Old Barnwell

Architects Brian Schneider and Blake Conant borrowed classic design principles and applied them in a fresh way on a sandy parcel of rolling land outside of Aiken. The firmness of the turf that superintendent Davis Verner routinely achieves (thanks, in part, to an absence of overseeding) allow the nuances of this design to sparkle. Half-par holes abound. Can you reach the open but long green at the par-5 opener? Should you drive try to the 2nd or 14th greens? (If you try and fail, the hunter quickly becomes the hunted as deep bunkers guard these two short 4s.) Can you use the mounds at the par-4 8th to kick an approach close on the inverted L-shaped green? Or how about trying to bounce one onto the rolling green at the 235-yard 11th? Meanwhile, the rust color of the centipede rough lends this open course a heathland-like feel. Completing the ideal is the club’s ethos of giving back to the game and the community, as established by Old Barnwell founder Nick Schreiber.