I received an e-mail on Monday from the Head Pro at our home course.   The title was one word, “Closing.”   With all the suddenness of an accident our course had closed, effective immediately.    No warning.  Gone.

The principal owner died.  The partners said, “Close it.”

It’s a tough pill to swallow.  This was a course that fit.  It was a walker’s course, strictly golf, no houses or swimming pools, fabulous conditions, wonderful Staff, and the best greens in the area.   Over time it came to be a sort of home.  It spoiled us.  And we knew it.  We’d travel to some up-scale coure and critique it to death on the way home:  “It was good.  But, it ain’t Upland.”

Golf course ownership is a tough gig now according to An August piece in the WASHINGTON POST:  golf-course-communities We interact with the Pros and Staff without really seeing the financials and the real power behind that front.   A few years ago, a lot of courses were worth more as housing developments.  Today, new-construction housing is dead.  My course was a soybean field that received millions of dollars of infrastructure.  There’s simply no demand for it in its current state as a pristine golf course.  And, it won’t make for much a bean field anymore.  It’s caught in some Rod Serling-esque Twilight Zone.

Working through the mourning stages, Acceptance feels a ways away.  But, the world moves on and these are tough times.  The e-mail box is suddenly full of offers from courses in the area looking for new members.  We’ll find one and move on.  No doubt, it’ll be good.  But, it won’t be Upland.

www.uplandgolfclub.com