Country Club Golf Center’s new facility in Lewisville is progressing, but partners Chris Merritt and Ricky Lyons told TriadGolf.com that there’s still no specific timeline for their move from their current location on Country Club Road near its intersection with Styers Ferry Road.
The 17-acre new location can be found at 7815 Shallowford Road, just north of an interchange with U.S. 421.
Lyons said permitting has been slow. Plus, he and project leader Tommy Pegram are doing most of the dirt moving with bulldozers and backhoes.
As a result, Lyons said he doesn’t want to set any target dates, though he conceded that the earliest possible opening would be late this year.
“It’s up in the air,” Lyons said. “We want to make sure it’s right when we open it. Everything is moving forward. I’ve been there every day — morning and evening. We’re dying for it to open as soon as it can.”
Merritt and Lyons, who lease the current location at 5675 Country Club near the boundary lines between Winston-Salem, Clemmons and Lewisville, said the property owner has given them no deadline to move out.
“I’m counting my blessings every day I’ve got,” said Lyons.
The new location’s 33,000-square-foot practice green, which stretches nearest to the entrance off Shallowford Road, has grown in and appears ready to go. Sand and grass bunkers will be near the southern-most portion of the green, near a cell tower, for chipping and blasting.
“We’re mowing it, taking care of it,” Lyons said of the practice green. “We have a few short-game lessons out there. It’s big enough that you can putt on it for an hour and not ever have the same putt.”
The facility will include a building just behind the putting green with an expansive pro shop with equipment, apparel and accessories.
Plans call for three indoor bays with garage doors opening out to the range. Those bays will be equipped with simulators to provide swing and shot data to aid in lessons and club fittings.
The outdoor range tees will be at least partly covered, and will include a grass tee area that Merritt and Lyons can use for giving lessons. The range will have several target greens.
Like the current location, Lyons said the new site will be dedicated to golf. Light snacks and soft drinks will be sold, but not beer or other alcoholic beverages. Food trucks are a possibility for weekends.
Customers will pay an hourly fee for access to the driving range, chipping areas and putting green.
“We’re really trying to develop a family atmosphere,” he said. “Not many people have asked for beer. People come here to hit golf balls and have fun.”
MEADOWLANDS GOLF CLUB in Wallberg and Salem Glen Country Club in Clemmons have been closed this summer. Utility lines are getting laid on portions of Meadowlands. Dail Golf, which manages the course, has taken an opportunity to make some improvements.
Dail has stripped and reshaped the greens, reclaiming areas lost over the years. Some trees were removed to allow more sunlight for the new TifEagle Bermuda putting surfaces replacing bent grass. An irrigation lake has been dredged and sediment cleaned out from around the pump house intake basket. Sod was replaced on the fairways of the fourth hole.
The course, closed in March, was scheduled to reopen in September.
Salem Glen has installed Bermuda Ultradwarf Mach 1 putting surfaces to replace their former bent grass surfaces. The course, which opened in 1997, is the only layout in the Triad to carry the Jack Nicklaus name. Nicklaus Design and fellow PGA Tour member Glen Day were the co-architects.
In the past year, Salem Glen opened a new lighted range area with 18 fully covered bays equipped with Trackman technology. Heaters in each bay, which open to the range, are available during cold weather.
Operating hours for the range, open to members and the public, are until at least 10 p.m. each day.
THE FATE OF BOONE GOLF CLUB remains unsettled, according to managing partner Tom Adams, whose family has owned and operated the city’s only public course since its opening in 1959.
Though greens fees with cart cost $119 Monday through Thursday and $129 on Friday through Sunday, the tee sheets remain full with locals and High Country visitors. Watauga County’s other 18-hole championship courses at Hound Ears Country Club and Blowing Rock Country Club are private.
The nearest public championship courses are Mountain Glen in Avery County and Mountain Aire in Ashe County. Both are more than 30 minutes from Boone, without the typical summer traffic.
TriadGolf.com checked out a rumor that an owner had emerged to buy out minority owners who wanted to sell the Boone course to developers. If true, that would allow the course to remain open in its current state.
But this week, Adams told TriadGolf.com that no such deal had been made, leaving the future of the course uncertain past this season.
