These Pics make me sick

[braincramp52]

The golf course that I learned how to play golf on closed this spring. I loved this place. Even built a house in 1997 right across from it. I have to drive by it every so often and I have a hard time looking. It's now pasture for cows. Glad I went back and played it a few times last year. Lot of great memories.

#7 dogleg left with a sloping green where you could 3 putt in a second

#5 510 yard par 5. Tee shot was 218 carry over creek

#15 Uphill par 3 178 yards

 

 

 

[Springsteennut]

Like losing an old friend.

[RSinSG]

That’s sad.

 

Many years ago I found an affordable house on a fairway of the Whitewater Country Club in Palm Springs. I had visions of walking on the course from my back yard in the evenings and practicing but my wife hated it.

 

FF several years and the course went bankrupt and closed. All the grass reverted to desert and the abandoned clubhouse eventually demolished.

 

For years homeowners have been involved in lawsuits and property values tanked due to the crappy looking half-desert half-dead grass areas.

 

Dodged a bullet there.

[braincramp52]

We were lucky too. We sold that house 5 years ago.

[aenemated]

Yeah, I was pretty bummed when my mom told me the little country muni where it all started for me shut down a couple years ago.

 

It was on 18 there when my dad let me putt out a little 3 footer for him to win the match he was playing in - I was probably 7 or 8 years old. The very next day he bought me a set of MacGregor Jack Nicklaus kid's clubs and I was off an running. It was like $100/yr for a kid's membership and I could play all I wanted for free. Mom would drop me and a buddy off there in the morning during the summers and we'd play all day till we'd get picked up.

 

As I got older and better, dad started taking me to nicer courses but I always had a soft spot for that little track. It's been at least 25 years - if not more - since I played it but I still remember every hole.

[HappyGilmoresBoots]

It's a weird feeling, isn't it? I took my first golf lessons at age 9. At age 29, I was working for a homebuilder who had taken over and begun developing the land that my first golf lessons were held on. Phase 4 and 5 of that development were in the space that formerly occupied part of the back 9; a gorgeous, downhill, dogleg left par 4 became a dozen or so quarter-acre lots with shoddily-constructed McMansions. I can still see, in my mind's eye, that one blasted maple tree that ate so many of my errant hits (trying to cut that corner, and make the green).

[braincramp52]

The course was very special. I actually met my wife there in 1978. I was on the board for 6 years. I used to get in my cart and go over almost every morning and play 5 or 6 holes. It was a very tough but fair track that had a loyal membership until many of the members started dying off and it got purchased by a guy out of Chicago.( no offense to my Chicago friends) He treated the locals like crap and tried to turn it into something it wasn't. Chased many of the membership away and that was the beginning of the end. I was a member for 27 years like someone said, it's almost like losing your best friend.

[jholz]

The scary thing is, that from a distance, this course doesn't appear to be in much worse shape than some of the goat tracks I used to play in rural Georgia/Alabama.

[caniac6]

> @lawsonman said:

> The course was very special. I actually met my wife there in 1978. I was on the board for 6 years. I used to get in my cart and go over almost every morning and play 5 or 6 holes. It was a very tough but fair track that had a loyal membership until many of the members started dying off and it got purchased by a guy out of Chicago.( no offense to my Chicago friends) He treated the locals like crap and tried to turn it into something it wasn't. Chased many of the membership away and that was the beginning of the end. I was a member for 27 years like someone said, it's almost like losing your best friend.

 

We had a guy from Chicago come to the Winston-Salem area and buy a course. He did much the same. A lot of old members left. Every time I was there, he watched me like a hawk. I guess he thought I was going to steal range balls or something. This guy almost ran this course into the ground. A local guy bought the course, started treating people well, and the course has made a nice comeback.

[braincramp52]

> @jholz said:

> The scary thing is, that from a distance, this course doesn't appear to be in much worse shape than some of the goat tracks I used to play in rural Georgia/Alabama.

 

The guy that bought it just mowed it not too long ago.

[jholz]

> @lawsonman said:

> > @jholz said:

> > The scary thing is, that from a distance, this course doesn't appear to be in much worse shape than some of the goat tracks I used to play in rural Georgia/Alabama.

>

> The guy that bought it just mowed it not too long ago.

 

Hell man, just throw out tee box markers and some pins, dude could be charging $18 bucks to walk that place!

 

I'm totally joking of course, and certainly not attempting to make light of your pain. The course where my grandfather taught me to play was recently sold to a developer, so I know exactly how it goes. I'm afraid the next time I see it, that course will be nothing but tract housing and strip malls.

[Johnny Biarritz]

Same situation with me. The first course where my parents joined, and second course I ever played, closed last year after Hurricane Florence. Owner just had enough.

[cardoustie]

The course l learned to play on closed

The course my house backs onto closed

Old friends ... gone

[jonesry09]

Here is MN we are losing a lot of courses to developments. The value of the land has just gotten to high for clubs to not sell. My home course in Chanhassen, MN might be next as it's sitting on a prime piece of real estate. A little sad to see them go, especially when they are being replaced by a bunch of cookie cutter homes.

[dlygrisse]

I work across the street from a CC I used to be a member of. I could go from desk to 1st tee in 3 minutes. It was sold, bulldozed and is now a lifestyle community.

[braincramp52]

> @cardoustie said:

> The course l learned to play on closed

> The course my house backs onto closed

> Old friends ... gone

 

Your right. It's like I lost one of my best friends

 

[Bonneville85308]

A course where I used to live called Locust Valley is supposed to be closing at the end of this season. The local rumor mill has been saying that for a couple of years now, but a pretty good source tells me this is really the end now. It will be turned into a 55+ housing development, where the homes will sell like hotcakes to affluent retirees from the NYC metro. There was some talk of keeping a few holes for the residents to use, but I somehow doubt it. Ironically, the current owner bought it maybe 8 years ago after a previous housing developer's plans fell through, saying that he planned on making improvements and "preserving" it as a golf course. He did make a lot of improvements, all new bunker sand, lots of tree removal, turf quality in general improved, fixed up the beat up old pro shop/snack bar and demolished a decrepit unused clubhouse from when it was a private course until the 1980s. Unfortunately with golf the way is today, I know he was getting nowhere near the play that it got pre-2008 and probably couldn't get a return on his investment even at the depressed purchase price he paid. It helped that whatever the hangup was with the previous failed development plan (something to do with sewer capacity) was resolved.

 

The course was nothing special in terms of architecture, a Gordon course with some pretty fun holes (1, 7, 8, 9, 13, 16, 18), a bunch of decent but forgettable ones, and no really bad ones; still, it was one of the best public options within 30 minutes. I played my "farewell" round back in May when it was still in good condition and will miss playing it when back in the area.

 

A nice course tour courtesy of the Joe Bausch collection

http://myphillygolf.com/uploads/bausch/LocustValley/index.html

[MaydayGSXR]

There's an old country club near me that looks years beyond that, very similar as if there is almost some sort of resemblance of a course.. It's like looking at the past, wondering who got to play there, how the course played, and how fun was the 19th hole?

Sad to see, and that's without personal memories of the course.

[caniac6]

We saw the Bloody Point course on Daufuskie many years ago after it had been abandoned, and you could still see the routing and greens complexes. They were still mowing a bit, but it kind of looked like a hay field. I guess they brought in Davis Love's company, and redid the course, and then abandonded it again. I believe I heard that Melrose also closed. It's a real shame. I never got to play either course, but they both looked beautiful. By the time you took the ferry back and forth to Hilton Head, I guess it took the better part of a day to go to Daufuskie to play. Just a beautiful place, but not easy to get to.