Forbes Asia August 2017

AUGUST 2017 FORBES ASIA | 79

GIVING BACK

ers who not only want to play a wonderful golf

course but who also want to be actively involved

in our philanthropic goals,” says the 52-year-old

Friedkin, who carries a tidy 6.9 handicap and is

chairman of the Friedkin Group, a privately held

consortium of businesses in the automotive, luxu-

ry hospitality, golf and entertainment industries.

Despite Congaree’s forward-thinking mission,

its membership process is old-fashioned: by in-

vitation and referral only. There are technical-

ly only two members of the club: Friedkin and

McNair, owner of the NFL’s Houston Texans. Ev-

eryone else affiliated with Congaree—from an

NFL Hall of Famer to a Grammy Award-winning

country singer—is invited to become an “ambas-

sador” on an annual basis. All share a love for

golf and a passion for helping others.

Ambassadors are encouraged to make a sig-

nificant financial contribution to the charitable

Congaree Foundation and also take an active role

in interacting with youth at the club and shar-

ing life experiences—good and bad. Congaree’s

aim is to offer educational, vocational and golf

instruction to underprivileged youth, whether

that’s by helping area schools or through its Glob-

al Golf Initiative, which brings in high-school-age kids from
around the world who aspire to play golf in college but don’t
have the support, financial or otherwise.
The person who would prefer to cut a check for several
million dollars? That’s not what Congaree is about. If you’re
hoping to join the club for yourself alone, you’re probably
not the right fit.
“It is very satisfying to hear our ambassadors express
how proud they are to be a part of something like this that
transcends a mere golf experience,” says Friedkin, a trust-
ee of the Wildlife Conservation Society and chairman of the
Texas Parks & Wildlife Commission. “They aren’t just look-

ing to make a contribution to the Congaree Foundation and

enjoy great golf. They’re committed to helping the Congaree

kids in any way they can.”

Congaree’s Global Golf Initiative started this June with

teenagers from the United States and overseas. To identi-

fy prospective participants, the club turned to PGA pros

around the world and invited them to be club ambassadors,

with World Golf Hall of Famer Mark O’Meara, a two-time

major champion, and other touring pros among them.

As for the club itself: The course at Cong aree was built

by the renowned architect Tom Fazio, who has 24 lay-

outs ranked among Golfweek’s 100 best modern courses in

the United States. Designed in the spirit of the Heathland

courses found in Britain and the sandbelt courses of Austra-

lia, Congaree has a natural look, lends itself to the ground

game and plays firm and fast, unlike many of the overly lush

designs favored throughout the country today.

Friedkin’s edict to Bruce Davidson and John McNeely,

the codirectors of golf at Congaree, was to find a terrif-

ic piece of land accessible from the Eastern seaboard. After

scouting a number of possible locations, they selected the

inland property in Jasper County, with its sandy soil, per-

fect for a golf course, and its peaceful hunting grounds and

historic feel. The lay and look of the land evokes the feel of

some of the country’s best courses, particularly Pine Val-

ley in New Jersey and Pinehurst in North Carolina. When

Fazio first visited the 3,200-acre property, dotted with long-

leaf pine, native wetlands and bottomland hardwood forests,

he was blown away. “You guys hit the mother lode here,” he

said.

“We couldn’t be more excited about the golf course Tom

Fazio designed. However, we also recognize it is a process

that is never finished, and it requires constant improve-

ment,” says Friedkin, who also owns the pristine Diamond

Creek Golf Club in the mountains of North Carolina. “The

opening has been a tremendous accomplishment, but it is a

dynamic thing, and that is part of the fun of it.”

There are no cart paths on the course, as Congaree is a

walking property. It’s a theme that extends beyond the fair-

ways, with ambassadors and guests encouraged to walk the

grounds, perhaps in step with the ghosts also said to call the

historic land home. The club’s main house sits at the end

of a mile-long gravel driveway that goes through a gaunt-

let of ancient live oaks with Spanish moss waving gently in

gnarled branches.

The house was rebuilt after the original burned down

during Union General William T. Sherman’s Civil War

march across the South. There’s also an inn and a newly

constructed whitewashed lodge that has a restaurant, a bar

and an inviting covered back porch that looks out on the re-

markable new golf course behind it. Other historic build-

ings have been preserved and updated, from cozy guest cot-

tages to a two-room schoolhouse complete with a working

bell in the steeple.

And every time a “Congaree kid” is at the school, the am-

bassadors on the property will know. That bell will ring.

Playing through: Tom Fazio (with cofounder Dan Friedkin, right)

designed the course among 300-year-old oak trees with no cart

paths and no tee markers.

F