Andrew Green’s Firefly Is Even Better With the Architect Along

Ninety-five levels greeted me when I arrived in Nashville on Thursday. By Friday, I was taking part in Andrew Green’s Firefly in temperatures that started in the low 60s and fell into the 50s, with enough wind to give a spherical in Middle Tennessee an nearly Scottish really feel.

I had written a handful of articles about this property before making the journey. I knew the story behind Green’s first unique design and had adopted Firefly’s progress toward opening. Now I finally had a probability to play it.

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Firefly was excellent. And the half I keep coming back to is how much of the golf course I could see.

At several factors during the spherical, I appeared out across a number of holes and realized how much I get pleasure from that high quality in a course. I could comply with the form of the gap we were taking part in, then look beyond it and see how other holes occupied the same panorama. My eye stored touring beyond the next shot.

Green Gives the Land Room

Firefly, a non-public membership in Spring Hill, south of Nashville, opened its programs over Labor Day weekend. It is still a very younger place, with the golf operation persevering with to set up itself. Yet the relationship between the holes and the land already feels remarkably settled.

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Green deserves appreciable credit for that. Looking across the property, I admired how comfortably his holes occupied the ground. The views were stunning, actually, but seeing several holes collectively also let me admire how he had fitted a golf course into this setting.

I could examine a inexperienced complicated up close, then look farther out and take in a much bigger piece of his work. I came away admiring both the care around those particular person greens and his use of the property as a entire.

Having Green there made the expertise even higher. He performed several holes with each media group, including ours, giving us the alternative to expertise his first unique design alongside him.

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That is a notably good cause to resist judging Firefly solely through the tasks that preceded it. Green has an established popularity for his work on current programs. Here, he had the alternative to determine where the golf should go from the starting, and I completely loved seeing those selections on the ground.

For a course that has only just lately welcomed its members, Firefly felt unusually comfy in its environment.

A Front Nine With Three of Everything

The entrance 9 accommodates three par 3s, three par 4s and three par 5s. That distribution appealed to me, and the sequence makes it more fascinating still: a par 4 to start, then a par 3, a par 5, another par 3 and another par 5.

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Green then finishes the outward 9 with a par 4, par 3, par 5 and par 4. The longer holes keep arriving between the short ones, so there is no prolonged run of par 4s to settle into. I loved that rhythm.

The selection labored properly in Friday’s wind. I favored having three par 5s woven among the shorter holes, with no two consecutive holes sharing the same par.

The greens were firm, which I expected from a course so early in its life. I would need more time and more rounds before making an attempt to describe how they will play as the course matures. Friday offered one expertise under some pretty demanding situations.

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What I could choose was the thought behind the complexes. They were troublesome, yes, and I discovered them honest. I loved that mixture, particularly on a day when the climate was already asking loads of us.

There is helpful selection in how Green lets golfers strategy those targets. At the seventh, the ground short of the inexperienced permits a ball to be labored in along the turf. The fourth presents a much more exacting little goal, with a deep bunker and falling ground around the inexperienced.

Those are totally different issues, and they help clarify my enthusiasm for the entrance 9. Its three par 3s have room to be particular person holes. Green has given them other ways to occupy a golfer’s consideration.

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Inside Andrew Green’s Routing

Three of Each. Nine Distinct Holes.

A better look at how Firefly’s opening 9 reaches par 36.

Par 3sNos. 2, 4 and 7

Par 4sNos. 1, 6 and 9

Par 5sNos. 3, 5 and 8

Read the rhythm

4 · 3 · 5 · 3 · 5 · 4 · 3 · 5 · 4

No two consecutive holes on the entrance 9 share the same par.

Source: Firefly’s revealed scorecard. Par sequence checked against the membership’s course tour.

The 14th Was My Hole of the Day

The long par-5 14th was my favourite gap at Firefly. For golfers taking part in the applicable tees, it struck me as the good mixture of problem and equity.

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The drive climbs uphill, with bunkers down the left and ground that feeds from proper to left. Beyond the rise, uncovered rock gives the gap a rugged character. The second shot crosses a creek toward a touchdown space that rises to a plateau, adopted by an angled, contoured inexperienced.

There is a lot of golf in that description. The longest hitters can entertain getting home in two, while most gamers will need three pictures. What appealed to me was having so much to think about along the approach: where to drive it, how to negotiate the creek and where to depart the strategy.

For a participant taking three pictures, the second has a function beyond getting farther down the gap. The creek and the angle of the inexperienced give that shot penalties for the strategy. That helped make the 14th really feel honest to me: the participant without the distance to attain in two still has a gap price considering through.

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The fifteenth adjustments the tempo with a short par 4 that affords the risk of driving the inexperienced under the proper situations. Later, the downhill par-3 seventeenth brings the ground into play again, with bumps short of the inexperienced that can help feed a operating shot toward the goal. The back 9 gives golfers loads beyond the long 14th, but that was the gap I would decide first to show someone what I loved about Firefly.

Joe Hallett, Nick Dimengo and a Round Together

I also had the pleasure of taking part in with my outdated pal and fellow PGA Professional Joe Hallett, who has taken on the function of director of golf instruction at Firefly. Seeing Joe at this level in the membership’s development was particularly fulfilling. There is still so much being organized, and he gets to help set up the educating operation as the membership begins experiencing the place.

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I have identified Joe long enough that taking part in a spherical with him would have been a pleasure anywhere. Getting to do it at Firefly, as he begins this function, made the go to that much more fulfilling.

Our group also included fellow Athlon Sports author Nick Dimengo. Nick and I have identified each other for about two years, but Friday was the first time we had truly met in individual.

That sounds odd until you think about how many working relationships develop that approach now. You know someone through the work long before you ever share a tee time. With Nick, the in-person introduction felt overdue.

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Kindred spirits is in all probability the best approach to describe it.

Between an outdated pal, a fellow author I was finally assembly and the architect becoming a member of us for half of the spherical, I had great company in which to get acquainted with Firefly. The cold and wind were very much half of the expertise, but so were those relationships.

I did not play the nine-hole short course. From what I could see, it appeared every bit as thoughtfully thought-about as the predominant course, although a look from close by is only enough to make me curious. Those 9 holes deserve a spherical of their own.

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Beyond the Main Course

More Room to Work on the Game

9 holes

Andrew Green also designed Firefly’s short course, called The Playground.

70–210

Yards across the short course’s revealed vary of gap lengths.

Facility particulars equipped by Firefly. Brendon Elliott did not play the short course during his Oct. 16 go to.

PGA of America Golf Professional Brendon Elliott is an award-winning coach and golf author who serves as Athlon Sports Senior Golf Writer. Read his latest “The Starter” on RG.org, where he is their Lead Golf Writer. To keep up to date on all of his newest work, signal up for his e-newsletter or go to his MuckRack Profile.

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Related: Andrew Green’s Next Chapter Arrives With Two Very Different New Golf Courses

Related: Firefly Opens Its Golf Before the Rest of the Community Is Finished

Related: Joe Hallett Named Firefly Director of Golf Instruction

This story was initially revealed by Athlon on Oct 17, 2026, where it first appeared in the Golf part. Add Athlon as a Preferred Source by clicking here.