SYLACAUGA, ALABAMA | Everybody has a back story. Every place, too. And oftentimes, that is what distinguishes them.
Such is the case with Pursell Farms.
To be sure, the Alabama resort is recognized for the 18-hole course, called FarmLinks Golf Club, that serves as its centerpiece. In fact, Golfweek has named it the top public-access track in the state on multiple occasions. Designed by Mike Hurdzan and Dana Fry and routed in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, the layout takes players on a rollicking ride across meadows, through groves of hardwoods and pines and over rugged rises, testing their games along the way with a collection of well-crafted holes.
The hunting and shooting on property stand out as well, whether it’s a trip around the 18-station sporting clays course or a walk-up with dogs for pheasant or quail. The offerings are so good that Orvis has made Pursell Farms one of only three branded shooting grounds in the nation. In addition, the outfitter operates one of its acclaimed fly-fishing schools here.
As for the food and drink, they tantalize the taste buds while evoking the culinary heritage of the South, serving up flaky biscuits the size of hockey pucks, bowls of creamy hominy grits, hickory-smoked pork sausage from Conecuh County downstate and perfectly brewed iced tea.
Equally praiseworthy are the accommodations in the form of cottages, cabins and a 14,000-square-foot inn and the overall hospitality of a place where people still wave when they pass one another on the road.
There is also something seductive about the easy pace of life in and around Sylacauga, a city of nearly 13,000 that is best known for its white marble quarries and being where the late actor Jim Nabors, aka Gomer Pyle, was born and raised.
Born and raised in Sylacauga, actor Jim Nabors (right, as Gomer Pyle on the set of “The Andy Griffith Show,” with co-stars Don Knotts as Barney Fife and Griffith) was a close friend of the Pursell family. His old pool table, a vintage 1903 Brunswick model, stands today in Old Tom’s Pub at the resort’s inn.
But it was the story of Pursell Farms that really stayed with me after I departed, and the remarkable growth of a business that, no sh*t, first entailed selling cow manure to local farmers and grew to become a giant in the fertilizer industry.
And that evolution is what led the founding family a quarter century ago to build a golf course and in time add other amenities on a 3,500-acre farm so it could build relationships with customers in the turfgrass business while also showcasing their products and educating course superintendents and other experts in that field about how well they worked on the fairways, tees and greens they had constructed here.
The Pursell Farms story starts with the fertilizer business that DeWitt Parker formed in 1904 in this community some 50 miles south of Birmingham. In time, his son Howard joined the operation, and they sold mostly to local farmers and others in the agriculture business.
“We started small. I’d grill the steaks outside my parents’ house, and my father would be inside talking with our guests.” – David Pursell
The company prospered, but in the mid-1950s, it started to move into the lawn-and-garden market. Eventually, the focus changed from farming products to those made specifically for lawns and gardens, a realm, by the way, that included golf courses.
Around that same time, Howard Parker’s son-in-law, Jimmy Pursell, became enamored with time-released fertilizers that were much more advanced than manure. And it was not long before the company began offering products that employed that technology.
A few decades later, Pursell decided to build a sulfur-coated urea (SCU) plant in Sylacauga to manufacture something called SulfurKote.
Not long after the facility opened in 1986, the Pursells received a call from a Midwestern concern that was interested in sourcing that product from them. So, Jimmy and his wife, Chris, invited executives from that operation to their farm. The visitors toured the new plant, dined at the Pursells’ and spent the night at the family’s guest house. And about a week after the group left, the Pursells learned that the company would henceforth buy all their SCU from them, an order that made up about a quarter of the plant’s capacity.
That experience got Jimmy’s son David, who had recently graduated from Auburn University after studying in its commercial art program, thinking about the virtues of bringing potential customers to the family farm for a few days as opposed to sending salesmen on the road with what David describes as “fancy brochures and product samples.”
That led to the creation of the Experience at Pursell Farms.
“We started small,” said the 65-year-old David Pursell, who is the father of six and best known around the property as D.P. “I’d grill the steaks outside my parents’ house, and my father would be inside talking with our guests.
“Eventually, it became a three-day, two-night visit that was all about building trust and relationships. We’d average two groups a week over a 42-week period of time, with each of those having 15 to 20 people. All told, that gave us 84 different sessions, which were great ways to get with those very important customers. We’d go fishing, offer other activities like archery and axe throwing, have sit-down dinners and also plant tours and presentations.”
It became even more of an experience when the Pursells built the golf course that David has called a “living laboratory” and “the only research and demonstration golf course in the world.” It gave the family one more way to entertain their guests, the vast majority of whom were golf course superintendents, and also help them appreciate all that their fertilizer products can do.
