Golf in Matthews

Host of the PGA’s Wyndham Championship from 1977 to 2007, Forest Oaks Country Club’s private course incorporates natural elements such as looming trees and severely sloping hills with manmade sand traps and water obstacles, challenging beginning and experienced golfers alike. Opened in 1962, the terrain was renovated in 2002 after the renowned Love Golf Design group reached out to professional golfers to find out what makes an ideal course. The main improvement, helmed by Davis Love III, was the resprigging of the fairway with bermuda grass, a strain of turf that can handle extreme temperature changes, and a redesign of the new greens. The course was featured on the PGA for over 30 years, and was enjoyed by Davis Love III as well as Rocco Mediate and many other professionals. While the golf course is the main attraction, the club also houses a pro shop, a 25-yard professional-size swimming pool, tennis courts, and a restaurant.

The clubhouse at Beacon Ridge Golf & Country Club is an ivory monument of colonial-era gentility with four columns and a neoclassical façade inspired by George Washington’s plantation home at Mount Vernon. Though impressive in its own right, the stately manor is hardly out of place when compared to the club’s golf course. Visitors to the grounds are greeted by a 6,494-yard circuit of well-kept bermuda fairways and penncross-bentgrass greens that winds through towering Carolina pines and bunkers of sand so pristinely white that they appear to be crushed marble or genetically evolved snowflakes that adapted to withstand the summer swelter.

The course reflects the vision of architect Gene Hamm, who showcases the natural charms of the North Carolina Sandhill region with rolling fairways, contoured greens, and water that comes into play on five holes. Tricky shot-making opportunities abound throughout the layout, especially at the 542-yard, par-5 fourth—the course’s most difficult hole—where golfers must clear a pond with their drive before navigating a fairway that doglegs sharply to the left as it approaches the green. To prepare for their round, golfers can stock up on divot tools or tees to use as toothpicks at the pro shop or warm up their swing and putting stroke at the synthetic-turf driving range and practice green.

Designed by golf legend Arnold Palmer, Birkdale Golf Club’s course transforms natural beauty into challenging obstacles, with 200 acres of rolling hills intersected by streams and framed by mature pines. The course’s bermuda fairways lie beyond elevation changes that give way to greenscapes festooned with ponds and deep, stone-lined bunkers that test players to use every club in their bags before desperately reaching for the oversized soup ladle. Once approach shots find the green, golfers must putt precisely atop the firm and true crenshaw bentgrass greens.

Birkdale Golf Club pampers players before and after rounds with a practice range and onsite tavern trimmed with rich wood hues and green leather barstools. The club also staffs a team of PGA pro instructors who school pupils in the arts of swinging and scorecard penmanship with private lessons and group clinics.

Course at a Glance:

• Par 72
• Four sets of tees
• Length of 7,013 yards from back tees
• Course rating of 74.3 from back tees
• Slope rating of 138 from back tees

After 13 years as a golf instructor, Gary Sinquefield has boiled his teaching style down to a simple method that involves focusing on each player's swinging motions and eliminating extraneous movements. By simplifying the often convoluted and conflicting messages of swing improvement, Gary makes it possible for players of all skill levels to develop a consistent swing that stands up even during high winds or airport-security pat-downs. During private lessons, students take shots inside a golf simulator while Gary scrutinizes swing tendencies from every angle and shot type. A video camera records the process frame by frame for later analysis so that golfers can see swing tendencies such as poor alignment or signs of repeated sweaty-palm syndrome. At the end of the lesson, players leave with an action plan to develop their game.

Designed by three-time U.S. Open champion Hale Irwin, the course at Waterford Golf Club hugs the banks of the Catawba River, immersing players in a wooded landscape teeming with natural obstacles and omnipresent waterways. Golfers must manipulate the flight, angle, and lethargic attitude of their shots to avoid dense thickets of towering hardwoods that line Bermuda fairways and water that comes into play on 16 of 18 holes.

Players tee off from one of four sets of tees, each named after a world-famous course, and send shots skyward in pursuit of a final resting place on bentgrass greens. Pre- or post-round, players can hit range balls or piñatas filled with divot tools off of grass tees or hone short-game finesse at the club's practice facility.

Course at a Glance:

• 18-hole, par 72 course
• Total length of 6,942 yards from the back tees
• Course rating of 72.9 from the back tees
• Course slope of 137 from the back tees
• Four sets of tees per hole
• Scorecard

Part of a small minority of golf coaches who have attained the rarefied title of PGA Master Professional in Instruction, Scott Fossum has honed swings with a results-oriented approach for 18 years. Scott molds sputtering swings into reliable motions by first developing solid contact and direction control before, if necessary, helping golfers add distance to their shots by teaching them how to hit the cart path every time. In lessons, the incisive instructor often relies on video swing analysis to enhance his own diagnostic skills and help golfers gain a better understanding of their own natural swings. Having logged more than 1,200 hours each year conducting lessons at Charlotte Golf Links, Scott sprinkles golf wisdom onto players of all abilities, from fine-tuning the herculean drives of low handicappers to teaching youngsters how to tame a bucking golf cart in junior development programs.