The most important golf course at Candyroot Lodge may not be the first one.
That is not a knock on the 18-hole course being built by Mike Koprowski, the former U.S. Air Force intelligence officer turned golf course architect whose debut design, Broomsedge, quickly became one of the most talked-about new courses in the country.
It is not a knock on the 1,210 acres of rolling, sandy terrain in the Carolina Sandhills. It is not a knock on the property’s long-term plan, which includes four championship courses, lodging, wellness amenities, miles of connected trails and a golf retreat built around the idea that great design and public access do not have to live in different worlds.
But sometimes the soul of a place reveals itself in the shorter walk.
That may be the case with Sweet Tooth, the public, walkable, social par-3 course at Candyroot Lodge that will mark Michelle Wie West’s first golf course design.
In a conversation with Athlon Sports, Wie West made it clear that Sweet Tooth is not simply about adding another line to her golf résumé. It is about building the kind of welcoming, public, low-pressure golf experience that first helped her fall in love with the game.
For a player who grew up on public par-3 golf, became one of the most recognizable figures in the game, won the 2014 U.S. Women’s Open at Pinehurst and has spent much of her post-playing life thinking about how golf can better welcome women, children and families, this is not just a design credit.
It feels like a full-circle moment.
A First Design Project That Actually Fits
The news that Wie West is entering golf course design could have gone several ways.
She could have lent her name to a high-end private project. She could have become part of a massive luxury development where the golf was more amenity than mission. She could have waited for something safer, more predictable and more traditional.
Instead, her first design project is a par-3 course at a public golf retreat in the Sandhills.
That matters.
“The team at Candyroot had a clear vision from day one about creating a welcoming golf experience,” Wie West said.
That vision resonated because it matched her own story. Wie West did not grow up only seeing golf through the lens of major championships, corporate tents and televised pressure. Her relationship with the game started much smaller and much more relatable.
“I grew up on a public par-3 course,” she said.
That is the line that makes this project different.
Sweet Tooth is not being designed by someone trying to imagine what beginner golf feels like. It is being shaped by someone who remembers it. She remembers the entry point. She remembers the comfort of a place that did not feel too big, too formal or too intimidating. She remembers how a short course can create confidence before a golfer ever feels ready for a full-length layout.
That perspective gives Sweet Tooth a chance to become more than Candyroot’s fun course.
It could become Candyroot’s front door.
Why Sweet Tooth Matters
Michelle Wie West’s first design is built around golf’s most important entry point.
Sweet Tooth is not just a par-3 course. It is designed to be public, walkable, social and flexible enough for juniors, beginners, families and serious players to all find their own version of fun.
Public
Built around access, opportunity and a less intimidating way into the game.
Flexible
Elastic tees, multiple hole locations and alternate scorecards create variety.
Social
Night play and converging holes are meant to create energy and connection.
Why Sweet Tooth Could Be The Hook
Golf resorts often sell themselves through championship scale. Big land. Big architects. Big scorecards. Big photos. Big claims.
Candyroot will have plenty of that.
The first 18-hole course is expected to offer preview play in November ahead of a spring 2027 grand opening. Koprowski’s routing is being shaped around serpentine fairways, ridgeline greens, sandy movement and the kind of ground-game shot making that fits the Carolina Sandhills. The property sits in South Carolina, roughly an hour from both Charlotte and Columbia, placing it within reach of two major population centers while still giving it room to feel like an escape.
That is the serious golf story.
Sweet Tooth is the human one.
Wie West’s par-3 course is being built around a simple idea: golf is more powerful when more people feel like they belong in it.
“Public golf means opportunity,” Wie West said.
That sentence carries extra weight coming from a major champion. Golf gave Wie West a stage, but public golf gave her a start. Now, as a parent, she is looking at the game through a different lens. She is thinking about families, juniors, beginners and the gap between the range and the first tee that keeps too many people from becoming golfers.
That gap is real.
A driving range can feel safe. A full-size course can feel overwhelming. A beginner can hit balls for months and still have no idea how to navigate a hole, choose a club, keep score or move through a round without feeling exposed.
Sweet Tooth is trying to live in that missing space.
A Par-3 Course With More Than One Way To Play
The smartest part of Sweet Tooth may be its flexibility.
The course is expected to use elastic teeing areas and greens with multiple hole locations, allowing the same compact setting to create different angles, yardages and challenges. That means the course can change without losing its identity. It can be friendly one day, spicier the next and still manageable for players who are just getting started.
Wie West said variety was essential because she wants Sweet Tooth to stay interesting every time golfers play it.
That is the key to making a par-3 course more than a novelty.
A good short course is not just a smaller version of golf. It is a different kind of golf. It asks different questions. It creates different energy. It can be played by a junior, a parent, a scratch player and a first-timer without any of them feeling like the course was not meant for them.
Sweet Tooth is also expected to offer two scorecards, including one that reimagines select holes as par-4s and par-5s for beginners and juniors. That idea is subtle, but it is powerful.
For a skilled player, a 115-yard hole may be a wedge shot. For a young junior or beginner, it may be a driver, a second shot and a chip. Changing the scorecard changes the emotional experience. Instead of making a new golfer feel like they made a triple bogey on a par 3, the course can give them a realistic par to chase.