Construction of the golf course began in 2001, with play on the new layout beginning two years later. The cottages and cabins came online in 2012, and the Orvis Shooting Grounds opened three years later. As for the Inn at Pursell Farms, which featured 40 rooms and two restaurants, it started welcoming guests in 2018.
A few years after play began on the golf course, the Pursells spun off FarmLinks as a separate entity. Then in 2006, Pursell Technologies Incorporated sold to Agrium, a Canadian company. Not long after that, the customer trips stopped, and Pursell Farms became a full-fledged resort that now includes a spa and golf academy as well as a five-stand sporting clays range and trap field, a pool and fitness center and a store at the Shooting Grounds that offers a slew of Orvis sporting gear and clothes.
Driving here from Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport, I become excited about checking out the resort in its current form. Part of the allure, to be sure, is its back story. But it is also a result of my never having spent much time in Alabama. I marvel at the red clay banks that run along both sides of the road and the fields of cotton, the fluffy white bits of fiber bursting from the husks making the terrain from afar look as if it had been dusted with snow. And I smile when I spy the Cedar Creek Cowboy Church and the roping pen that stands beside it. Horses and cows nibble on grasses in nearby pastures, and I notice a number of hunting and fishing boats trailered in front yards.
This is my kind of place, I think as I turn down the entrance road at Pursell Farms. Then, I see the golf course, which only reaffirms that sensation.
D.P. is excited to show me around, and we hop into an all-terrain utility vehicle that he calls his “rig.”
We pass pieces of vintage farm equipment rusting in the swathes of broom sedge that line some of the holes. A tractor here, a hay rake there.
“The course is laid out on some 450 acres, and we have a lot of internal space,” said Pursell, who has been playing golf since he was a boy and carries a handicap index of 7.1. “The idea was to provide a very enjoyable round – something to challenge better golfers but also make bad players feel better about their games.”
There are no blind shots, Pursell adds, and lots of room to spray the ball. The five sets of tees, which have total yardages that range from 7,444 yards to 5,250 yards, accommodate a wide range of players. And it is possible for golfers to create their own hybrid courses, if they so desire.
Given its size and scope, Pursell concedes that the track, which records between 22,000 and 24,000 rounds a year, is not walker friendly. “It’s a cart course, and working with Mike and Dana, we chose what they thought were the best places for the routing,” he said.
We pass pieces of vintage farm equipment rusting in the swathes of broom sedge that line some of the holes. A tractor here, a hay rake there. Pursell points to a section of woods left of the par-5 sixth and says that the construction crew found a couple of old whisky stills there, which is why he named the hole Bootlegger.
“Anywhere there was a spring around here in the old days, there was a still,” he said. “And we have something like 25 springs on the property.”
On the next hole, he shows me a tire swing that still hangs from an oak tree to the left of the green on that long par-4.
“We used to have family picnics here,” he said. “And I would swing my kids in that same tire.”
The tour lasts a couple more hours, and D.P. continues to share information. About the 30 strains of grasses that grow on the course, harkening back to the days when it was the site of so many “experiences.” About explorer Hernando de Soto making camp in this area centuries ago. About the bunker renovation that architect Tripp Davis performed on the layout in 2022. And how the busiest – and best – times of the year to play are the spring and fall (though the golf course is open year-round).
Pursell even talks about adding a second course one day, one that would be better-suited for walking.
Then, it is time for me to tee it up. The width of the fairways and size of the putting surfaces make it possible for me to hit most of the greens on the front nine in regulation, though a couple of three-putts prevented me from scoring in the high 30s. But even with those misses, I relish the bucolic setting and the quiet of the Alabama woods, with the only sounds I hear for most of the loop being those of chestnut acorns falling from the oaks and leaves from those trees rustling in the afternoon breeze.
As for a favorite hole, it is Bootlegger, due in part to the story behind its name but mostly because of the downhill drive it asks players to hit to a very accommodating fairway that doglegs slightly to the right. I swing easily on that shot, and the next one as well, leaving myself a wedge to the well-bunkered green. Two putts later, I have my par.
The back nine is just as enjoyable, with the two finishers standing out. No. 17 is a downhill par 3 that requires a mid-iron over a pond to a green guarded by a front-right bunker. The 18th is a flattish hole that runs along the inn and asks a player to hit his tee shot between a pair of stately oaks and then try to avoid fairway bunkering on the right and a greenside bunker on the left.
They end what was a very stirring round, and I found the loop I took the next day on the sporting-clays course at Pursell Farms to be just as pleasurable as I shot targets that emulated flushing pheasants, settling woodies and towering teal, among other birds.
Doing that reminded me of just how well these two sports go together and how much I like being at a place that has them both.
It also added to what had become to me another interesting part of the Pursell Farms story.