When Tobacco Road first came to life, Stewart trusted the legendary architect Strantz to produce an unconventional design, and he gave similar leeway to the minds behind the short course.<\/p>\n
The Matchbox\u2019s ninth hole draws on the mounds from Tobacco Road\u2019s opening shot, which requires golfers to drive their ball between two imposing mounds.<\/p>\n
\u201cMike casts a long shadow over everything we do,\u201d Stewart said. \u201cThe success of (his original design) has allowed us to do something else here, so it was only fitting that we take a big nod and a bow and to Mike Strantz for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Short course uses synthetic turf<\/p>\n
Stewart said the short course used synthetic turf because it was the best way to keep most of the trees intact. Plus, he said the material has made tremendous progress in recent years to replicate some of the feel of natural grass.<\/p>\n
Marshall said the shapers would have had to clear 50-70% of the trees around The Matchbox if they had wanted to install natural grass, whereas they removed only about 10% while using artificial turf.<\/p>\n
Synthetic turf also requires far less maintenance and irrigation than natural grass, as the daily care requires just about an hour to clear off pine straw and other debris with a leaf blower, Marshall said.<\/p>\n
Marshall said each hole has multiple tee boxes, with each closer one providing a more difficult shot. While counterintuitive, the tight angles and challenge of holding a ball on the green make the shorter shots more challenging than the back tees.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou might have 30 different combinations off one shot,\u201d Marshall said, \u201cdepending on where the flag\u2019s at. It\u2019s definitely not going to get repetitive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Embracing the scenery<\/p>\n
Marshall said the course isn\u2019t \u201chard\u201d because most players can use their highest lofted wedge to get around the entire track. But he suspects it will appeal to golfers who enjoy competing hole by hole.<\/p>\n
Adding to The Matchbox\u2019s difficulty, the fifth hole even has a tree growing out of the green, with an option to place the pin directly behind it. The distinctiveness of the feature wasn\u2019t even really planned, the architects said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were just kind of embracing the scenery,\u201d Carlton said. \u201cWe\u2019d rather (have) left the tree there than to take it down.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Matchbox includes holes with trees growing from its greens. Tobacco Road Golf Club. A bonus hole<\/p>\n
The Matchbox also has a bonus hole that will allow Tobacco Road golfers to experience the short course during a regular round. Tucked beside the No. 12 and 13 holes of the main course, the short course features a \u201c12.5\u201d hole for golfers to play while waiting on the tee box.<\/p>\n
Often, that part of the main course gets backed up, and the architects had extra space to add a hole, so they added the \u201c12.5\u201d hole as another quirk of the short course.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, The Matchbox, just like Tobacco Road\u2019s main course, won\u2019t be for everyone. Golf purists, Marshall said, might dislike it. But appealing to traditionalists has never been the main focus of Tobacco Road, and their pitch to everyone is to see it themselves.<\/p>\n
Tee times for The Matchbox will open at $75.<\/p>\n
\u201c(Tobacco Road) is not even unorthodox,\u201d Marshall said. \u201cIt\u2019s a really good design. It\u2019s just something that was deemed as not the traditional golf design 30 years ago, and we tried to emulate that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Related Stories from Raleigh News & Observer<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tobacco Road Golf Club is unconventional, with the Sanford course forcing golfers to navigate around large dunes and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":793735,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,99],"class_list":["post-793734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=793734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793734\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/793735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=793734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=793734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=793734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}