The History of Sweetens Cove
Editor’s Note: The following is an exclusive preview from Jim Hartsell’s upcoming book, The Secret Home of Golf, a history of Sweetens Cove Golf Club. This excerpted chapter explores the pre-history of the land where Sweetens now sits, and how it evolved through time into a grounds for the game.
Left: the old Sequatchie Valley G&CC (circa 2008); Right: Sweetens Cove today.
“The Almighty had golf in his eye when he made this place. ”
Approximately 300 million years ago, the Appalachian Mountains were formed when the African Plate collided with the North American Plate. There is some debate among geologists about the exact details of the process, but the majority believe that the Sequatchie “anticline” was formed during this time. This is an upward fold of soft sandstone that was eroded over time, by the Sequatchie River, to create the uniquely linear Sequatchie Valley. The Tennessee River most likely eroded headward across the Sequatchie anticline during the Mesozoic period. This erosion precipitated the formation of the valley, which extends from Grassy Cove in Cumberland County, Tennessee to Jackson County in northeastern Alabama. Geologically it extends further south into Alabama, all the way into Jefferson County, just north of Birmingham, but down there it’s called Brown’s Valley. It is a unique and perfectly linear geological formation.
Sweetens Cove Golf Club is located in the Sequatchie Valley, on the northern edge of South Pittsburg, Tennessee. The area was first settled in the early 1800’s and was labeled Sweeden’s Cove on maps from that era, due to the original settlers having immigrated from Sweden. The cove was primarily settled by the Bean and Roulston families, and the historic Bean-Roulston Cemetery is located just off Sweetens Cove Road. On June 4, 1862, The Battle of Sweeden’s Cove took place between Confederate and Union troops. The Union troops, from Pennsylvania, were marching toward the strategic location of Chattanooga. Approaching from the west, they caught approximately 700 Confederate troops unaware and routed them from the area. The Union forces showered the sitting duck Confederate soldiers with cannon fire and then the cavalry took over, chasing the Southerners for 5 miles.
Private James Fields of the Pennsylvania 79th Regiment wrote this account of that day in 1862:
As the shots came thick and fast amongst them, they began to think about getting out of reach, and then our cavalry came rushing from the bushes and on them—and such getting away you never saw—they ran as if the devil was after them, dropping canteens, swords, sabers, guns, pistols, haversacks, overcoats ...
The Union victory was decisive, and their march towards Chattanooga continued unhindered. At least 20 Confederate soldiers who died that day are buried in Bean-Roulston Cemetery, just 5 miles down the road from the current day golf course.
Like many small towns in the rural South that sprung up after the devastation of the Civil War, development was largely dependent on the expansion of the railroad. This was the case in the Sequatchie Valley, as railroad development led to economic growth and the establishment of a permanent settlement in the area. In 1876, the name of the Battle Creek Mines Post Office was changed to the South Pittsburg Post Office, and the town was officially born. However, golf would not come to the town until the early 1950’s.
The old 5th hole with lots of trees on top, and the current 5th hole below. The ghost tree is just off the fairway on the right in both images.
In the late 1940’s a prominent local family, the Thomas’s, acquired a 135-acre property on Sweetens Cove Road for approximately $6,500. In 1951, the family generously sold the property to the city of South Pittsburg for a nominal sum, with the sole stipulation that the land be developed as a golf course. The original nine-hole Sequatchie Valley Golf and Country Club was then constructed on the site. “We built it without spending a lot of money on it. It was a farm,” recalled Bob Thomas in a 2011 interview. “It was done on a shoestring. We just made it go.” The course was laid out and the construction overseen by S.L. Rogers, Thomas’s father-in-law and President of United States Stove Company in South Pittsburg.
A few years later in 1954, Bob Thomas and Sam Hunter formed the Hunter Ready Mix Company. The young businessmen secured the contract in 1956 to furnish concrete for the new bridge over the Tennessee River just down the road in Stevenson, Alabama, according to a history on the company website. One can only imagine what a contract of this size meant to the small start-up business. The logistics of such a project were difficult, but the construction was a success and the company started to grow. Bob Thomas became the sole owner in 1958. The business continued to thrive under his leadership, and in the mid-60’s they changed the company name to Sequatchie Valley Concrete Service. Today they have concrete plants in several locations throughout Tennessee and Alabama, and the home office is still in South Pittsburg, Tennessee.
