South – Ultra Golfing

Under new ownership, South Carolina club embraces British model

admin — Sat, 28 Mar 2026 21:19:46 +0000

Every year, legions of American golfers fly to the British Isles to enjoy the game the UK way—on members’ courses that open their gates to outside play. Then they wing home to the United States, where such democratic welcomes at top private clubs are vanishingly rare.

From its birth nearly two years ago, Broomsedge Golf Club has counted among the exceptions. Now it’s going further.

Late last week the club announced that Baker Thompson has come on as majority owner and CEO. Thompson is no stranger to this corner of the golf world: he served as a founding member and club captain of the Lido, the highly-regarded Wisconsin club that sets aside a tranche of tee times for guests of Sand Valley just across the road. Thompson arrives with an ambitious build-out already in motion: four-bedroom cottages for members and guests and a food-and-beverage venue overlooking the course, with a second golf course to follow. Along the lines of such marquee courses as Ballybunion, North Berwick and Royal Dornoch, members and their guests will get priority but outsider will be able to book rooms and golf as well. “It felt like a great fit to be able to take Broomsedge to the next level and continue to embrace the UK/Lido model,” Thompson told Golf.com.

Situated in Rembert, S.C., on the same sandy belt that underlies Pinehurst two hours to the north, Broomsedge was built differently from the start. The driving force behind it was Mike Koprowski, an Air Force veteran who spent years as a policy analyst in Washington before pivoting to golf course design. Among his inspirations was Sand Hills, the pioneering minimalist layout in Nebraska that has long allowed non-members who have never played the course to request a tee time by writing a letter. Koprowski benefited from that policy firsthand, having gotten on the course that way with his father. After finding the Rembert site and financing its purchase with a military loan, he collaborated with architect Kyle Franz on a lay-of-the-land layout that runs across an unruly, pine-framed parcel. When Broomsedge opened in the fall of 2024, it adopted the Sand Hills stance: private, but not entirely sealed shut. Non-members could request a tee time, once.

Thompson first encountered Broomsedge on a trip south with Sand Valley co-developer Michael Keiser, and came away struck by the movement of the land and the piney terrain that framed it. Keiser is not an investor in Broomsedge but he has been a booster from the beginning and has now signed on as an advisor, a role he sees as paying forward the counsel he’s received from others, among them Sand Hills developer Dick Youngscap, Cabot co-founder Ben Cowan-Dewar, and his father, Bandon Dunes developer Mike Keiser. “Americans have always benefited overseas from the welcoming nature of clubs in the British Isles,” Keiser said. “There’s no reason that won’t work here.”

Until now, Broomsedge has operated with barebones infrastructure, including a pro shop run out of a trailer. The build-out and the club’s embrace of the British model comes at a pivotal time for Broomsedge and an interesting time in the industry. As it is in so many places, golf is booming across the Carolinas, with new courses sprouting across the sandhills and beyond. Most of the development is private. While appetite for top-tier golf is real, the access, for most players, is not. Broomsedge stands out in the balance it aims strike.

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LIV Golf came to South Africa. Then South Africa showed up

admin — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 04:20:42 +0000

JOHANNESBURG — It’s not so much that Bryson DeChambeau signed autographs to the point his neck hurt Thursday evening. It’s that he kind of promised he would.

After taking a share of the first round at LIV South Africa, DeChambeau walked into the media center for a press conference and declared he’d sign for every last fan. By the time he walked out of the press center, more than 30 minutes later, the horde was still waiting. Children poking their heads through gaps in the fence. Men climbing up onto the platform to get closer to him.

DeChambeau likes to sign — it “re-energizes” him, he says — but this session was notable for what he was signing. Gloves, hats, flags — sure. But also umbrellas poked his way. An umbrella case. Backpacks. Even shoes from fans hopping around on one leg, and shirts from sweaty chest-bearers squeezed in among the fully clothed.

DeChambeau knows too well how pro-golf event promotion goes. Every tournament promises to be great. Some offer a headliner course; others assemble a loaded field. Some sell a great amount of tickets; others are endlessly hyped . . . and yet still flop.

