Unless you happen to live in the Piedmont Triad of North
Carolina or follow Wake Forest University’s golf program, you’ve probably
not heard of the Old Town Club. Quietly traditional down to its very name, this
Perry Maxwell design is anonymous to most but revered by all who know it.
Among those in the know is Tom Doak, who placed
Old Town alongside Cypress Point and Pine Valley in the “worth groveling to play”
list in his Confidential Guide to Golf Courses.
Its entrance is subtly marked; for that matter, so is the 1st
tee, situated just steps from the clubhouse door. “If it weren’t for these two
tee markers, golfers would never know this was a tee,” says Kris Spence, a golf
course restoration specialist from nearby Greensboro.
The club’s spirit of tradition continues to reveal itself
throughout the 6,907-yard layout. Wooden flagsticks and cast-iron cups are
throwbacks to yesteryear. Old stone walls—relics from the property’s previous
incarnation as a horse farm—rise here and there on the course like ancient
ruins
This relaxed, golf-first atmosphere has been in place since
the club’s beginnings in 1938. That year a handful of Forsyth Country Club
members met to vent about the rapidly expanding membership that was crowding
their beloved Donald Ross design. The movement for a new facility was led by
Charlie Babcock, who, along with his wife, Mary Reynolds Babcock of the Reynolds
tobacco family, donated 170 acres.
