Forsyth Country Club was formed in 1913. The club’s first purpose-built golf opened as a nine-hole course in 1918 and is credited to A.W. Tillinghast, laid out on property that now generally corresponds to the present “back nine” territory. As the membership sought a full championship course, the club engaged Donald Ross to expand and complete an 18-hole layout. The club’s own course page places Ross’s engagement in 1920, while the institutional history page records the 18-hole completion in 1923 and specifies a total length of 6,347 yards at that time. Those two official sources, taken together, indicate Ross’s planning and construction window spanned the early 1920s. No club-published record has surfaced to show Ross returning after the 18-hole opening for a subsequent phase; later alterations in the mid- and late-20th century belonged to other architects.
By the 1980s, the course had experienced incremental changes; external summaries attribute work in that period to Willard Byrd and Dan Maples. In the 2000s, the club undertook a significant restoration and lengthening, recorded on the club’s history page as a 2006 project that extended the course to 6,668 yards. In 2007, Ross-focused architect Kris Spence directed a restoration at Forsyth; trade coverage at the time grouped Forsyth with his Sedgefield project among notable Ross restorations that year. A decade later, the club brought Spence back in 2018 to guide a re-grassing and infrastructure refresh: greens were converted from A1/A4 bentgrass to Champion ultradwarf bermuda, and bunkers were rebuilt using the Better Billy Bunker method, with the superintendent’s office documenting the scope. Public course-finder listings and a club course-tour tally of per-hole yardages align on a modern back-tee total of roughly 6,784 yards and par 71. The club remains an active competitive venue locally and, in August 2025, served as host to the North Carolina Open.
Timeline (concise):
1918—Tillinghast nine opens.
1920—club records note Ross’s engagement to create a championship 18.
1923—18-hole Ross course completed (6,347 yards).
1980s—work credited to Byrd and Maples.
2006—club-recorded restoration/lengthening to 6,668.
2007—Spence restoration.
2018—Spence-guided re-grassing to Champion and bunker reconstruction.
2025—host site for the North Carolina Open.
Unique Design Characteristics
Because the present course reflects Ross’s early-1920s expansion of a Tillinghast nine—and because subsequent updates have modernized surfaces and hazards—the clearest way to isolate Ross’s imprint is at the scale of corridors and the strategic relationships they enable. Spence has publicly noted that Forsyth’s routing, with its marked elevation changes for an in-town site, remained largely intact, providing the framework for his restoration choices. Within that routing, several holes today express patterns consistent with Ross’s work at this property as interpreted through restoration:
No. 1 (par 4) opens with a right-to-left-tilting fairway and diagonal fairway bunkers set along the direct line—features that place a premium on choosing the high side to open the green.
No. 3 (par 3) plays downhill to a green defended left, right, and short, with a subtle interior spine from back to front—an early precision test before the longer two-shotters.
No. 6 (par 4) is among the longest par-4s, using a creek crossing and a right-to-left green to reward a tee shot favoring the right half of the fairway.
No. 7 (par 3) spans a valley to a green “perched on the far side,” an element the club highlights as a restored target favoring a slight right-to-left approach—one of the front side’s most exacting tee shots.
No. 8 (par 5/4), the club’s “bear’s mouth,” is particularly distinctive: from the current tee it is a par-5 that bends with two left-side fairway bunkers guiding the second, but a lower tee restores a historical option to play it as a long par-4, requiring a quick, rising tee shot to clear the fescue-covered hillside; the green slopes front-to-back.
No. 12 (par 4) doglegs right, with a “daunting trap” at the corner that tempts the bold line to shorten the angle into the green; the preferred conservative line uses fairway slope to feed down to a short-iron approach.
No. 13 (par 4) asks for an uphill approach over two notable cross bunkers short of the green—one of the clearest expressions of restored diagonal hazard use on the inward nine.
No. 14 (par 3) is set in a natural amphitheater across the property’s lone pond, where center-green play is advised because recoveries are exacting on all sides.
No. 16 (par 4) plays best from the right edge of the fairway into a low-profile green that accepts a run-up, contrasting with the elevated target at No. 17.
As to which holes most clearly read as “Ross” today, the corridors and green-to-tee relationships on the long par-4s (6, 16, 17) and the restored risk-reward schemes at 8 and 12 most convincingly reflect the club’s stated aim to work from historic aerials and routing strengths. Because the back nine sits on land originally associated with Tillinghast’s nine, the present 14th and 16th provide especially instructive before/after comparisons in aerials and modern photos. To move from inference to proof at the micro-level, plan overlays of Ross’s drawings (if retained) against current as-builts would be required.
