A terse Facebook posting said that the 18-hole public course in Hermitage, Pa. was “permanently closed effective January 2022.” No further explanation could be obtained from leaders of the VFW Post, which acquired the 91-year-old property formerly known as Leeland Golf Course in the 1980s. But multiple members of the course said they believed it was being sold to an unidentified developer, as had been rumored for months.
The Hickory VFW Golf Course in Hermitage, Pa. announced in a posting dated January 12th on its Facebook page that the 18-hole public course is permanently closed, making official a move that had long been rumored, The Herald of Sharon, Pa. reported.
The two-sentence statement read: ”The VFW golf course is permanently closed effective January 2022. Thank you for your patronage.’’
While the organization’s Facebook page made no reference that the course had been sold, The Herald reported, multiple members said on January 13th that they believe that it was being sold to a developer who was not immediately identified.
VFW leaders weren’t immediately available for comment, The Herald reported.
Rumors that the golf course was closing and a sale was in the works have swirled for months, The Herald reported, but VFW leaders had been tight-lipped on the subject.
The course had already been in operation in 1933, when George S. Lee, who designed it in 1930, took ownership and renamed it Leeland Golf Course, The Herald reported. Lee, who died in 1972 at the age of 71, handed over ownership of the course to his sons in the late 1960s. One of those sons, James E. Lee, took over as co-owner and worked as Leeland’s course professional. After his retirement in the mid-1980s, he sold the course to the Hickory VFW.
At the time, The Herald reported, Hickory VFW was one of only two posts in the state that owned golf courses.
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