LIV events have worked in some locations, and not so well in others. LIV promoters have learned that in the last four years. For months they’ve been selling their first African event as something special, something different, but you just never know. This is LIV’s third tournament in three weeks. Most players flew west to Hong Kong, then further west to Singapore, then really far west to Africa. When the week wraps, the westward migration will continue, to America. The Masters is 13 days away.

But LIV always had this week circled based on ticket demand. Since the event was announced in July, ticket sales rivaled only LIV’s most popular event, in Australia. The league then added a surprise bonus 18 holes to its tournaments, which meant it could sell another full day of tickets. And sell they did. Just this week, LIV issued more tickets for the South Africa stop, and the league says it has moved 90,000 of them.

Official attendance figures won’t be released until week’s end, but on Thursday the grounds here at the Club at Steyn City did not lack for activity. There were fans after DeChambeau’s round elbowing each other to get a closer look at LIV’s biggest star. And fans during DeChambeau’s round rushing him after a flared drive, shoving a phone into his hands and begging him to take a selfie. Thousands more spectators seemingly walked all 18 holes of this hilly course with DeChambeau and another big draw this week: Louis Oosthuizen, who is captain of the all-South African Southern Guards team.

Bryson DeChambeau snaps a selfie with a fan’s phone Thursday.

getty images

“Me and Charl [Schwartzel] just stood there talking a little bit, and I was there watching his tee shot,” Oosthuizen said after the round. “I was tearing up a little bit. I put my glasses on because I felt so proud, and then Charl just said he felt the same way.”

Added Schwartzel, who played in the group ahead of Oosthuizen’s: “Very few times you get to experience in your career where your hair stands up and you get these needles going through your body. I was walking up there [on the first tee], and it was just so loud, and I started tearing up. I was like, Wow, I need to hit a tee shot but I’m busy crying.”

Their teammate, Dean Burmester, said much the same during an on-course interview. Their fourth teammate, Branden Grace, meanwhile, is one shot off the lead. As a quartet, the South Africans are leading the team competition by one. Their general manager, Richard Glover, has worked in sport in this vast country for over 15 years. He’s been promising people only one thing should the Southern Guards win the team event.

The biggest party they’ve ever seen.

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Extensive renovation wrapped up at popular South Carolina golf course

admin — Thu, 29 Jan 2026 06:18:05 +0000

Golf course architect Brandon Johnson, a longtime design protégé of Arnold Palmer, has completed an extensive renovation to King’s North. The layout was originally designed by Palmer and opened in 1973 at Myrtle Beach National in South Carolina.

King’s North is open for play now, and the club plans a March 2 grand reopening celebration for the layout that was ranked by Golfweek’s Best as the No. 18 public-access course in the state before the renovation and is likely to climb.

The work to King’s North was completed in two phases, with the renovations to the front nine in 2024 and the back nine in 2025. Fairway corridors were restored, and vegetation was removed in areas to expose long views across a property that boasts no residential encroachment. Greens and surrounds were reimagined, with the putting surfaces expanded and reshaped.

The work to the bunkers and exposed sand, with a focus on a more rugged and natural aesthetic while remaining playable, is beautiful. Some hazards were relocated, and the strategic intent was boosted at what has been one of the most popular golf courses in Myrtle Beach for decades.

“Golfers who have played King’s North before are going to be blown away by how different it plays,” Johnson, who worked as an associate for Palmer Design for 17 years and now leads Brandon Johnson Golf Course Design, said in a media release. “This wasn’t about small tweaks. We leaned into bold ideas – restoring width, creating new angles and building green complexes that reward creativity and thought. Every hole now asks a question.

“The course has greater depth now. The more you play it, the more you will appreciate what’s there. … If Mr. Palmer were standing on the first tee today, I think he’d recognize the soul of the course and be proud of how far it’s been pushed.”

King’s North is operated by Founders Group International, which owns 21 Myrtle Beach-area courses. King’s North is one of three courses at Myrtle Beach National, along with the West Course and SouthCreek.

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