Quixote Club RECEIVES TOP NATIONAL RANKING

Golf Digest rates multimillion-dollar redevelopment as

No. 3 best new private U.S. course

“This is something to be extremely proud of and plusses across the board for Sumter. You can create a legacy with good schooling, kids becoming successful and then returning. It’s a selffulfilling legacy. This was great foresight and great generosity on the part of Greg and Lewis Thompson. I am very proud to be a part of that.”

— JACK NICKLAUS II, Quixote Club architect and son of PGA Tour legend Jack Nicklaus

A local, redeveloped, private golf course with a philanthropic mission has been named one of the best new courses in the nation by the golf industry’s top course

Golf Digest magazine released in January 2023 its best course rankings, and Sumter’s Quixote Club finished third for best new private course in America. An editor of the leading publication and club leaders spoke

The par-70, 18-hole course on 169 acres in the western part of the City of Sumter was formerly Sunset Country Club before brothers Greg and Lewis Thompson purchased it in 2019 with a vision to create an elite golf club with a philanthropic mission tied to a local public charter school.

The renovated course was designed by Jack Nicklaus II, son of the legendary Jack Nicklaus, and Kris Spence Golf Design. Key staff were hired, and construction was completed in about 11 corners. It’s a beautiful golf course. From the beginning of the cycle, I thought Quixote had a chance to be in the top three or four, and it did.”

At least $13 million was put into the renovation, which included removing about 3,200 trees to open up the course to vistas and a total rerouting of the back nine holes.

The course unofficially opened in December 2020, and the new clubhouse was completed in October 2021.

Quixote featured a grand opening celebration in April 2022 when it brought in the designers and a select list of people to play the course and learn more about Sumter’s first tuition-free public charter in Liberty STEAM Charter School.

Derek Duncan, architecture editor of Golf Digest, said the course got good press coverage over the last couple years, describing it as an interesting club and something worthwhile to look at. The magazine has a large course rating panel, and Duncan said he fielded requests from panelists or raters all across the East Coast who had a desire to go play Quixote.

In 2022, a total of 36 panelists rated the course on six scoring criteria, including shot options, challenge, layout variety, aesthetics, conditioning and character.

To qualify for the “Best, New” category, a course must have at least 15 evaluation visits from the magazine’s rating panel, Duncan said.

The philanthropic mission of Quixote is to support high-quality, free public education in the form of Liberty STEAM.

The school began its third year in August 2023 and serves grades K-3 with about 586 students across the four grades. Eventually, the vision is about 2,000 students in grades K-12 at build-out.

Currently, Quixote has a little more than 300 members between local and national members, according to club officials.

Greg Thompson, co-owner of Quixote and chairman of Liberty STEAM’s Board of Directors, said it was “a great honor to be recognized among the top courses in the U.S.”

He added the category had about 13 new courses that qualified.

“Our panelists really responded to Quixote,” Duncan said. “It’s an interesting project and property. The architects went in and really redeveloped the site and treated it as a new course.

“It’s really a drastic redevelopment of that site, and they kind of scrubbed away a lot of the turf and exposed the sandy soil, so it has a little bit of that Pinehurst feel,” he said. “There is a Lowcountry element to it as well with the live oaks and the way the holes kind of sliver through the trees and play around

“It puts our hometown out in the nation as something to be recognized, and I am pleased for Sumter and pleased for our mission for public education in rural South Carolina,” he said. “It brings notoriety to Liberty STEAM and everything we are trying to accomplish here in Sumter; this just helps that. That is what I am most happy for.”

The club’s new name comes from “Don Quixote,” the Spanish novel from the early 1600s with an emphasis on knighthood.

Also, according to club officials, plans for the future include an upscale, indoor training facility and permanent cottages on site.