Photos provided by Broomsedge Rod & Gun
The conservationist in Phillip Jennings comes out easy in conversation. Speak to him for a while and you’ll pick up on his mantra: Leave the land better than you found it.
If anyone knows anything about land, it’s Jennings. He oversees a 3,000-acre turf farm operation with center-pivot irrigation that ships sod daily throughout the world to homeowners, developments and golf courses. Some of those elite golf courses include The Ocean Course at Kiawah (Kiawah Island, S.C.), The Landings (Savannah, Ga.) and The Bear’s Club (Jupiter, Fla.), which was founded by six-time Masters Tournament champion and golf icon Jack Nicklaus. Jennings’s business was also selected as the official grower and supplier for the 2005 Super Bowl in Jacksonville, Fla., and 2007 Super Bowl in Miami. His latest passion, however, is Broomsedge Rod & Gun Club, a premier hunting lodge in Soperton, Ga.
Jennings, a native of Soperton, a small town located almost two hours outside of Augusta, sitting just below Interstate 16 between Macon and Savannah, grew up hunting and fishing. He graduated from the University of Georgia with an agriculture education degree, returning home to teach for 16 years, while also serving as the National FFA Ogranization (formerly Future Farmers of America) advisor. He wanted to educate his students about the same thing he’s still trying to teach.
“I love to spread the message about agriculture and conservation and trying to leave things better than we found it,” Jennings says. “That’s been the focus of the land — trying to leave it better than we found it.”
When Jennings left teaching to start his own turf business, he found a friend and mentor in someone he calls a “bonus dad,” William “Pete” Pike of Pike Nurseries, which is located just outside Atlanta. With Pike’s help, Jennings learned how to buy farms, while also expanding and diversifying his business to include timber, peanuts, corn and wheat. He quickly expanded his business from 100 acres in 1997 to an operation now 30 times larger. Ever the conservationist, Jennings built 10 lakes around his property to conserve water.
While Phillip Jennings Turf Farms has been his primary focus for the past three decades, he found inspiration for a new venture thanks to the Covid pandemic in 2020. One day that winter, he had a layover in New York City, returning from one of his Canadian farms. In the airport, he read the front pages of all the newspapers. This disease was spreading everywhere.
“It was like the apocalypse,” he says. “It was like we were all fixing to die. I said to myself that when I got back to Georgia, I was going to keep my butt at home.”
Jennings, though, isn’t the type to just sit at home and do nothing. Blanketed with boredom, he came up with an idea that would move him outdoors. Jennings started putting up top-quality deer stands around his land, with plans to lease them — he leased them all. He then had to solve the next question: Where would everyone stay when they came to hunt deer? He started restoring 100-year-old houses on his property. After four years, he had renovated 42 bedrooms with private bathrooms, with plans to add another 10 bedrooms. With the addition of bedrooms, Jennings needed to expand the dining area. He built a lodge that now seats up to 60 people.
In the span of five years, the man known as “The Sodfather” for his success in the turf industry had a new passion.
You can read the rest of the article in the November/December 2025 issue of Augusta Magazine.
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