The Riverchase Country Club in Birmingham, Ala. is redoing tee boxes, building new tee boxes, repairing some bunkers, eliminating some bunkers and building a few new bunkers. Another part of the job is to replace a 1,400-foot storm drainpipe that has deteriorated, causing the ground around the pipe to sink. That problem is part of a lawsuit between the club and residential association.
The Riverchase Country Club in Birmingham, Ala. has started a $1 million renovation project to repair and refurbish its golf course and modernize its casual family dining area, the Hoover Sun reported. C+RB reported in June that the project is expected to be complete by October.
Thanks to donations from club members, the club in recent years has spent about $750,000 to redo its swimming pool, renovate the tennis courts, add six new pickleball courts, and add a deck overlooking the ninth green, Vice President Robert Yeager told the Sun.
Pretty much every piece of the property has been improved in the last several years except the golf course, and club officers felt the golf course needed the same level of attention to maintain the long-term health of the club, President Phillip Miles told the Sun. A majority of club members agreed, with 81 percent voting to increase their membership fees and make the improvements, Miles said.
Most of the golf course improvements were to be done in July and August, including redoing tee boxes, building new tee boxes, repairing some bunkers, eliminating some bunkers and building a few new bunkers, the Sun reported. In particular, Riverchase wanted to upgrade some of its shorter-distance tees because there are so many more women, seniors and juniors playing golf these days. Golf courses around the country are experiencing this, Miles said.
The country club also will be removing a couple of hundred trees—anything affecting the tee boxes and the greens, he told the Sun.
Another big part of the job is to replace a 1,400-foot storm drainpipe that has deteriorated on the eighth hole, causing the ground around the pipe to sink, Miles told the Sun. That problem is part of a lawsuit between the country club and the Riverchase Residential Association.
The country club sued the residential association, saying the association was responsible for drainage pipes that carry stormwater from multiple parts of the Riverchase development and that deteriorating pipes were creating erosion problems and causing hazards for people, the Sun reported.
The lawsuit, filed in April 2020, is still pending, but the country club decided it couldn’t wait any longer to get the pipe on the eighth hole replaced, Miles told the Sun. Then in October, all the cart paths at Riverchase will be repaved, with the goal of completing the golf course work by November 1, he said.
Next year, the casual family dining room in the clubhouse will be modernized, the Sun reported. The exact plan for that is still being developed, but the club has set aside about $200,000 for that upgrade.
Some of the country club officers have been contemplating golf course upgrades for years, the Sun reported. A flooding event from a heavy rainstorm last fall forced the club to make a move after the country club received 9 inches of rain in three hours and 12 inches over a 24-hour period.
“Our golf course and many parts of our property were severely damaged in that flood,” Miles said. “It caused hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage to our golf course.”
In-house staff members have been able to make incremental repairs, the Sun reported.
“They’ve put in an amazing effort to make our golf course playable. We’re definitely very thankful for what they’ve done,” Miles said. But the course needs more significant work that requires bigger and more specialized equipment, he told the Sun.
Riverchase hired Club Life Management, a consulting group, to help develop a 10-year long-term plan and hired John LaFoy, a golf course architect from Greenville, S.C., as an advisor, the Sun reported.
Club officers hope these new improvements, combined with other recent upgrades, will help boost membership, the Sun reported. The club had dropped to about 330 members, and membership was flat for several years prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, but golf courses and country clubs have gotten busier since the pandemic hit, and there now are about 370 members at Riverchase, Miles said.
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