For 12 years, Sweetens Cove Golf Club has been one of American golf's most improbable cult destinations — a nine-hole inland links course in a South Pittsburg, Tennessee town of 3,000 people, 30 miles west of Chattanooga, where guests buy all-day passes that sell out within minutes. This spring, that nine-hole curiosity took its biggest swing yet.
Reef Capital Partners and the Sweetens Cove ownership group — which includes Rob Collins, Peyton Manning, Andy Roddick, Tom Nolan, Skip Bronson, Drew Holcomb, and Sweetens Cove Spirits CEO Chris Parsons — broke ground in May on a King Collins Dormer-designed 13-hole short course that, alongside a property-wide expansion, will transform the cult nine-hole into what Collins calls "the ultimate 24-hour golf playground."
The new short course, set to open in summer 2027, is designed by King Collins Dormer — Rob Collins and Tad King's firm, which created the original Sweetens Cove layout in 2014. The new routing connects to and overlaps with the existing course, encouraging the kind of "cross-country" play Collins has described as central to his vision. "We're going to work really hard on tying the two courses together so that Sweetens feels more free-flowing and explorative than it already is," Collins said in a statement. Alongside the short course, a winding multi-acre putting green will open in spring 2027.
The expansion delivers the property's first overnight stay-and-play experience. One-bedroom cabins with single or double occupancy will open in phases beginning late 2027, with full completion planned for 2028. A 5,100-square-foot private full-service restaurant and bar — reserved exclusively for guests on golf packages — will open alongside the cabins. A separate 1,775-square-foot public-facing Sweetens Cove Spirits bottle shop and micro-distillery, opening fall 2027, will give visitors a permanent home for the American whiskey brand co-founded by Manning, Roddick, and Parsons. The expansion also adds three golf simulator bays with club fitting and expanded retail, a fishing dock near the sixth hole, a skeet shooting range, an Octagon Barn event space with storage for 60 whiskey barrels, and a Thermal Village debuting spring 2028.
The hospitality buildings, courtyard, and gathering spaces are designed by Pfeffer Torode Architecture, the Nashville-based firm whose portfolio is rooted in vernacular Southern architecture. The coursework continues under King Collins Dormer. The expansion development is led by Reef Capital Partners, the Utah-based real estate investment and development firm whose portfolio also includes Black Desert Resort and Marcella Club in Utah and Cutalong in Virginia. "We have always prided ourselves on offering a golf experience unlike any other," said General Manager Matthew Adamski. "These new additions will only enhance what our guests experience on property and further cement Sweetens as the ultimate golf destination."
The expansion's roots trace back to May 2014, when Collins and Ari Techner signed the original Sweetens Cove lease and gave King Collins free rein to design what would become one of golf's most-talked-about modern courses. In 2019, the ownership group expanded to its current roster — a lineup whose collective name recognition helped lift Sweetens Cove from regional curiosity to national pilgrimage site. Reef Capital Partners joined as an expansion developer in early 2025, and over the following 18 months, Collins and Reef's team refined the plans toward the design unveiled this spring. "From the day Ari Techner and I signed the lease for Sweetens Cove Golf Club in May 2014, there has always been a larger vision for the property," Collins said. "It took the partnership, wherewithal, and imagination of Jared Lucero and Reef to bring it to life."
What stays the same is the part that built the cult. Sweetens Cove will continue selling all-day passes, with guests gathering at the shed at 8:30 a.m. for course conditions, a celebratory shot of Sweetens Cove Whiskey, and starting-hole assignments. Daily pass capacity is capped: 60 on weekdays, Tuesday through Thursday, and 45 Friday through Sunday — a discipline that has kept the property's distinct culture intact through every phase of its growth. First openings begin in 2027; full completion is targeted for 2028.