Sixth Annual Golfweek Program Challenge Poised To Tee Off At Caledonia Golf & Fish Club And True Blue Golf Club

The sixth annual Golfweek Program Challenge - a 54-hole event that brings men’s and women’s teams from 16 schools together - will be played September 9-11 at Caledonia Golf & Fish Club and True Blue Golf Club, two of the nation’s top 100 public courses.

Caledonia and True Blue, both highly acclaimed Mike Strantz designs, have hosted the Golfweek Program Challenge since the event’s inception in 2012, attracting collegiate teams that want to test their games on a pair of superb layouts.

The Program Challenge allows men’s and women’s teams to compete together and separately, a unique format that collegiate coaches have found attractive.

The 2017 tournament was canceled due to the threat of severe weather from Hurricane Irma, but the 2016 Program Challenge champion Campbell University will return to defend its crown.

Joining Camels are Austin Peay, Tennessee Tech, Valparaiso, Presbyterian College, Florida Gulf Coast, Jacksonville State, Alabama State, Stephen F. Austin State, South Dakota, Bradley, Delaware, Old Dominion and Gardner-Webb.

Caledonia is ranked 29th on Golf Magazine’s list of the Top 100 You Can Play, a ranking of America’s best public courses, and True Blue is 77th on the prestigious list. Both courses are Mike Strantz designs that offer golfers distinct, yet equally dramatic and memorable experiences.

Caledonia, which is equal parts art and architecture, plays through a stunning piece of lowcountry land that was once home to a thriving rice plantation. The live oak trees draped in Spanish moss, the marshy waters of the Waccamaw Neck, and Strantz’s architectural brilliance combined to make Caledonia one of America’s premier public golf experiences.

A round at True Blue, while completely different from a design perspective, is no less captivating. Everything about the 7,126-yard layout is big – the fairways, the greens and most of all, the fun. Strantz used waste bunkers, which frame many of the course’s fairways, to craft a layout that is among the area’s most visually stunning.