Course History
Ironwood Golf & Country Club opened in May of 1996. It started out as a dream of two local business men that grew up in Greenville, Doug Parker and Charles Newsome. With the help of two other friends, Tom and Miles Smith, they teamed together and made their dream come true and produced one of the finest courses and clubs in this part of the state. Many Greenville residents recognize the names Doug Parker, owner of Parker’s Bar B Que and Tom Smith, past CEO of Food Lion Grocery Stores.
In 2018, Ironwood went under the private ownership of Renaissance Golf Group, LLC. Along with Ironwood, RGG owns 3 other courses in Eastern, NC, The Beaufort Club located in Beaufort along with Compass Pointe and Magnolia Greens in Leland. Ironwood Members receive reciprocal dining and golf access to all RGG courses.
The wynding drive to the plantation style club house, which sits overlooking the wooded back 9 on one of the uncharacteristic hills in Greenville, puts you in a relaxed, comfortable mood that eastern North Carolina is known for. They wanted a very cozy, warm, family oriented neighborhood and they wanted the same for their golf course. They met with several course designers and the unanimous choice was for Lee Trevino.
Ironwood was the first Lee Trevino Signature golf course east of the Mississippi. Lee Trevino was a great professional golfer who won 29 PGA events including 6 Majors, extended his career on the Senior PGA with 29 more victories and now has signature courses that span from NC to Vietnam. During the peak of his career his greatest competitors were Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Gary Player.
A signature course is a course built using the philosophies of the player on how he thinks a course should be designed for golfers to play. Trevino’s philosophies were very simple, to build a course that brings golfers of every level of talent back to play again and again. If you score in the 100’s he wants you to score in the 90’s, if you score in the 90’s he wants you to score in the 80’s and if you score in the 80’s he wants you to score in the 70’s and still create a challenge for the best of golfers.
The “risk reward” is a stand out characteristic of the course. For example our 14th hole has a pond that appears to be in the middle of the fairway, but for the weekend golfer you can make your way around the pond fairly easily and for the seasoned player he can take a chance and try to carry as much of the pond as they feel comfortable with which will give a shorter shot to the flag. You will find this characteristic throughout the course. The tees have been built to give the feeling of hitting down hill even when hitting up hill. The mounding of the roughs and fairways will make errant shots bound back to the fairway, making every golfing experience an enjoyable one.
In 2024, Ironwood installed new TifEagle Bermuda Grass greens along with enhancing the driving range and relocating the putting green next to the #1 tee box to add a short game area. The new greens and practice areas officially opened on September 7th!