PGA Tour pro Zac Blair loves old courses so much he decided to construct one himself
For as long as he can remember, Zac Blair has been sketching golf holes.
His father, Jimmy, who did a stint on tour, too, owned and operated multiple miniature golf/driving range facilities in Utah, dubbing himself “the Pete Dye of miniature golf.” The younger Blair, now 34, grew up around construction and renovation projects, which planted a seed. Last fall, he graduated from arm-chair architect, opening his first course, The Tree Farm, a private club 20 minutes northeast of Aiken, S.C.
“Every kid wants to be like their dad, right?” he says.
Blair became a student of architecture when his Brigham Young University golf team traveled to Scotland and he played the Old Course at St. Andrews for the first time. He turned pro in 2014, winning once on the Korn Ferry Tour and spending the bulk of the last decade in the big leagues, where he’s banked close to $8 million.
He’s also used his golf career to play some of the game’s greatest cathedrals. For example, ahead of last year’s Travelers Championship in Connecticut, he knocked off the trifecta of Eastward Ho! in Massachusetts and Fishers Island and Winged Foot in New York.
But it was while playing in the 2015 Greenbrier Classic on The Old White course in West Virginia—his first time on a C.B. Macdonald/Seth Raynor design—that Blair conceived the idea of building his own course embodying the Golden Age of course architecture in his home state.
“I tried to figure out why places were great,” he says, “and I thought it would be cool to build my own in Utah.”
The original plan was to build about 20 minutes south of Provo with the first hole at the base of the Wasatch Mountain range. He sketched out template holes and even a hidden green to shoot at while waiting to tee off at a reachable par five. He named it The Buck Club and created a logo that became synonymous with his passion project. Thousands followed his journey on social media and showed their support by purchasing TBC merchandise.
“You have to be a golf sicko to care about a golf project that exists only in my mind, right?”
But the build-it-and-they-will-come model from an unproven entity in a locale with a short season proved to be a tough sell. When Blair found a 500-acre former pine nursery in western South Carolina, he had to make some hard decisions: Would it remain The Buck Club or be something different? He also parted ways with architects King-Collins, who had originally signed on to design the project.
“In life, sometimes you have to press pause and move on,” Blair says.
Instead, he purchased the plot of sandy soil in 2020 and hired Kye Goalby, son of 1968 Masters champion Bob Goalby, and Tom Doak to do the routing that would become The Tree Farm. One of Doak’s early versions included a 19th hole. Then Blair wondered if instead the first hole could be a par three, a concept Doak endorsed and that no client had ever let him build before.
“It sets the tone that this place is being built through a different lens,” Blair says.
Moonlighting on course construction coincided with Blair leaving the Tour for about 21 months following shoulder surgery in November 2020. This year, he enjoyed a solid season, losing in a playoff at the Tour’s ISCO Championship in July, his best career finish. He remains focused on his day job, but hopes that his proof of concept with The Tree Farm will lead to his second design—The Buck Club.
“That’s still the dream,” he says.
