Long before the modern-day phenomenon known as Sweetens Cove Golf Club entered the sphere of Jared Lucero’s golfing life, there was Dinaland Golf Course.
Tucked away in the northeast corner of Utah in the quaint town of Vernal not far from where Colorado and Wyoming connect, the region is known more for its abundance of natural wonders and outdoor activities than it is for Dinaland.
But the public golf course holds a special place in the heart of Lucero, the CEO of Reef Capital Partners, the driving force behind two of Utah’s newest emerging forces on the golf scene in Black Desert and Marcella Club. It was at Dinaland where Lucero and golf were first introduced years ago, a marriage that will continue to flourish clear across the country in the unlikely hamlet of South Pittsburg, Tennessee, home to Sweetens Cove.
Reef recently announced a collaboration with Sweetens Cove to expand the menu of fun at the nine-hole wonderland, with plans to develop a lighted par-3 short course, stay-and-play cabins, a restaurant and distillery, a winding putting green, fishing dock and skeet shooting range to elevate the experience for patrons while preserving its iconic charm.
“Sweetens Cove grabs you the moment you step onto the course,” Lucero said. “There’s an energy there that you won’t find anywhere else. It’s not just about golf; it’s about the experience, the people and the simplicity of spending a day with friends. We aim to preserve that unique charm while adding a place to stay, a bit more to do – including ‘Sweetens at Night’ – and some amazing food and drinks. Those things will only make every visit even more memorable, whether you’re playing the course for the first time or the hundredth.”
Located 30 miles west of Chattanooga, South Pittsburg is a hardscrabble working-class town of 3,000 residents known for decades for its powerhouse high school football dynasty, manufacturing of Lodge cast iron skillets and its annual Cornbread Festival. Around a decade ago, the town’s identity began to experience an unforeseen shift.
That’s when Rob Collins, an unemployed golf course designer from Chattanooga, and his partner Tad King unveiled to the world Sweetens Cove. It was a frenzied labor of love requiring the last penny of Collins’ dwindling savings and all he could muster in emotional capital.
Collins and King had gone all-in on transforming a dormant nine-hole golf course with minimal personality in the middle of a flood plain, converting the former Sequatchie Valley Golf and Country Club that had struggled for years into the sensation known as Sweetens Cove.
The dynamic layout was molded and shaped by Collins out of desperation, with the recent financial crisis shuttering most new course construction projects and placing him in the unemployment line. The finished product was spectacular in scope, but few golfers were interested in traveling to southeastern Tennessee to experience his creation.
But that all changed three years after opening when The New York Times penned a glowing review of Sweetens in 2017. Gradually the word spread there was something magical going on in South Pittsburg, eventually attracting Peyton Manning, a University of Tennessee alumnus and Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback, and tennis star Andy Roddick to join the ownership group.
“Reef Capital Partners has an incredible vision for this place. They came to play Sweetens last year, and we’re standing on the seventh tee. I’ll never forget Jared asked what our plans were for the land beside the golf course.” – Rob Collins
Since then, Sweetens has emerged as the anti-establishment golfing playground that has attracted a legion of cult-like followers who travel the globe to experience the nine-hole course where having fun is the mandate and rules are seen as an unnecessary annoyance.
Sweetens sells out an entire year of daily passes ($175 pre-tax in peak season) minutes after they are made available online, hosting 60 golfers each day with unlimited golf, a celebratory shot of whiskey before teeing off, and the ability to play holes in whatever order they deem appropriate to dual pin locations to extract as much entertainment as possible from the outing.
It was this sense of nonconformity that resonated with Lucero when he first visited Sweetens in the spring of 2023. It brought to mind his introduction to the sport at Dinaland as a boy.
“The area around Sweetens is very much like Vernal,” Lucero said. “It’s a fishing, hunting and outdoors town. I worked at Dinaland because we couldn’t afford green fees, and so that was how I could play golf. Every evening when golfers were finishing their rounds, me and my buddy would go out and play the golf course however we wanted. We would play par 10s; we’d tee off on a hole and play to a different green. For me personally, this is how I grew up golfing. That’s why Sweetens Cove felt like a very easy marriage.”
