South Carolina course, designed and built by Franz and Koprowski, scheduled for soft opening this fall
REMBERT, South Carolina – Broomsedge Golf Club, the latest headline addition to the flourishing South Carolina golf scene, has reached a major construction milestone as sodding of its golf course begins.
The Broomsedge design and build team, led by co-architects Kyle Franz and Mike Koprowski, has selected Tifway 419 Bermuda grass for the fairways and tees. The greens will be sprigged with another strain of Bermuda, TifEagle, once average temperatures increase in late spring. The course will not have any maintained rough, as fairways will bleed into native areas containing the club’s namesake broomsedge grass and other flora.
Sodding and sprigging of all 18 holes is expected to be completed by August, with the course ready for preview play in October.
“We’re excited to kick off the grow-in phase and begin bringing even more life to the site,” said Mike Koprowski, co-architect and co-owner of Broomsedge. “This is an important time for the project and we’re fortunate to have club superintendent Shawn Fettig managing the process. He’s the perfect person to ensure we remain on track for our anticipated soft opening this fall, thanks to his extensive professional experience with Bermuda grass at well-known courses across the South, including Old Town Club in Winston-Salem.”
Broomsedge is located in the Sandhills region of the Palmetto State, 30 minutes east of Columbia. Amid a setting reminiscent of North Carolina’s famed Pinehurst Resort and the aforementioned Old Town Club, Franz and Koprowski have set out to capture the tenets of classic golf course design practiced and perfected by masters like Donald Ross, George Crump and George Thomas.
Inspired by these three legends of Golden Age architecture, Broomsedge features a flexible design capable of testing the country’s most elite amateurs while remaining enjoyable for players of all abilities. But no matter a player’s index, strategy will always be of paramount importance. Some design highlights include:
- Putting surfaces with classic contouring that ties into the surrounding topography
- Preservation of shot values off the tee, while still providing enough width to maintain the fundamental importance of angles to strategic design
- Incorporation of property boundaries into lines of play; this is reminiscent of the Old Course at St. Andrews and others built more than a century ago
- Several holes that may change par from day-to-day depending on tee locations and weather conditions
- 20 green sites for 18 holes, further promoting setup flexibility
Blessed with an exceptional soil profile, the club’s 235-acre site possesses unusually dramatic elevation changes for the Carolina Sandhills. It is made even more unique by an assortment of valleys, ridgelines, spines and chasms. These attributes allowed Franz and Koprowski to move a minimal amount of dirt when fashioning playing corridors and green sites across the course’s intimate 156-acre footprint.
Koprowski, who discovered the land in 2021, was so confident in its immense potential for great golf that he bought it himself before having any fellow investors. He and Franz are focused on leveraging its enviable natural characteristics with a routing that is a throwback to bygone days of course design.
“As new builds have been increasingly focused on maximizing size and scale, ours is a departure from this trend,” said Koprowski. “For example, from the first tee players will be able to see no fewer than 15 different green sites. We’re creating something a bit more scaled down than what’s currently popular in golf design, and reflective of how courses were conceived and routed 100 years ago.”
“The piece of land Mike found for Broomsedge may be the best I’m working on right now,” added Franz. “It’s not only a great site, but the design is really cool as we’ve created a course that will challenge the best players yet still be extremely fun for higher handicaps.”
Since purchasing the land in 2022, Koprowski has been gradually joined by a collection of co-founders, all of whom are passionate about creating a club that combines classic golf course architecture with a fun and relaxed vibe. Their shared vision for Broomsedge also includes hosting significant amateur championships in the near future.
As golf course construction and grow-in wraps up, master planning for the club’s next phase is well underway and highlighted by the development of onsite lodging. Comfortable yet well-appointed cottages are expected to be available by Q2 2025. They will be built just steps away from the driving range, practice putting green, clubhouse and first tee.
“Our goal at Broomsedge is to cultivate a small and engaged membership that shares a deep appreciation for the game,” said David McFarlin, a club co-founder and its director of membership. “Many of our initial members are accomplished amateurs, representing an impressive nationwide collection of private clubs, who’re seeking a place to gather with other elite players.”
