Just a few minutes before you reach Springdale Resort, you’ll pass a sign across from the Pigeon River that says, “Welcome to Cruso: 9 miles of friendly people plus one old crab.”

Depending on the day, that old crab might be found at the resort on No. 13, affectionately known as the Springdale Spasm. This uphill par-4 challenges players to clear a narrow fairway and approach a green wedged between a creek and out-of-bounds area. But players aren’t crabby for long: Once they clear 13, they’re rewarded with a view of Cold Mountain that, for a moment, can make any player forget about their scorecard.

General Manager Jeremy Boone (left) and Resort Manager Curt Davis — who previously worked at the Grove Park Inn — strive to make every visit to Springdale a special occasion. photograph by Tim Robison

General Manager Jeremy Boone loves that view. Even when he’s not out on the course, he admires a photograph, hanging on his office wall, of a sunset casting a purple glow over the course and the iconic peak. While he’s only been general manager for a year and a half — after spending five years as Springdale’s superintendent — he’s been drawn to that view since he was a child.

In the 1970s, when Boone was a boy, his father built homes around the new golf course, while his mother ran the food and beverage operation at the resort. “She hemmed the pros’ pants as well as cooked and cleaned and [did] whatever else had to be done,” Boone says. She also employed Boone’s grandmother to help feed all the hungry golfers. “Back then, they did homestyle or family cooking,” Boone says. “They had lazy Susans on the table, and they fixed big bowls of beans, potatoes, and corn.”

The rolling fairways and challenging hills celebrate the Appalachian landscape. Photography courtesy of Springdale Resort

Golf first came to this property in 1968 as a nine-hole course. The local Tingle family bought the course and expanded it to 18 holes. To promote the sport in western North Carolina, family patriarch Fred Tingle helped form the Great Smoky Mountain Golf Association in the ’80s. Many of the courses were too small to afford their own marketing, so Tingle banded together his competitors to purchase ads in national golf publications to put the region on the map. This brought players to Springdale from all over the Southeast, and many returned year after year.

Today, Boone recognizes plenty of faces while out on the grounds. Some are new friends, like the players from the Asheville Tourists who stop by between home games. A few longtime Springdale golfers tell Boone stories of his mother’s cooking and sewing and how they once held him when he was a baby. The long-longtimers ask about Claude Trull, the cart boy who started at Springdale when he was 16. Boone tells them he’s around here somewhere and that he just celebrated his 72nd birthday.

In the shadow of Cold Mountain, golfers can unwind after a game at Rocky Face Tavern. photograph by Tim Robison

In 2018, the Tingles sold Springdale to the West family, who had spent years visiting the area to enjoy the rolling golf courses. In 2022, the Wests unveiled a new stone lodge-style clubhouse, where golfers and their families enjoy Appalachian cuisine with Smoky Mountain views at the Rocky Face Tavern.

Across from the hostess stand hangs an illustrated map of this land when it was the New College, a working farm school for prospective teachers at Columbia University, who traveled from New York to this rural community in the early 20th century. Details like this and the people who have been here for decades tie Springdale’s legacy of service and deep-rooted history to its new luxury amenities and modern accommodations.

In the early days, Springdale golfers shared big bowls of food, family-style. Now, they peruse a wide-ranging menu of Southern classics at the Rocky Face Tavern. photograph by Tim Robison

For people like Boone, Springdale’s history is his history. Every day on his way to work, Boone drives past his homeplace just half a mile before the Cruso sign. Standing at the first hole’s tee and looking toward the resort entrance, he can see his grandparents’ headstones at Cruso United Methodist Church across the way. When his two sons were in high school, they became the fourth generation of Boones to work at Springdale.

“Who knows, maybe we’ll have another [generation] years from now,” Boone says. For now, he and the rest of the Springdale team are caring for its present — and past — as a golfer’s Great Smoky Mountain getaway.

Springdale Resort
200 Golfwatch Road
Canton, NC 28716
(828) 235-8451
springdaleresortnc.com

photograph by Matt Hulsman

Sand Trap

As any player knows, golf can be a dangerous game. In the 2024 novel Buried Lies, a stray ball hits a real estate attorney who’s standing in the bunker on Springdale Resort’s 16th hole, killing him before anyone can yell, “Fore!” The freak accident is questioned by a wealthy local couple, who hire a private detective in Cruso to find the killer.

Author Steven Tingle, the son of former Springdale owner Fred Tingle, spent about 10 years as the resort’s general manager before leaving his golf career in 2008 to pursue writing. In 2021, he released his debut novel, Graveyard Fields, a mystery set in Cruso.

Guests who read Buried Lies while at Springdale often ask General Manager Jeremy Boone if he recognizes any characters as real people affiliated with the resort. “I may not tell you their names,” Boone teases, “but by their behaviors and how Steven wrote [the book], I can tell you some people that may have influenced those characters.”