A graduate of nearby Sewanee College and a successful businessman, Thomas loved the game of golf and was an excellent player. He was a member of Sequatchie Valley Golf and Country Club most of his life and played the majority of his golf there. Thomas and the Sequatchie Valley Concrete Service would later become the reason for the creation of Sweetens Cove Golf Club.
Stephen Thomas—grandson of Bob Thomas and a native of the area—recalls, “You hear so much about Sweetens Cove, I think it’s really important to know the entire backstory. Sequatchie Valley Golf and Country Club has this kind of negative connotation that it was just this crappy old golf course. But you know, the course itself—what it was to the community—was very important. I still get a feeling of the vibe of the old course when I play Sweetens Cove. It’s an important part of the history.”
The 7th hole before (above) and now (below).
For many years, the club was the social center of the community, much like the sadly dying breed of Southern small-town golf clubs in places like Greenville, Mississippi and Jasper, Alabama. “It was basically a community course, but it was run by a Board of Directors just like any other club,” Stephen adds. “When I was kid, my Dad would play in the big dogfights on Saturdays and Sundays. I would get dropped off with my Mom and my little brother, and we would go swim in the pool and eat chicken fingers and fries in the little restaurant they had out there. There was a pro shop and a big banquet room where there would be community events and late-night poker games. That was all torn down when the Sweetens was built.”
Jeff Howard, an accomplished amateur golfer and native of nearby Kimball, Tennessee, is one of the original members of Sweetens Cove Golf Club. He learned to play the game at Sequatchie Valley Golf and Country Club. “When I was a junior player, there were about ten or twelve of us that our parents would take out there almost every day in the summer at 7:30 am, give us ten bucks to eat lunch, and then come back and get us at dark. So it was pretty much like a day care for us, and we got to play as much golf as we wanted,” recalls Howard. This seems like an idyllic way for a child to spend a summer—something that appears increasingly lost in the era of iPhones and Fortnite.
Back in the days of Sequatchie Valley G&CC, the weekend dogfights were legendary. The players would be classified from A to D, based on handicap. “At least 50 people would show up every Saturday and Sunday,” said Stephen Thomas. “The A players would be team captains and everybody would line up down the hill below the clubhouse. The captains would pick teams right there in front of everybody and then they would go out and play.” The clubhouse was located at the top of the hill where the now iconic Sweetens Cove Shed sits today. It is easy to imagine the scene as players names were called out by the captains and trash talk ensued. Thomas remembers the weekend events as a highlight of his golf life: “me, my Dad, my brother, and both my grandfathers played in those dogfights. It was a big deal to us. The group of guys that played out there were really good friends. It was like Cheers on a golf course.”
Radical changes to contouring on Hole 2. Old above, current below.
Bob Thomas continued to play at his beloved golf course until late in his life. The final time Stephen played with his grandfather was at Sequatchie Valley in the Saturday dogfights. “The last time I played golf with him was actually down there. He came out and played in the dogfight and we were in the same group. Number 7 was a two-tiered green and he knocked a 9 iron in from 110 yards and eagled it. He was 85 years old. He loved that golf course.”
Golfers who played the old layout, as it existed until the mid-90’s, remember it as playing fiery fast during the dry season. There was no irrigation on the course, and the tiny greens had to be watered by hand. “Man, I’m telling you when it was dry out there the ball would run like crazy, like on a runway,” said Thomas. Other than the original 8th and 9th holes, the course was dead flat. “You could play a football game out there,” recalls Jeff Howard. “The only little bit of elevation was where the old 8 and 9 were located.”
The consensus—among most former Sequatchie Valley players—is that the most beloved holes on the original layout were the 8th and 9th. Ironically, this land was sold in the late 90’s to raise money for the then financially struggling club. Stephen Thomas remembers that two-hole closing stretch fondly: “Number 8 was awesome! It was at the bottom of the hill and you could actually hit it over the clubhouse to try to drive the green, which was close to the road where the entry drive is now. It was kind of the same concept as driving over the hotel on 17 at The Old Course [at St. Andrews].”
The original 9th hole was a short, downhill par 4 along Sweetens Cove Road. The tee box was located approximately where the Sweetens Cove entry sign sits today. One can only imagine the swings that were disrupted by hecklers driving along the remote country road at just the right time to wreak havoc on the unsuspecting golfer. That was all part of the charm of the laid-back club. The narrow 305-yard par 4 ran along where the line of houses sit today. Thomas recalls it as a “fun match play hole.” The small green sat just left of the large oak tree that still stands in front of the current Sweetens Cove first tee. “Where the cart path on 1 turns to go down the first fairway now, that is where the 9th green was,” remembers Howard.