Historical Significance
Forsyth occupies a particular niche in Ross’s North Carolina work as an expansion and completion of an earlier Tillinghast scheme. That layered authorship—Tillinghast first, Ross to eighteen—was rarer in the Piedmont than in Ross’s Sandhills commissions and gives Forsyth outsized interpretive value for scholars tracing how Ross adapted corridors on properties already partially in play. The club’s restoration history has added a second layer of significance: Forsyth was one of Kris Spence’s early high-profile Ross restorations in the Triad (2007), work that paralleled his project at Sedgefield and contributed to the regional “return to classic ground” movement of the late 2000s. Competitively, Forsyth has long served as an anchor venue for the Forsyth Championship (the county’s stroke-play title, with a final round at the club) and stepped onto a statewide stage by hosting the 61st North Carolina Open in August 2025. While Forsyth is not typically listed among national classic-course rankings, state and regional directories routinely identify it as a private par-71 Ross course of ~6,784 yards with Champion bermuda greens—an up-to-date presentation on historic corridors.
Current Condition / Integrity
Routing and scale. Public accounts from the 2007 restoration emphasize that Forsyth’s routing remained largely intact from the Ross era, an assertion consistent with the continuity between early-20th-century corridors and present hole sequences. Fairway widths, angles, and bunker placements, however, had evolved through the mid-century, and Spence’s program sought to re-establish strategic diagonals and green-edge interest visible in historic imagery.
Greens and bunkers. The club’s own history notes a 2006 lengthening (to 6,668), after which the 2007 work re-set many surface expressions. In 2018 the club executed a major agronomic and infrastructure project: greens conversion from bentgrass to Champion ultradwarf bermuda, re-grassing of collars/approaches, and reconstruction of all bunkers using the Better Billy Bunker method. Those steps modernized performance (speed, firmness, consistency) while preserving the restored footprints and strategic placements from the prior phase. As a result, green pads such as No. 7 (valley carry), No. 11 (downhill par-3 to a two-level green), and No. 17 (elevated target) present Ross-era ideas at modern green speeds; the club’s caddie notes warn, for example, that back locations on No. 3 bring an interior spine into play, evidencing surface contour the restorations sought to recapture.
What is preserved vs. altered. Preserved: the 18-hole routing logic, the variety of par-3 settings (valley, ridge, pond), and risk-reward tee lines on holes like 8 and 12. Altered: putting-surface turf type (now ultradwarf bermuda), bunker construction (modern liners/drainage), and some tee lengths relative to the 6,347-yard 1923 card and 6,668-yard 2006 card. Tree programs and general agronomy typical of the region have also shaped how classic recoveries (run-ups vs. aerial carries) play today. On balance, Forsyth presents high integrity at the level of routing and strategic intent, with modernized surfaces and construction appropriate to climate and contemporary maintenance.
Citations and Uncertainty
Key uncertainties/disputed points to flag
• Year of Ross engagement/completion. The club’s course page states Ross “was hired” in 1920; the club’s history page states the 18-hole course was completed in 1923 at 6,347 yards. Some third-party directories also list a “1920” Ross date. Absent dated plan sheets, treat 1920 as the commission/design year and 1923 as the opening.
• Scope of 1980s work. Multiple summaries attribute changes to Willard Byrd and Dan Maples, but public documentation does not specify whether their work focused on greens, bunkering, drainage, or tree management.
Sources & Notes
Forsyth CC — Course Tour (“Welcome to Our 18-Hole Donald Ross Course”). Hole-by-hole yardages and descriptive caddie notes; narrative that Tillinghast upgraded the first nine and Ross was hired in 1920 to create an 18-hole course.
Forsyth CC — Club History page. States nine-hole opening in 1918 (Tillinghast); 18-hole completion in 1923 by Donald Ross at 6,347 yards; notes a 2006 restoration/expansion to 6,668; outlines clubhouse renovations.
Top100GolfCourses: Forsyth (NC). Summarizes sequence (1918 Tillinghast nine; Ross extends to 18), credits Willard Byrd and Dan Maples with 1980s alterations, and records Kris Spence restoration in 2007 and 2018 conversion of greens to Champion; quotes Spence that the routing remained intact.
Golf Course Industry (Feb. 29, 2008). Trade-press report grouping Forsyth CC with Sedgefield CC as notable 2007 Ross restorations by Kris Spence.
Forsyth CC Assistant Superintendent posting (2019). Lists details of the 2018 project: greens conversion from A1/A4 bentgrass to Champion ultradwarf bermuda, re-grassing of collars/approaches, and all bunkers rebuilt using the Better Billy Bunker method.
Triad Golf (Jan. 30, 2025): “Forsyth CC to host N.C. Open.” Confirms hosting of the 61st North Carolina Open, Aug. 12–14, 2025, and identifies the course as a Donald Ross design renovated by Kris Spence prior to the pandemic.
City of Winston-Salem — Forsyth Championships. Schedules the final round of the county championship at Forsyth Country Club, affirming the club’s role in local tournament rotation.