The Manchester, Maine property will host a party on the first tee on June 30 to mark its 100th anniversary. The golf course started out as a nine-hole layout before expanding to 18 holes in 1932, and is now focusing on appealing to families and younger members.
Augusta Country Club in Manchester, Maine will celebrate its 100th anniversary on June 30 with a party on the first tee, the Augusta, Maine Kennebec Journal reported.
Jane Diplock, 83, has played more than a thousand rounds of golf at the club over the past 50 years. “It’s pretty hard to find a club any better,” Diplock said. “This is home.”
Local businessmen Guy Gannett, Percy Hill and Walter Wyman incorporated the Augusta Golf Co. June 30, 1916, according to a history of the club written by Mark Laney. The company bought the 100-acre Arthur A. Brainard Farm at the head of Cobbossee Lake and started developing a nine-hole golf course with the help of golf course architect Arthur George Lockwood, who was paid $114. Laney said no blueprints of the course exist; they were probably lost in a fire on Halloween in 1925 that destroyed three-quarters of the clubhouse and the entire pro shop, the Journal reported.
During the following spring, the pro shop was rebuilt where the 18th green is now. It moved to its current location in 1930 during the construction of the second nine holes. When the course opened, it was about 2,862 yards in length and didn’t contain any bunkers until 1919, when the course became a par 36, the Journal reported.
The course became an 18-hole layout with the purchase of the neighboring former Weston Farm. The second nine holes were designed by architects Wayne Stiles and John Van Cleek and opened in 1932. A capital improvement project began in 1966 with the expansion of the lounge and men’s locker room; and from 1969 to 1970, an automated fairway watering system was installed, the Journal reported.
Diplock, who was inducted into the Maine Golf Hall of Fame last year, said the course has undergone a lot of changes since she joined with her late husband more than 50 years ago, the Journal reported.
“The layout is special,” Diplock said. “There didn’t use to be a watering system, and there didn’t used to be a pond, but now we have these things. It’s a good layout.”
That alone is not enough to keep a country club open for a century in these modern times, but the club has continued to do things to maintain membership and attract younger members. Linda Cameron, secretary for the club’s board of governors and a longtime member, said like Maine, the club has an aging population, so it needs to adapt if it wants to stay relevant to younger generations, the Journal reported.
“We try to listen to our members and try to meet everybody’s needs,” Cameron said. “The first thing twenty-somethings do is look online for an app, so we’ve created an online tee time reservation system this year. We’re trying to do things like that to make sure we are keeping up with what our younger members want and expect from us.”
General Manager and Head Golf Professional Jason Hurd said the club industry has changed over the years, the Journal reported.
“For clubs to survive, you have to change with what’s happening on the outside,” Hurd said. “Whether that means offering a pub menu in the dining room or allowing jeans for the first time, you have to change with the times, or else you’d be shooting yourself in the foot.”
The First Tee program, a national program that introduces children ages 6-16 to golf, is active at the club, with 30 children signed up for an upcoming six-week program. The club also has movie and pizza night, when parents can enjoy dinner in the dining room while children eat pizza and watch a movie, the Journal reported.
One of the other things the club does to attract younger members is night golf, which is exactly what it sounds like, though most players use neon-colored balls rather than the usual white ones. “Night golf is a fun thing for the younger folks,” Cameron said. “We look for some of the things younger people are interested in doing.”
Cameron said the club used to be much more popular, but years ago, membership began to decline, as it did at clubs nationwide. The club has 425 members as of this month, up from 373 at this time last year, the Journal reported.
“We’re sort of leveling off now, and our membership seems to be staying reasonably steady,” she said. “That’s a good thing, because a lot of the private clubs didn’t make it.”
Hurd and Cameron said it is a testament to the membership experience and the club’s management that the Augusta Country Club has been able to remain open for 100 years, especially considering there are only a handful of private clubs left in Maine. Hurd said in the past three years, the club has tightened expenses while still maintaining high customer service and “by doing this, we have been profitable,” the Journal reported.
The club has several different membership options including family, individual and junior golf, social and corporate. Rates range from $3,175 for a family golf membership to $335 for an individual social membership. The club also offers tennis and a private beach on Cobbossee Lake, and it has many different social events throughout the year, the Journal reported.
“It all depends on what kind of experience you want,” she said. “If you want the experience where the course is maintained and conditions are at their best, where you get a lot of personal attention and where there are a lot of activities outside of golf, this is the place to be.”
Many people are second- and third-generation members who have remained a part of the club because of its tradition. Some of the people who belong, Cameron said, are young professionals who have colleagues and friends who share a passion for golf; and others are members because their parents or grandparents were, the Journal reported.
“You don’t even have to play golf,” Cameron said. “You can just come and hang out, and you’ll get personal service where everybody knows your name.”
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