Even under ordinary circumstances, a tee time at Augusta National is tough to come by.
But this week and next — when the famous club is staging a big women’s amateur, followed by an invitational with a green jacket and immorality at stake — for all but a modest host of golfers, securing a booking is impossible
Which doesn’t mean the rest of us are fully out of luck when it comes to memorable golf around these parts. Roughly 30 minutes northeast of Augusta, lies Aiken, S.C., a history-rich city where golf’s roots run particularly wide and deep.
The game in Aiken dates to 1892 and the birth of Palmetto Golf Club, the oldest 18-hole course in the Southeast. Twenty years later came Aiken Golf Club, established as an 11-hole layout before expanding to 18. Both properties have a colorful past and present.
But the story of golf in Aiken is as much about what’s new as what’s old. In recent years the area has seen a remarkable proliferation of marquee courses that have made Aiken one of the country’s most buzzed-about golf destinations.
Earlier this year, GOLF.com spent a week exploring the area. What we found is a golf scene animated as much by the people as the places. We sat down with Jim McNair, who runs Aiken Golf Club as his father did before him, and who designed a par-3 course that has become home to a local First Tee chapter. We toured Tree Farm with Kye Goalby — son of 1968 Masters champion Bob — who had a major hand in its design on behalf of Tour pro Zac Blair. We looped Old Barnwell with Nick Shreiber, founder of a uniquely structured private club built around an unusually ambitious social mission. We also got early looks at two courses still taking shape: the 21 Club, inspired by a lost Alister MacKenzie course in Argentina, and New Holland, which will operate on the UK model — a membership, but with tee times set aside for outside play.
For all its growth, Aiken retains much the same allure that made it a draw for the monied classes in the late 1800s and early 1900s. It’s a rare and appealing hybrid, quaint but cosmopolitan, with horse farms rolling out beyond a downtown that moves at its own unhurried pace. That pace, though, quickens during Masters week, when many of the best courses, new and old, open their tee sheets to outside play (availability varies, so if you’re looking to peg it, check ahead).
As the year’s first major approaches, there’s good reason to head to Augusta. But whenever you make a trip to the area, Aiken is worth a detour.
Watch the full Destination Golf video to see it for yourself.