SUMTER, S.C. – On a hot July afternoon, Eric Pedersen sat in a golf cart beneath a huge cypress tree, gazing out on a rolling sea of sand dotted with oaks, shallow depressions and a handful of emerald islands – future fairways, bunkers and greens at Quixote Club, currently under construction on a 169-acre site formerly occupied by Sunset Country Club.
“From here (the 11th green and 12th tee, the property’s highest point), you can see most of the golf course,” Pedersen said. “The teaching center will be there,” he said, pointing toward nearby Pinewood Road, “the driving range there.”
He smiled. “It’s going to be something to see.”
The private club’s November opening is four months of growing-in away, but already Pedersen, the club’s head golf professional, can envision a special course. Special in its traditional design and historic roots, but also, he said, special in its non-golf mission.
The $13-million project of brothers Greg and Lewis Thompson, owners of Sumter’s Thompson Construction Group, and designed by Pinehurst, N.C., architect Kris Spence (in conjunction with Jack Nicklaus II’s Nicklaus Design), will produce a 6,800-yard, par-70 layout with some ties to Sunset’s 1922 origins, but that more closely resembles old-school, rustic designs such as Pinehurst (N.C.) No. 2 and New Jersey’s Pine Valley Golf Club, ranked No. 1 in the U.S.
The name Quixote – from Greg Thompson’s wife’s Quixote Hospitality, which operates local fine-dining restaurant Hampton’s, Sumter Original Brewery, the Sidebar restaurant/bar, and Sumter’s Hyatt Place hotel – also refers to what Pedersen calls the Thompsons’ “Impossible Dream” of funding the Sumter STEAM Charter School, due to begin operations in Fall 2021.
Initiation fees for the private club range from $7,500 for individuals to $18,500 for corporate memberships; of those fees, $2,500 and $5,000, respectively, go to the school’s Quixote Foundation. The educational mission is similar to that of Ridgeland’s Congaree Golf Club, an exclusive private club founded by Texans Dan Friedkin, chairman of The Friedkin Group, and the late Robert C. “Bob” McNair, former owner of the Houston Texans, who created a club model based on support of education.
Greg Thompson, a Congaree member, says that inspired his “golf with a purpose” model. “That makes you feel good about being a part of it, helping kids through golf,” the 57-year-old said. “It was a blueprint for us: what could we do through golf for the community.”
Quixote aspires to more than just funding a school, though. The Thompsons are part of a “Destination Sumter” project to rebuild their hometown’s infrastructure, hurt by losses of manufacturing jobs.
“We started the revitalization 13 years ago to have a strong downtown,” Greg Thompson said. “We also weren’t satisfied that Sumter couldn’t have a really nice golf club; we said we can make this a drawing card.”
That was Spence’s goal, too, though also for personal reasons. Known for his renovation work – he oversaw updates of Furman University Golf Course and the Country Club of Spartanburg (both 2008), Camden Country Club (2013) and Rock Hill Country Club (2014) – “selfishly, I hope this gives me the opportunity to build other courses” of his own design, he said.
“Though I’m working for Greg, he’s let me run with it, and I’m seizing the opportunity. I’m shaping greens and bunkers myself; I’m always very hands-on but not to this degree. This is a chance to show the world what I can do, and also give the client and Sumter what they deserve.”
Spence got the job in part due to his relationship with Chuck Green, Quixote’s director of operations since March 2019 and former superintendent at Columbia Country Club and, for 19 years, at Sage Valley. “He was my first choice,” Green said. “I’ve known Kris 35 years, and I think he has a special eye for the way courses used to be, when they were carved out using horses and plows. Some of the front nine (holes) have those characteristics, and Kris rerouted the entire back nine” to continue that look.
Green said Spence was intrigued by Quixote’s sandy soil, similar to that found in Pinehurst. “I called him, told him where I was,” Green said. “When he saw our website, he called back and said, ‘I’ll be there first thing in the morning.”
Said Spence: “I pulled it up on Google Earth, saw the nature of the site, and that got my attention. Those opportunities are fairly rare. Streamsong (a highly regarded trio of Florida courses) and others all have sandy soil. A few architects are getting those; the rest of us wish and hope.”
Fans of classic courses, such as Camden and Aiken’s Palmetto Club, should feel at home. While using modern grasses (TifEagle Bermuda greens and TifTuf fairways), the look of Quixote will be minimalist, with one cut (no rough), no cart paths, and rolling fairways featuring mounds, bumps and other quirks that favor players who know the “ground game” popular in Scotland and Ireland.
Pedersen refers to a three-hole stretch, Nos. 3-5, as the “Augusta (National) holes”: a short 310-yard, par-4 dogleg left around a pond, a 190-yard par-3 and a 355-yard par-4 bordered by dogwoods. The 440-yard 11th hole’s elevated green feeds into the par-3, 175-yard 12th tee and the aforementioned vistas.
The Thompsons hope to have 350 members; with 150 holdovers from Sunset and 25 new signees, they’re halfway home. The former Sunset clubhouse is being renovated and expanded from 16,000 to 20,000 square feet, and an LPGA tournament within 10 years is a stated goal.
There are risks in banking on luring enough members from elsewhere to make it all work. Green says friends asked “if I was crazy” when he left Sage Valley. The Thompsons have a lot invested, not least their reputations, but remain confident.
“It doesn’t have to be crazy expensive, but it needs to be a good product, and I think that’s what we’ll have,” Greg Thompson said. “It’s a great location, the center of South Carolina.” Quixote’s restaurants, brewery, hotel and a private airport 10 miles away are amenities as well.
“Income in Sumter has grown the fastest in South Carolina the last 10 years,” Thompson said. “We think Quixote Club will be the last piece of the puzzle.”
Lewis Thompson, more into hunting than golf, plans to build a nearby hunt club as part of the Quixote package; he now owns a 2,000-acre hunting property in Arkansas, run by his son. “We want people to be able to do more than play golf,” he said.
Asked why he believes they will succeed, Lewis Thompson chuckled. “When my brother and I started our construction business in 1986,” he said, “people told us, ‘Most don’t make it three years.’”
He laughed again. “But we did.”
This story first appeared in The State newspaper.