The original routing of holes 1 thru 7 is generally the routing at Sweetens Cove today, although the current holes are indistinguishable from the original course. Even Rob Collins admits, “the basic routing itself was very good overall.” The current day 2nd hole runs in the same direction as the original 2nd, although that is where the similarities end. The gravel road along the left was out of bounds, while the fairway was a narrow, flat, tree-lined corridor. “I hated that hole,” says Thomas.
The course was not without major issues, given the lack of elevation change and non-existent storm drainage. Jeff Howard recalls, “pretty much from Thanksgiving through March you were lucky if you had one day of dry ground. It just didn’t drain at all. It’s all clay and the water would just sit there all winter. Some of the rains that we get now at Sweetens, where the course is playable the next day, it would be under water and more or less unplayable for several days.”
The greensite of the 3rd hole was moved about 30 yards back, extending this par 5 and bringing the majestic tree into play as defense.
While heavy rains were always an issue on the flat layout, extended flooding was not a problem in the early years of the course. In 1967, the Tennessee Valley Authority opened the Nickajack Dam on the nearby Tennessee River. This development permanently changed the playability of the course, based on how TVA managed the water level during extended periods of rain. Battle Creek, which runs along the northern boundary of the property, ties directly into the Tennessee River less than 3 miles away. “My great grandmother lived in a house next to the pavilion on Battle Creek,” said Thomas. “The old chimney still standing out there was her house. See, before that dam was built, that course never flooded. The reason it floods is not because Battle Creek floods, it’s because of the dam. My granddad used to talk about being out there on number 3, and how clear the water was in Battle Creek was, and so full of fish. The dam changed all that a lot. My great grandmother sold that property to somebody for like $20 because of the flooding that started on the creek after the dam opened.” The course flooding issues caused by TVA’s regulation of the Nickajack Dam continue at Sweetens Cove to this day, although much has been done to mitigate the problem.
Sequatchie Valley Golf and Country Club started to struggle financially in the late 1990’s as it began to lose support from the community. In an attempt to improve playing conditions an irrigation system was installed—paid for by mortgaging the entire property. Within 2 years, the mortgage was in default and the bank took ownership of the property. Frank Coffelt, a building supply company owner from nearby Kimball, bought the course from a local bank. He operated the business with some limited success for a few years. Despite his best efforts to promote the golf club, he was forced to sell the land that the original 8th and 9th holes occupied for home sites in order to raise funds to keep the course open. Three houses sit on that land today—one of the few jarring, out-of-place elements next to the current golf course.
The sale of this land ultimately couldn’t save the club. Stephen Thomas remembers the dire situation the club was in in the late 2000’s:
When I got out the military in 2009, I came back and played with all those guys for a few more months. The course was not making any money. Frank couldn’t maintain it anymore. The clubhouse was run down. He had slot machines down in the basement. The pro shop stopped stocking anything that you’d want to buy. It was just going downhill, and [Coffelt] decided to sell it. You don’t understand how close that course was to becoming a horse pasture. This guy made Frank a verbal offer, which was accepted, to fence it in and put all his horses out here.
In a twist of fate—one of the many related to the existence of Sweetens Cove Golf Club— Bob Thomas learned that his beloved club was for sale. There are few secrets in small towns in the South. At the last minute he negotiated with Frank Coffelt to buy it, ultimately saving it from becoming a horse farm. According to his grandson Stephen, Bob “bought it just to save the golf course, because of the history that it had and how much it meant to him.” Thomas’s initial plans in 2010 were to shut the course down and fix up a few of the worst holes, using resources at his disposal from the concrete company. It soon became a much grander project than anyone could have ever envisioned.
Jim Hartsell is a native and lifelong resident of Alabama. A registered architect, he has designed buildings for the University of Alabama, Jacksonville State University, University of Georgia and University of Florida. Golf—especially the Scottish links style—and golf writing are his true passions. He has written extensively on golf in Scotland for The Links Diary and NoLayingUp.com. Volume 16 of The Golfers Journal will feature one of his stories. The Secret Home of Golf is his first book.