It’s been a while since we’ve written a blog, and I find myself dreaming about Sweetens Cove a lot recently. So, now seems like a great time to pen my thoughts on maybe the most unique golf experience in America.
Sweetens Cove is precariously located in South Pittsburg, Tennessee. A small town Americana tri-state area where Tennessee meets corners of Alabama and Georgia. Sweetens is basically on the border of America’s Eastern and Central Time Zone too, so any movement East towards Chattanooga and the time on your phone hops up an hour. It’s weird quirks like this that make Sweetens greater than the sum of its parts. For those that have been to Sweetens, or are aware of their mantra “IYKYK”, it really is all you can say once you get to experience it all.
Our trip to Sweetens was in September of 2024, just about peak season in the Southeastern United States. Sweetens does not offer tee times, they offer day passes to a limited number of golfers to play as much golf as they want on their assigned day. As you may or may not know, these day passes are in high demand, so planning to scoop these up months in advance is about the only way to do it. Luckily our buddy Nate from West Palm had been planning this since January of that year and was able to snag 4 day passes for Labor Day weekend of 2024, fucking legend.
Cole and myself were planning to road trip the 5.5 hour drive from Charlotte and would pick up Nate from the Chattanooga airport. We were also able to get our favorite Vermont resident and favorite golf videographer, Pete, to fly down to Charlotte and road trip with us. Pete did document everything, and there will be a video of this entire journey one day.
We eventually got settled into our mountain house Airbnb around midnight, managed to play some pool, and knock out a bottle of bourbon. The next day was always going to be a warm up day, hoping we could find a random course in the Chattanooga area to shake some rust off at. Pete was able to conjure up some magic and got us all invited to play at Signal Mountain Golf and Country Club; a super fun, well maintained, old school mountain course. Shoutout to the boys in the shop for making us feel like members for the day.
Next up was Sweetens Cove. It is intended to be an all day affair and we couldn’t wait to spend every second of sunlight on the property. We arrived with the other 30 or so golfers with a “this is greater than Christmas morning” energy. Matt Adamski was running the show this day, he is famous for managing the award winning merchandise shop at Sweetens that is always pumping out the coolest merch. Matt explained the loosely policed rules, told us that he doesn’t want to hear anyone talking about scores, and that there may or may not be bottles of bourbon hidden around the course for a free pull if you’d like.
The groups split off in a shotgun style start and the ultimate golf playground was now all ours until the sun went down. Sweetens is a 9 hole course that has unique bunkering and massive greens. One reason for the massive greens is that each one has 2 pins so that you can play to a different hole location on your second 9 for a unique 18 holes.
In total we walked the loop 4 times. Each 9 offered a new opportunity for a new game, hole location, or tee box to play from. For a 9 hole course the options are surprisingly unlimited. In the middle of our day we stopped to eat at the food truck on the patio that overlooks the 9th green and 1st tee box. It truly felt like heaven sitting there with best friends, burgers, beers, and knowing all we had to do the rest of the day was play golf.
For me, golf is always so much fun no matter where I’m at, especially with great friends. But, there is something about Sweetens that just makes it better. There is no stuffiness, there is no dress code, there are no expectations. It is pure golf bliss. Just go out and play as much golf as you possibly can is what Sweetens is all about.
Trevor
