1st new private golf course in Greenville, SC in 30 years has nationally known designers behind it

Construction of the first private golf course to be built in Greenville County in three decades will begin in 2025 and a long-time golf course management expert has joined the team.

Kawonu Golf Club will be built on a 290-acre former hunting preserve in southern Greenville County adjacent to the Reedy River.

Barton Tuck, founder of Wingfield Golf Management, joins 30-year golf course designer Scott Ferrell and Andrew Green, a Baltimore designer who has renovated several long-standing courses such as East Lake in Atlanta and Congressional in Bethesda, Maryland.

Ferrell was membership salesman for the PGA Tour, ran the design company for the legendary Gary Player and started a software company to support golf course superintendents.

Tuck will serve as development partner. He founded apartment management company US Shelter in 1972, sold it and developed and managed 60 or so golf courses ever since.

The course will be fully about golf. No residential component, no pool. There will be a restaurant, club house and limited lodging for national guests. Membership is by invitation only. The developers expect to have 600 members, with a mix of local and national golfers.

“We’re creating an enclave that will add a unique concept to the golf landscape of the Upstate,” Ferrell, who lives in Greenville, said in a news release last spring when the course was announced.

Kawonu is the Cherokee word for duck.

The expected opening is spring 2027.