The best kept secret in American golf is in a rural town just outside of Chattanooga, Tennessee—South Pittsburg. Have you heard of it? Probably not. Sweetens Cove Golf Club is this wonderful golf playground that I am speaking of. It seems to only be known by golf sickos although it is gaining in popularity. Fortunately for me I grew up in North Alabama and currently live in Nashville. The hour and a half drive from Nashville is slightly longer than the drive to South Pittsburg is from Huntsville. An hour and a half for arguably the best golf in the United States? Count me in.
Sweetens is everything that is right with golf. It seems the only rules are to have fun and don’t inhibit anyone else’s ability to have fun. It is a 9 hole course that you can play all day (you literally can play all day, they sell day passes). Want to play with 5 other people? Go for it, just don’t slow up the course. The course sells the right amount of passes that slow play is never really an issue.
In order to explain the Sweetens experience, we have to start with the drive to the course. Once you turn onto the road that the course is on, you see nothing but woods and houses. You probably wonder if you have taken a wrong turn somewhere. Once you get to almost the end of that road, it really opens up and you see a wonderful plot of relatively flat land in a valley with beautiful mountains surrounding you. This part of the experience for me is where the nostalgia begins. My grandpa lives in a nearby area and he taught me to play golf on a course in the Tennessee Valley that has similar surroundings—the mountains, the sound of nature, the smell, it is a similar vibe and it is something that I can't get living in the city. After you park your car, you will head to the clubhouse (which is literally a blue shack) and check in. There will be people outside of the clubhouse waiting to get started—mingling, putting on the magnificent practice green beside the clubhouse (there is not a driving range), stretching, etc. Once it is time, the pro will start checking people in and sending their groups to their starting hole to tee off. Before heading to tee off, everyone will take a ceremonial free shot of bourbon that was brought by people who have come previously. When it is your second time back, you are supposed to bring a bottle in order to keep this tradition going. Now, after your shot of bourbon, you head to the tee and get the round(s) started. You might get greeted by the pros dog before you head out as well if you are lucky.
Let's start with #1 since it is the starting hole (although it may not be the hole that you start on). Depending on the tees that you decide to play, you are either teeing off from behind the practice green or teeing off 50 yards down along the tree line. #1 is a par 5 that is reachable in 2 for most people. There are woods and trees down the left side along with a waste bunker, and there is a waste bunker on the right center side as well that is in play. After hitting your drive and either a long iron or a wood with your second shot, you will either be on or near the green. The greens are massive at Sweetens Cove and they have 2 pins on each green (you are supposed to play to the same color flag on each hole and change after 9, or play toward whichever you hit it closest to if you want to do it that way). The greens have lots of slope and undulation and allow for lots of really fun shots to be played. This is a great starting hole because once you finish it, you are either in for a fight already or you have a birdie or an eagle on your scorecard.
#2 is a par 4 that is also relatively short. This course isn’t long by any standards but it is great for a match play environment. This is a straightaway hole with a small but deep bunker in the middle of the fairway that I thankfully have avoided every time I’ve played the hole. There is a slope on the right side that slopes toward the fairway that is beneficial if you go right. I play the hole driver wedge typically but there are many different types of ways to play this hole.
#3 is another par 5 that is reachable in 2 if you are better at the game of golf than I am. Miss left with your drive and you are in the trees, miss right and you are in a waste bunker. Your second shot will probably be impacted by a giant tree directly in front of the green. If you miss the green long, there is another waste area back there that will affect you.
#4 is the only hole that is named and is the signature hole at Sweetens Cove. It is called "King" and it is the largest green on the property. This is a par 3 that will have you hitting anywhere from a wedge to probably a 4 iron depending on where the pins are located on that particular day and round. It is a blind tee shot if you play from certain tees and makes for a nerve-racking but fun shot.
#5 is a drivable par 4 and I believe the shortest par 4 on the property. This a hole that many people probably should lay up on but I’ve never seen anyone lay up. There is a waste bunker down the right side and the left side isn’t a great spot to hit it as well. If you try to drive the green and miss short, you will end up in possibly the deepest bunker on the property (which is called the devil’s asshole). With a name like that, that is a place you never want to be.
#6 is another par 4 that plays slightly as a dog-left left. It is pretty much the only hole that brings water in play. If you hit a good drive, your second shot will become much easier than if you blow it way right. The green slopes from right to left towards the water and depending on the flag that you go after, you can have a really tough look that brings water in play even if you thought you hit a decent shot. Land on the wrong slope on this green and your ball is either in the waste bunker behind the green or in the water.
#7 is another drivable par 4. Except it is a pretty narrow fairway and there is a waste bunker that you can drive it in if you miss to the right. Hitting the fairway will leave you with a flip wedge, but if you miss the wrong part of the green, your ball might roll back to your feet.
#8 is a pretty standard par 4 but like everything else at Sweetens, it is very much not standard and very unique architecture. There are bunkers in play on this hole from the left as well as a tree-line on the right side. This is a large fairway, but missing it makes things tough. The green on this hole is massive and the angle that needs to be taken depends on the pin placement.
#9 is the par 3 finishing hole. This green slopes from right to left and the entire hole plays over a waste bunker. There is a bunker behind the green as well which makes for potentially high scores if you miss the green.
Some elements that Sweetens has that you only see in select parts of the golf world are the lack of rough and the severe slopes that kick your ball off the green if you don’t hit it in the right spots. There is some rough at Sweetens but around the greens, it is bunkering or very short grass that will make your ball roll well off the green. Good shots get rewarded and misses turn into bad scores. This is the highest praise that a golf course can have in my book. After playing 9, you can just go do it again and play to a different pin and maybe even use different tees in order to play totally different golf while still playing the same hole on paper. Whenever you finish playing golf, go in the clubhouse and get some merch. Sweetens Cove has a cool logo and mainly all of their stuff should be in my closet.
One thing that was added in between my first and most recent times playing at Sweetens Cove was #10. The 10th hole isn’t on the scorecard and it doesn’t show up in the routing. The 10th hole is a tee-box that is in the front yard of a house along #1 that can be played at roughly 120 yards. This house can be rented and can act as a good place to chill to breakup your day (you can leave the property and come back as long as you have a day pass). There is no food on property so most leave and grab a bite to eat and then come back and start playing more golf. Back to the house, it is owned by the No Laying Up crew and is called the NLU Birdhouse. I have yet to stay in the house but it is decked out in golf and NLU memorabilia and would be a great place for medium to large groups to stay.
I did say that Sweetens Cove is the best kept secret in American golf but it is something that everyone who loves the game should check out, even if it makes it not so much of a secret anymore.
above: #2 at Sweetens Cove Golf Course Nov 2022
above: the massive practice green at Sweetens Cove Golf Course August 2020
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