TGA Member Club Profile: Stonehenge Golf Club

Host site for the Golf Capital of Tennessee Women's Open Championship

Story by Chris Dortch

Jack Nicklaus once said that golf course architect Joe Lee “never built a bad course.” Each year when the Tennessee Women’s Open is played at Lee’s beautiful Stonehenge Golf Club in Fairfield Glade, that statement rings true. 

For the uninitiated, Stonehenge resembles a cross between Chattanooga’s Rock City (and its world-famous rock formations) and Fall Creek Falls, another Lee gem at Fall Creek Falls State Park in Pikeville, Tenn. Which is to say there are several tree-lined dogleg holes mixed with other holes carved into the mountain stone from which the par-72, 6,549-yard course gets its name. 

Those stone outcroppings are part of the challenge of Stonehenge. A notable example is the course’s signature hole, No. 14, a 161-yard par-3. To the left of the green is a 15-foot layered stone retaining wall and rock-lined creek. To the right is a huge bunker with a boulder in the middle. Lake Dartmoor provides an intimidating backdrop and can even claim a nuked tee shot. 

Stonehenge is unique in other ways. Wildlife abounds, including deer, which can pop up any time during a round. You won’t find many courses in the South that are planted in bent grass from tee to green, but Stonehenge is. 

Stonehenge epitomizes the design philosophy of Lee, who was a respected architect because he did his job with a gentle hand. His goal was to simply uncover a golf course that had been left for him to find by God, rather than move tons of earth to fabricate one. He called it “molding the land.” 

Lee courses don’t beat golfers over the head with tricked-up obstacles. He preferred straightforward challenges—trees, large-but-fair bunkering, water hazards that players are aware of but can negotiate, and greens that slope gently. Sounds a lot like Stonehenge. 

“I start with the premise that golf should be enjoyable, not a chore,” Lee told Golf Digest architecture editor Ron Whitten for his book, Gentleman Joe Lee: 50 Years of Golf Design. “Golfers want a challenge, but they want a fair one. An architect can’t put a foot on the golfer’s neck and keep it there all day.”

Amen to that. 

For a time, those traits in golf course architecture went unappreciated amid an era of island greens, railroad ties, severe green contouring and Pacific Ocean-sized water hazards. But before that, Lee, sometimes in collaboration with Dick Wilson, produced several courses—Bay Hill and Doral (Blue) among them—that were fixtures on the PGA Tour and well respected by great players. 

Lee’s understated style may have fallen out of favor for a time—Pine Tree was ranked No. 10 in Golf Digest’s Top 100 in 1969 but by 1993 had dropped out of the ranking—but it’s enjoying a comeback. And other architects have learned that it’s a lot less expensive to build a course in the Lee style rather than manufacture unnatural obstacles. 

Golfers in Tennessee are blessed to be able to play some of Lee’s courses. Besides Stonehenge, rated the state’s No. 1 resort course, and Fall Creek Falls, there’s also the Landmark Golf Club at Avalon, located about 20 miles outside of Knoxville in Lenoir City. 

Lee died in 2003 at 81 after more than 50 years of building golf courses. Those who knew him say he was easy going and friendly, without the slightest bit of pretentiousness. You could say the same about Stonehenge, or for that matter, his entire body of work.

For more information on Stonehenge Golf Club visit www.stonehengegolf.com.