Sweltering temperatures. Steamy humidity. Sizzing sun and afternoon thunderstorms. It didn’t matter this past weekend at one Triad golf course.
On Saturday, 260 players teed off on reopening day at Salem Glen Country Club. On Sunday, 247 more filled the course.
Members of the semi-private Clemmons layout, a product of Nicklaus Design, were anxious to have their course back after a greens renovation that replaced the former bent grass surfaces with Mach 1 Ultradwarf Bermuda. The new greens are significantly bigger thanks to reclamation of area over the years from cutting patterns.
The course closed on May 11. Fairways and tees were also aerified during the project.
It’s been an active year for Salem Glen, which also built a new covered practice facility equipped — lighted for night practice — with Trackman technology open to the public.
Course ownership hopes the improvements will help speed up its goal for the golf course to become entirely private. For now, online the Tuesday weekday price was posted at $60, including cart. That fee increases to $75 on Saturday morning.
In fact, Salem Glen has extended a no initiation fee offer to Aug. 20. On Sunday, general manager Guy Carroll said the club had at least 30 new members in the past week and that he had spent much of the weekend answering inquiries from potential members. As of Sunday, the club had more than 270 members.
On social media, the club has even shared benchmarks for the club on its way to private status.
Beginning Aug. 21, the club will institute a $2,000 initiation fee. When membership reaches 300, the fee will increase to $3,000. As membership increases, so will public rates. At 450 members, the club will become entirely private.
Opened in 1997, Salem Glen sits in the middle of perhaps the Triad’s hottest, most competitive golf area. Tanglewood Park, a Forsyth County facility with two 18 courses and a new clubhouse is only a 10-minute drive.
Just across the Yadkin River, private Bermuda Run Country Club offers 36 holes and two clubhouses, and neighbor Oak Valley provides upscale semi-private Arnold Palmer Company design.
Tanglewood Park’s Championship course, Oak Valley Golf Club and Salem Glen are three of the top public-access options in the Triad. Bermuda Run’s West course has played host to recent NCAA Division I regionals and PGA Tour Monday qualifiers. Bermuda Run East provides a shorter, more manageable layout. Tanglewood Park’s Reynolds course is a low-priced layout with several interesting holes.
Shuffled through several ownership groups since opening in 1997, Salem Glen was purchased in 2024 by married couple Tyler Brennan and Melissa Mertely, who also own The Club at Brookstone (formerly Brookstone Meadows) and Smithfields Country Club, properties located between Greenville and Anderson, South Carolina.
