Old Town Club in North Carolina is a private country club from 1939 designed by Perry Maxwell.
I played the course in November 2016 with a member of the club. The weather was chilly in the morning but soon became nice and warm with hardly any wind. The greens were running 12-13 on the stimp and was playing really difficult. Your putting will be challenged on this course, even at slower greens. They were building a new spa and swimming pool whilst I was visiting and it is a really nice country club where I could spend countless days playing golf and enjoying the facilities.
the course
First hole is a downhill drive that leaves you a mid iron to the green if you come up short of the hazard running along across the fairway. I hit an 8 iron for my second shot and finished pin high on the left-hand side of the green. Pretty difficult putt that first went significantly uphill and then downhill towards the pin. My first 3 putt and a bogey.
5th hole is dogleg left and as you can see from above a green that you want to miss anywhere really. I hit a good drive a pitching wedge for my 2 shot that was just long of the flag. However it left me with a downhill right to left putt which was really quick and resulted in another 3 putt and I had 3 x 3 putts on the front nine.
A beautiful par 3 playing just under 160m that day. A large green that you preferably want to be on in the middle to left hand side to avoid run off areas. My 6 iron ended up 4m left of the pin and I made my only birdie of the day.
the back nine at Old Town Club
Another good par 3 playing 178m and you have water on the left and a big bunker the right, needless to say – just hit the green…
my experience
I was reasonably happy with my front nine score of 39 with 3×3 putts and 100% fairways hit + almost 80% greens. The back nine was a disaster with 46 shots. The course was in good shape overall and after the first 6 holes my putting had adjusted better to the greens. We played from the blue tees and that was a good test of golf at just over 6000m. I would certainly like to try this course again and try to improve on my score.
