modest, bearded bunkers on its way to an at-grade green that rises to a mini-promontory in the back. This hole would be right at home in England's belt of world-class heathland golf courses; copper broomsedge can fairly be considered the southeast's answer to purple heather.
As Broomsedge Golf Club builds out - practice facilities, a clubhouse and several four-bedroom cottages will come online in the next 12 to 24 months - it will attain a strong position in the emerging debate over South Carolina's best new golf courses, including The Tree Farm (Kye Goalby) and Old Barnwell (Brian Schneider and Blake Conant) near Aiken, Old Sawmill (Tyler Rae) down towards Charleston and the yet-to-be-built Kawonu (Andrew Green) close to Greenville. It's an exciting time in the Palmetto State, and Kyle Franz and Mike Koprowski's new effort helps bring the noise.
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