The Harvard, Ill., property is the third golf course in the area to close in the last four years, and faced stiff competition from nearby upscale courses.
Plum Tree National Golf Club in Harvard, Ill., has joined Alpine Hills and Oregon Country Club as local golf courses that have closed their doors for good in the last four years, the Rockford (Ill.) Register Star reported.
Plum Tree had more doglegs and more bunkers in front of its greens than any local course. Now those bunkers and greens are about the only things that make Plum Tree recognizable as a former golf course—nature has overgrown it that fast this spring, the Register Star reported.
“It was a fun track,” said Jeff Holmgaard, a former tournament champion who usually played there once or twice a year. “It was tight with a good variety of holes.
“The greens were not that easy. They had a lot of slope to them, in some cases too much slope. There were not very many simple, straight-forward holes. It seemed every hole was a dogleg, which is something you don’t see around here.”
Plum Tree was also pricier than Rockford courses and faced stiff competition from nearby upscale courses Oak Grove, which opened in Alden in 1998, and Blackstone, which opened in Marengo in 2007, the Register Star reported.
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