Cape Fear Country Club, founded in 1896 and later relocated to its present grounds off Oleander Drive, commissioned Donald J. Ross to create the course that anchored the modern club. Contemporary summaries and archival-based commentaries place Ross’s principal build here in the early–mid 1920s; the most specific accounts cite 1926 as the year of the original eighteen-hole Ross design that established the corridors and green sites still recognized today, while other published notices describe the course then in play as a 1922 Ross creation. In either case, the course that members identify with Cape Fear’s identity dated from Ross’s 1920s work, not from the 1890s club origins. He subsequently returned to the property in 1946 with construction chief Walter Hatch’s successor, J.B. McGovern, to redesign and replace five holes that had been lost to roadway work, providing a fresh set of detailed plans for all eighteen holes to harmonize the altered corridors with the surviving ones. Club-facing histories and restoration architects note that those 1946 drawings guided later preservation efforts.
Because Cape Fear functioned for decades as a prominent tournament venue, Ross’s intent for the site can be read through surviving plan annotations and the way later restorations used them. The plans showed modestly deep bunkers—generally 3½ to 4 feet—and low-profile greens accepting a ground approach, with enough interior movement to create numerous hole locations. In 2018–19, Andrew Green’s team explicitly referenced these Ross notes and plan shapes, lowering every green by about 18 inches to restore the original perched-but-accessible targets and re-establishing the intended bunker depths; these choices, grounded in Ross’s drawings, constitute the most direct evidence available of Ross’s design aims as applied at Cape Fear.
Ross’s phases were followed by multiple twentieth-century alterations. Work by George Cobb/John LaFoy and by Willard Byrd in the late 20th century changed several greens and, notably, eliminated two original holes in conjunction with clubhouse expansion and a new practice range; the club’s finish then detoured away from the historic clubhouse area. A 2005–06 program under Kris Spence brought the course back toward Ross’s 1920s/1946 intent using the Ross/McGovern plans, which Spence credits as unusually detailed for greens and bunker cross-sections. His plan reconnected the finishing stretch to the clubhouse, reinstated the historic 18th green site as the target for a new drivable par-4 finisher, created a new par-3 14th to replace a compromised segment, and restored green pads and bunker placements across the remaining holes.
Unique design characteristics
The present course expresses Ross most clearly at the greens and in the relationship of bunkers to preferred angles. After the 2019 works, the greens sit at lowered elevations that again encourage the ground game, so that a shaped approach can feed along apron contours rather than needing to carry steep fronts. The bunker depths—returned to Ross’s noted 3½–4 feet—recreate the intended visual intimidation without resorting to towering faces. Green’s team also emphasized historic landforms on this rolling, sand-influenced site (the property held Civil War earthworks), tying fairway platforms into gentle rises that re-activate Ross’s intended launch pads and approach trajectories.
Hole by hole, several corridors best convey that Ross backbone. The 3rd—a par-5 bending over natural undulations—shows how Cape Fear’s fairway width sets up a decisive second-shot angle into a target that now sits at a Ross-like elevation. The mid-long 4th—regularly tagged as a “bogey beware” hole—plays to a tilted, elongated green where a safer tee ball yields a more exacting approach, a classic Cape Fear expression of Ross’s play-to-position requirement. The 8th, a mid-iron par-3, is the purest example of the club’s restored “ground-entry” par-3s, with front-edge firmness and a shoulder that shunts mishit tee balls away from favored pins. And the 13th, a sub-350-yard par-4, illustrates how diagonal bunkering and a green aligned slightly off the tee line make angle, not distance, the winning currency. These four holes—3, 4, 8 and 13—read most directly as Ross after the Green and Spence campaigns because their corridors survived the late-century upheavals and their targets were rebuilt off original plan geometry rather than invented anew. By contrast, today’s 14th is a Spence addition (styled to the period but not a Ross hole), and the 18th uses Ross’s original green site for a different, short-par-4 playing line back to the clubhouse.
Historical significance
Cape Fear mattered within Ross’s North Carolina portfolio in two ways. First, it belonged to a 1920s coastal pair—private Cape Fear and municipal Wilmington Muni—that demonstrated Ross’s coastal Sandhills-to-sea versatility; the two projects ran in parallel in the mid-1920s, with local reporting contemporaneously noting Ross’s presence on both. Second, Cape Fear became one of Carolina golf’s tournament stages: the Azalea Open (official PGA Tour in 1945 and 1949–1970; unofficial in 1971) lived here and drew a winner’s roll that included Arnold Palmer (1957) and Jerry Barber (1953, 1961, 1963), knitting the course into the region’s competitive narrative and cementing its Ross pedigree in the public eye. Recent editorial round-ups consistently cite Cape Fear among North Carolina’s notable historic tournament courses, and the NC Golf Panel has ranked it among the state’s top private layouts in the last decade, lending context to its status inside the Ross canon.
