The golfer’s guide to Wake Forest: Arnold Palmer’s old course and everything around it

Wake Forest golf has a secret hiding at 555 Stadium Drive, and it's one of the best sports stories in the Triangle: the nine-hole course where Arnold Palmer learned to be Arnold Palmer, still open, still public, still cheap enough for a weekday skins game. Around it, the town stacks a championship 18, a family-owned links, a private club in the woods and an indoor simulator lounge for the rained-out days. Here's the whole course map, starting with the King's.

Paschal Golf Club: the Hatchet Factory

Paschal Golf Club opened in 1917 as the Wake Forest College course, and its most famous alumnus needs no introduction. Arnold Palmer and his college teammates used to walk from their dorm, across the football practice field and down the hill to play skins games here in the early 1950s, back when the players nicknamed the tree-lined layout the Hatchet Factory. The college left for Winston-Salem in 1956, the campus became Southeastern Seminary, which still owns the course, and Paschal just kept doing what it does: nine hilly, pine-lined holes playing 2,950 yards from the back tees, with four different 18-hole yardage combinations for anyone going around twice. The details that make it beloved:

• Public and open year-round, with tee times recommended but not required, a sentence almost no course can say anymore.
• Richland Creek winds through the property, and deer sightings are practically an amenity.
• The full small-club kit: clubhouse, putting green, snack bar, pro shop, and both power and pull carts.
• The location is peak Wake Forest: the historic downtown edge, across from Wake Forest High School, walkable from the old campus whose students built its legend. The campus walking guide and the story of when the champions lived here complete the history.

Short courses are having a renaissance nationally, and Paschal was one seventy years early. Play it once for the story; you'll come back for the golf.

Heritage Golf Club: the championship 18

At the other end of the spectrum, Heritage Golf Club is the Bob Moore-designed championship course threaded through the town's largest master-planned community, the full modern-club experience with a layout that tests every skill level and conditions to match. It's the special-occasion round, the client golf, the member Saturday, and the course that anchors the Heritage neighborhood's whole identity; plenty of residents bought the house partly for the commute to the first tee. Divots Grill handles the nineteenth-hole duties.

Brevofield, Hasentree and the rest of the bag

The supporting lineup covers every remaining golf mood:

• Brevofield Golf Links, the family-owned course out Camp Kanata Road, is the relaxed-round specialist and, judging by its search traffic, one of the area's best-kept open secrets: unpretentious links golf where the pace is set by the group ahead, not a marshal's cart.
• The Hasentree Club provides the private-club-in-the-woods tier inside the Hasentree community off NC 98, the membership answer for the country-club lifestyle on the quiet side of town.
• Brookfields Indoor Golf and Lounge covers the simulator-and-a-beer format, which is how the local golf year survives January and the occasional monsoon week; the rainy day guide files it under essential.
• The practice-and-lessons layer runs through the clubs' pros and ranges, with Paschal's low-pressure nine doubling as the best beginner classroom in town.

The Palmer pilgrimage, done right

For the visiting golfer treating Paschal as the destination it quietly is, the full pilgrimage takes a half day. Walk the nine in the morning, when the course is emptiest and the deer are out. Cross to the old campus afterward and follow the SEBTS walking route past the buildings Palmer's class knew, then take in the champions' broader story through the town's college sports heritage guide and the Historical Museum, where the college era lives on. Lunch downtown closes it out. It's the rare golf outing that improves the more history you bring to it.

Matching the course to the round

• The history round with a visiting golf nut: Paschal, and tell the Palmer story on the first tee.
• The serious Saturday or the client round: Heritage, booked ahead.
• The casual nine after work: Paschal again, no tee time required.
• The full lazy Sunday: Brevofield, with lunch after from the where-to-eat guide.
• February: Brookfields, simulator on, weather irrelevant.
• The non-golfing family's revenge: the disc golf guide covers the seminary's other course, and it's free.

A few practical notes round it out. Walk Paschal if you're able; it's the way the course was meant to be played and the way its most famous student played it. Book Heritage weekends early in the good-weather months, since the community's own members fill the sheet. And whatever the course, the golf year here runs eleven months in a good year, with the patio guide supplying the post-round table for at least eight of them. Not many towns of any size offer a public nine with a legend's fingerprints, a championship 18 and a family links inside fifteen minutes of each other. This one does, and the green fees haven't figured out how special that is yet. Play it before they do.

Frequently asked questions

Where did Arnold Palmer play golf in Wake Forest?

Paschal Golf Club, the 1917 nine-hole course at 555 Stadium Drive built for Wake Forest College. Palmer and his teammates walked down from campus to play it in the early 1950s, nicknaming it the Hatchet Factory. It's still public and open year-round.

What golf courses are in Wake Forest, NC?

Paschal Golf Club (public nine), Heritage Golf Club (Bob Moore championship 18), Brevofield Golf Links (family-owned), the private Hasentree Club, and Brookfields Indoor Golf for simulators.

Is Paschal Golf Club open to the public?

Yes, public and year-round, with tee times recommended but not required. The nine holes play 2,950 yards from the back tees, with four 18-hole yardage combinations for double loops.

How much history does Paschal actually have?

It opened in 1917, served as the original Wake Forest College course, is still owned by the seminary that inherited the campus, and celebrated its centennial in 2017 with Palmer-era teammates returning to play it.