Nos. 5 (left) and 7 at Sweetens Cove
Collins had long envisioned enhancing the offerings for golfers making their pilgrimage to Sweetens. Previous conversations with other suitors never gained traction, leading him to doubt whether expansion would ever materialize. But it was the chance encounter with Lucero and his team that turned Collins’ dream into a reality.
“Reef Capital Partners has an incredible vision for this place,” Collins said. “They came to play Sweetens last year, and we’re standing on the seventh tee. I’ll never forget Jared asked what our plans were for the land beside the golf course. I told him we thought about doing a short course and adding some cabins, but that I didn’t know how to make it all work. I wasn’t trying to sell him at all. Halfway down the fairway, he’s got the entire model figured out and how it would work. That’s how brilliant of a mind he has with real estate. All of a sudden, it made total sense.”
Plans include connecting the par-3 layout to the existing course where play can overlap. The short course will also encourage a “cross-country” routing, allowing creativity in how the holes are played. The property will serve as home of Sweetens Cove Spirits with a bottle shop and micro-distillery, along with a full-service restaurant. The meandering putting green will weave among the cabins and connect with the short course, and a fishing dock will allow golfers to wet a line near the sixth hole, to take a diversion from golf.
“It’s going to be like a 24-hour lift ticket where you just cram as much of whatever you want to do into your stay,” Collins said. “We just want to make it even better than it already is, and it will be done in that same spirit that makes us unique. It’s simply the next progression of the Sweetens story.”
Reef has emerged as a formidable player in the golfing world. In addition to Cutalong at Lake Anna in Virginia, Lucero’s team oversaw the development of Black Desert, which brought the PGA Tour to Utah for the first time in six decades in October, as well as the Marcella Club near Park City designed by Tiger Woods and slated to open in 2025. Plans are already in the works for a second course at Marcella, with King-Collins rumored to be in line to bring their expertise to Utah after adding the dynamic duo of Landmand Golf Club in Nebraska and Red Feather Golf and Social Club in Texas to their impressive résumé over the past few years.
“It’s clear that in the golfing world people are looking for things that are different. There’s tradition with things being a certain way, and a certain part of that is fun and cool. But as the younger generation gets into golf, you want to be different.” – Jared Lucero
Lucero envisions the investment made at Sweetens as being a natural fit in Reef’s expansion into the resort golf world in spite of the seemingly disparate detour from previous projects.
“It’s clear that in the golfing world people are looking for things that are different,” Lucero said. “There’s tradition with things being a certain way, and a certain part of that is fun and cool. But as the younger generation gets into golf, you want to be different. People love going to Ireland and Scotland from America so much because it’s not that the golf courses are better, per se. It’s because they’re different, and it allows you to have a much more enjoyable experience.
“That was what really struck me about Sweetens. It just frees you up to enjoy yourself, and that’s what we’re trying to accomplish at our properties. There are more things in luxury than just how fancy it is and how expensive it is. The biggest luxury of all, in my opinion, is how enjoyable it is. I could think of almost nothing more luxurious than spending a whole day at Sweetens Cove with your friends.”
Matt Adamski, the general manager and PGA professional, oversees the daily revelry at Sweetens from a 300-square-foot prefabricated shed that serves as the clubhouse. It plays into the unrefined mystique of the place. But the rustic setup hasn’t hampered Adamski’s ability to promote the Sweetens message. He is a finalist for 2024 PGA National Merchandiser of the Year among public courses, having earned that distinction last year among public courses in the Tennessee PGA Section.
“Sweetens Cove is a golf anomaly,” said Adamski, who arrived there five years ago from NCR Country Club in Kettering, Ohio. “We’ve created a place where you can play all day, with no tee times, no dress codes and no pressure. It’s a giant adult playground, where everyone can find something to love. Our design caters to everyone. Novices love it because it’s welcoming and informal, while purists appreciate the brilliance of the course’s architecture.”