Current condition & integrity
The routing today is substantially Ross-based with targeted departures driven by land-use needs and later restorations. Spence’s 2006 work, following the Ross/McGovern sheets, rebuilt every green, tee and bunker, removed out-of-period features, re-introduced the historic finish toward the clubhouse, and added a new 14th to solve space conflicts that had erased two originals. Green’s 2018–19 program then addressed drainage and agronomy by rebuilding and lowering all greens, converting to ultradwarf bermuda (from bentgrass), and re-establishing Ross-style bunker placements and depths. The project also created a nine-hole short course (with four double greens) on underused ground near the practice facilities; while not part of the Ross footprint, it was intentionally styled after Ross plan forms to extend the club’s historic feel to modern practice.
As a result, Cape Fear now presents Ross surfaces and hazards whose shapes, pad sizes, and tie-ins hew to the 1920s/1946 drawings, on a routing that preserves the majority of Ross corridors while acknowledging discrete modern insertions. The clearest Ross survivals—in both alignment and restored target character—are concentrated in the outer loops away from the clubhouse (notably 3, 4, 8, 13). Features principally preserved include the scale and siting of most green pads, the diagonal relationship of fairway bunkers to preferred approach angles on multiple par-4s, and the modest-profile greenfronts that again accept a run-up when conditions are firm. Features altered or lost include two hole corridors near the clubhouse (removed late in the 20th century), their replacements and the Spence-era new 14th, and local tree plantings that narrowed some playing windows—since mitigated by selective removal. With Green’s reset, firmness (ultradwarf, rebuilt drainage) is now a core defense rather than rough or trees, and the course again tests approach control more than raw length.
Sources & Notes (including disputes)
Top100GolfCourses — Cape Fear CC: concise club history; asserts a 1922 Ross creation, later revisions by Ross; notes modifications by LaFoy (1986), Byrd (1993), Spence (2006) and the 2019 Andrew Green restoration.
Golf Course Architecture (May 9, 2019) — Richard Humphreys, “Andrew Green restores Donald Ross features at Cape Fear”: project scope; greens lowered ~18 inches, bunkers 3½–4 ft per Ross notes; plan-shape references; practice-short course with double greens; reopening timeline.
Golf Course Industry (Aug. 26, 2005) — “Cape Fear readies for renovation”: Spence selection and restoration brief; states Ross redesigned in 1922 and tweaked in 1946; frames undoing of 1986 alterations.
GolfClubAtlas — Feature Interview: Kris W. Spence (Ran Morrissett): Spence recounts Cape Fear’s lineage as Ross 1926, with Ross/McGovern 1946 replacing five holes due to a road; explains 2006 changes (new par-3 14th, restoring the 18th green site for a drivable finisher; broad restoration using Ross cross-sections).
Club website: oldest private club claim; Azalea Open tenure on site; renovation updates (2019 reopening note; periodic project posts documenting hole-by-hole progress).
capefearcountryclub.net
Club & Resort Business (Sept. 26, 2019): “Cape Fear CC Completes $5M Golf Course Renovation” — summary of Green’s scope; notes addition of the nine-hole short course and bunker/tee work.
GolfCourseGurus review: hole-by-hole yardages and selections (e.g., par-3 8th, par-3 14th, par-4 13th, par-5 3rd), supporting the identification of corridors that most faithfully present Ross after restoration.
Wikipedia — Azalea Open Invitational and GolfCompendium entry: event chronology (official PGA Tour 1945 & 1949–70; unofficial 1971), winners including Arnold Palmer (1957) and Jerry Barber.
LINKS Magazine (2025), “North Carolina’s 10 Best Historic Tournament Courses”: includes Cape Fear; adds context on Ross’s 1920s rebuild and tournament identity.
Ross Society (“A Case for Golf Course Restoration”): member-authored piece referencing the club’s 1926 Ross design and the decision to return to the original look/playing character in the 2000s.
mScorecard (2025): current back-tee yardage/par/ratings (7,005 yards, par 72; detailed tee metrics).
Uncertainties / disputed points
• Initial Ross date — Sources split between 1926 (Spence interview; Ross Society note) and 1922 (Top100; 2005 restoration preview). The club’s own public-facing pages don’t resolve the split with a specific year. The narrative above treats Cape Fear as a 1920s Ross build with later Ross involvement in 1946.
• Late 20th-century authorship — Attributions vary among Cobb/LaFoy and Byrd for different phases; Top100 summarizes the timeline, while Spence’s interview emphasizes Cobb’s 1980s remodel and the corridor losses near the clubhouse. Exact scopes by architect/year occasionally differ in secondary sources.
• Hole authorship today — The 14th is a Spence-era creation (not Ross); 18th uses a Ross green site but plays as a different, shorter hole. Many other greens and bunkers were rebuilt to Ross plan shapes in 2006 and 2019, so surfaces are faithful reconstructions rather than untouched originals.