That is not dumbing the game down.
That is building the game up.
The Sandhills Connection Makes It More Personal
Candyroot’s location also matters to Wie West.
The property sits in the Carolina Sandhills, not far from Pinehurst, where Wie West won the 2014 U.S. Women’s Open. That victory remains one of the defining moments of her career, and it came on one of American golf’s most meaningful landscapes.
“The Sandhills are one of my favorite golf landscapes in the world,” Wie West said.
It is easy to understand why.
The Sandhills encourage golf that moves along the ground. They reward imagination. They create lies, angles and visuals that do not always tell the truth. They allow architecture to feel discovered instead of manufactured.
That same spirit appears to be central to Candyroot’s first 18-hole course, where Koprowski has described small, tilted greens, limited bunkering, native grasses and semi-blind shots shaped by landforms too good to flatten.
Sweet Tooth appears to be taking that same Sandhills language and translating it into a shorter, more social format.
Wie West wants players to use bump-and-runs, low skippers and creative approaches. She wants golfers to feel like they have options. That is especially important for beginners because creativity can make golf less rigid. It can turn one “correct” shot into several possible answers.
That is where short-course golf can shine.
It can teach without feeling like instruction. It can create strategy without punishing people for not knowing all the rules yet. It can help a junior learn how the ball reacts on the ground. It can help an adult beginner discover that golf is not only about hitting high, perfect shots.
Sometimes the most fun shot is the one that bounces twice, turns sideways and somehow ends up close.
Night Golf, Family Golf And The Social Piece
Sweet Tooth is also expected to include night play and a routing where holes crisscross and converge.
That might sound like a small operational detail. It is not.
Night golf changes the atmosphere. It makes the course feel more like a gathering place than a traditional tee sheet. A short course under the lights can become the kind of space where friends play after dinner, parents bring kids without committing to five hours and serious golfers settle bets long after the main round is over.
Wie West said she hopes Sweet Tooth feels “energetic, social and welcoming.”
That is exactly the lane more of golf needs to explore.
The future of the game will not be built only by adding more championship yardage. It will be built by creating more entry points. More shared spaces. More places where a new golfer does not feel like they are holding everyone up. More places where kids can laugh, parents can relax and better players can still be challenged by angles, wind, slopes and imagination.
If Candyroot gets that right, Sweet Tooth could become one of the property’s most important assets.
Not because it is the biggest course.
Because it may be the course people remember first.
Candyroot’s Bigger Vision
Candyroot Lodge Snapshot
A New Public Golf Retreat In The Carolina Sandhills
1,210
Acres of rolling, sandy Sandhills terrain.
2027
Targeted spring grand opening for the first 18-hole course.
4
Planned championship courses by next-generation architects.
1st
Golf course design project for Michelle Wie West with Sweet Tooth.
The larger vision includes design-forward lodging, restorative wellness amenities, trails, night golf and a public access model built around both bucket-list travel and repeat regional play.
The broader Candyroot Lodge story is ambitious.
The retreat is being planned as a modern, walkable public golf destination grounded in the land. Hart Howerton, the landscape architect and master planner, is shaping a property that will include design-forward lodging, restorative wellness amenities, hot-cold therapy, saunas, steam rooms, strength training and trails.
That is not accidental.
Modern golf travel is no longer just about how many holes a guest can squeeze into a trip. The best destinations create a sense of place. They give people a reason to bring a spouse, a family or a group of friends. They make the hours away from the course feel connected to the hours on it.
Candyroot’s name comes from a small native plant that grows in sandy soil. That detail feels fitting. The project is trying to root itself in the Sandhills rather than simply build on top of them.
That is also why Wie West’s involvement feels so natural.
Sweet Tooth is not being positioned as an afterthought. It fits the larger idea of a retreat that can be serious about golf without becoming narrow about who golf is for.
Why This One Feels Different
There are many new golf projects. Not all of them feel distinct.
Candyroot has a chance to separate itself because it is combining several ideas that rarely meet this cleanly: public access, Sandhills architecture, next-generation design, family-friendly golf, wellness, lodging and a short course with a major champion’s personal story behind it.
Wie West’s first design could have been anywhere.
She chose a place where public golf is not a side note. She chose a par-3 course, the same kind of place where her own journey began. She chose a landscape tied to the biggest win of her career. She chose a project aimed at making golf feel more approachable without making it less interesting.
That is the story.
Candyroot Lodge may be built across 1,210 acres, but its most meaningful idea might fit inside a short walk under the lights.
A beginner with a first scorecard.
A junior chasing a makeable par.
A parent walking beside a child.
A skilled player trying to use a slope instead of flying it all the way to the flag.
That is where the game grows.
And if Sweet Tooth delivers on the promise Michelle Wie West is helping shape, Candyroot Lodge will not just be another new golf destination in the Carolina Sandhills.
It will be a public golf retreat with a heartbeat.
PGA of America Golf Professional Brendon Elliott is an award-winning coach and golf writer who serves as Athlon Sports Senior Golf Writer. Read his recent “The Starter” on R.org, where he is their Lead Golf Writer. To stay updated on all of his latest work, sign up for his newsletter or visit his MuckRack Profile.
