Published: September 12, 2026
Sometimes a golf course announces itself. Candyroot Lodge, a new public golf retreat taking shape in the Carolina Sandhills about 80 miles southeast of Charlotte, just did exactly that — every single preview-play date for its debut course sold out in roughly 72 minutes after tee sheets opened on September 8, all without a single day of general public sale. Passes were offered first to email subscribers, and subscribers alone cleared the entire fall calendar.
What Golfers Are Actually Buying
Preview play begins October 28 on Candyroot’s first 18-hole course, designed by Mike Koprowski — the architect behind Broomsedge, one of the most acclaimed new courses in the Carolinas in recent memory. There’s no traditional tee sheet here: golfers instead buy a $175 all-day pass called “A Day at Candyroot,” which includes as much golf as they want to play, select food and beverage, and a welcome pouch with a scorecard, tees, a ball marker and a branded water bottle. It’s walking-only — no carts — with a forecaddie required, and access is capped at 40 golfers a day, Wednesday through Sunday.
That combination — unlimited golf, a hard cap on daily players, and a design pedigree already proven at Broomsedge — is clearly what golfers in the Carolinas have been waiting for. Given that every single date cleared before the pass sale was even opened to the general public, demand for this specific kind of experience looks less like curiosity and more like pent-up appetite.
Why This Course Is Different
Candyroot stands out for reasons beyond a fast sellout. It sits on 1,210 acres of aeolian sandhill terrain in Chesterfield County, South Carolina — land Koprowski himself discovered while driving home from the Broomsedge project and scouting for exactly this kind of site. His approach at Candyroot is intentionally restrained: no hauled dirt, no forced fairways, greens left small and old-school, with the natural, rolling sandhill terrain doing almost all of the design work. “The land just really wants to be left alone,” Koprowski has said of the site. “All we’re doing is localized shaping around the tee boxes and greens.”
Just as notable is who Candyroot is built for. Nearly every other significant new golf project underway in South Carolina right now — Old Barnwell, The Tree Farm, New Holland, 21 Golf Club, Kawonu — is private. Candyroot’s owners, brothers Aaron and Ethan Oberman, are deliberately building the opposite: an elevated, publicly accessible retreat in a state where high-end new golf has skewed almost entirely toward private membership.
The Bigger Vision
This first course is just the opening move. Candyroot’s master plan, developed with Hart Howerton, calls for up to four full 18-hole championship courses plus a lighted par-3 course designed by U.S. Women’s Open champion Michelle Wie West. Beyond golf, the Obermans are building out a wellness component that’s unusual for a golf destination — cold plunge and hot-cold therapy, saunas, strength training facilities, and miles of connected trails, all aimed at giving golfers a way to recover and unwind after a full day of walking the sandhills. Lodge accommodations are planned but not expected at scale until around 2028; for now, the focus is squarely on the golf.
A full public opening is targeted for spring 2027.
Why This Matters for the Region
South Carolina trails only Florida and Texas in active golf course development right now, according to the National Golf Foundation — but almost none of that pipeline has been public-access. Candyroot’s instant sellout suggests there’s real, quantifiable demand in the Charlotte-Columbia corridor for exactly the kind of course typically reserved for private membership, and that golfers are willing to move fast and pay a premium day-pass rate to get it. For a region that’s become one of the more golf-obsessed corners of the Southeast, that’s a meaningful signal — and one worth watching as Candyroot’s remaining three courses and the Michelle Wie West par-3 layout move from master plan to reality over the next few years.
We’ll be tracking Candyroot’s progress closely between now and its spring 2027 grand opening.
