Mike Strantz-Designed Tot Hill Farm Golf Club Has New Owners with Restoration on Their Minds By Brian Weis

Mike Strantz-Designed Tot Hill Farm Golf Club Has New Owners with Restoration on Their Minds

By Brian Weis

Tot Hill Farm Golf Club has been sold by the partnership led by Ogburn Yates to Tot Hill Farm LLC, a new ownership group led by J. Patrick (Pat) Barber of Charleston, SC. Barber also owns two golf courses in the Charleston, SC area, The Links at Stono Ferry and The Plantation Course at Edisto.

Tot Hill Farmed opened in 2000 with one of the most unique golf course designs and routings in the Piedmont area of North Carolina. The golf course property had been in the Yates family for more than a century.

"When you talk about unforgettable golf courses and experiences, no one did it better in our region of the country than Mike Strantz," said Tot Hill Farm owner Pat Barber. "There are only six Mike Strantz designs the public can play and when I heard the course was for sale my interest piqued quickly. I love a good restoration and we want to return Tot Hill Farm back to Mike's original vision for the golf experience here. This is going to be fun!"

"Tot Hill Farm is very special to me and my family," said Ogburn Yates. "Our family has farmed this land, lived on this land, and developed this land for golfers and homeowners to enjoy what we've enjoyed throughout the generations. I am very excited for Pat Barber and his team to be taking the reins and restoring this amazing property. Their vision and track record of success leaves me no doubt Tot Hill Farm is in great hands. The future is very bright."

The restoration of Tot Hill Farm will come in various stages. The immediate priorities are to clean up items that are affecting grass growth on several tee boxes and greens, level and sod teeing areas, repair cart path damage, build on-course restrooms, update the clubhouse area and repair several bridges. In the summer of 2023, the greens will be replaced and converted to Prism Zoysia™. This is a new greens grade zoysia variety developed by Bladerunner Farms that has the ability to grow-in very quickly, has no collar transition to manage, only needs half the mowing of typical Bermuda greens, is very shade and cold weather tolerant, and heals very quickly from ball marks. Tot Hill Farm will use local vendor Buy Sod to install the new greens.

"We are excited about the many benefits Prizm Zoysia™ brings to the table. From a maintenance perspective, it eradicates many headaches superintendents deal with on a daily basis, and from a customer perspective, golfers will be treated to great greens 12 months out of the year," said Greg Wood, General Manager of Tot Hill Farm.

Tot Hill Farm Golf Club is located in Asheboro, NC, less than 10 minutes off I-74. The course is convenient to Charlotte, the Piedmont Triad and the Triangle. The golf course is open for public play and golf vacation play for those heading to and from the nearby Pinehurst area. Tee times can be made by calling (336) 857-4455.

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Revised: 12/31/2022 - Article Viewed 4,208 Times - View Course Profile

About: Brian Weis

Brian Weis is the mastermind behind GolfTrips.com, a vast network of golf travel and directory sites covering everything from the rolling fairways of Wisconsin to the sunbaked desert layouts of Arizona. If there’s a golf destination worth visiting, chances are, Brian has written about it, played it, or at the very least, found a way to justify a "business trip" there.

As a card-carrying member of the Golf Writers Association of America (GWAA), International Network of Golf (ING), Golf Travel Writers of America (GTWA), International Golf Travel Writers Association (IGTWA), and The Society of Hickory Golfers (SoHG), Brian has the credentials to prove that talking about golf is his full-time job. In 2016, his peers even handed him The Shaheen Cup, a prestigious award in golf travel writing—essentially the Masters green jacket for guys who don’t hit the range but still know where the best 19th holes are.

Brian’s love for golf goes way back. As a kid, he competed in junior and high school golf, only to realize that his dreams of a college golf scholarship had about the same odds as a 30-handicap making a hole-in-one. Instead, he took the more practical route—working on the West Bend Country Club grounds crew to fund his University of Wisconsin education. Little did he know that mowing greens and fixing divots would one day lead to a career writing about the best courses on the planet.

In 2004, Brian turned his golf passion into a business, launching GolfWisconsin.com. Three years later, he expanded his vision, and GolfTrips.com was born—a one-stop shop for golf travel junkies looking for their next tee time. Today, his empire spans all 50 states, and 20+ international destinations.

On the course, Brian is a weekend warrior who oscillates between a 5 and 9 handicap, depending on how much he's been traveling (or how generous he’s feeling with his scorecard). His signature move" A high, soft fade that his playing partners affectionately (or not-so-affectionately) call "The Weis Slice." But when he catches one clean, his 300+ yard drives remind everyone that while he may write about golf for a living, he can still send a ball into the next zip code with the best of them.

Whether he’s hunting down the best public courses, digging up hidden gems, or simply outdriving his buddies, Brian Weis is living proof that golf is more than a game—it’s a way of life.