Leicester Country Club has closed for good and the course will be replaced by retail business and housing, according to Jim Umphrey, president of Kelleher & Sadowsky Associations.
Kelleher & Sadowsky is serving as broker for the sale of the 18-hole course to a real estate developer.
Umphrey said Leicester CC managing owners Melissa and Chuck Bois of Hopkinton and their limited partners agreed to place the sale under contract last fall.
“It hasn’t closed, but we have a deal,” Umphrey said. “We’ve agreed on the price.”
Umphrey said the identity of the buyer, who is not local, will become public by June and that the buyer has developed real estate in Massachusetts.
“The group that’s buying it is very capable,” he said. “I think what they’re looking at doing will be a very big positive for the town.”
Umphrey said the Worcester area has become attractive for real estate developers from outside the region.
According to the Worcester Business Journal, Leicester CC was placed on the market last year for $4.25 million. Umphrey declined to state how much the course was sold for, but he did say, “they got a reasonable price,” and that he expected the sale to close this summer. Zoning issues still need to be settled.
“There’s a real process to get the permits and the entitlements that you need,” he said. “In order to go in front of the town for whatever it is, you need to have engineer drawings, you have to invest a lot of money. All this stuff takes time.”
Umphrey said the buyer hopes to attract a retail business, preferably a grocery store or other facility that would provide services for town residents, on the section of the 223-acre property that abuts Route 9. No tenants have been signed yet, he said. Housing would be constructed behind that.
Umphrey said Leicester CC wasn’t in financial trouble, but operating a golf course to the west of Worcester, away from the more populated towns to the east, proved challenging.
“The course continued to need a lot of work,” Umphrey said. “It was going to cost a lot of money. I think given the location and the overall condition, they just weren’t able to charge (golfers) enough to be able to do the things they wanted to do.”
The sale includes the clubhouse, maintenance building and a ranch-style house next to the parking lot. Orange cones are lined up across the driveway to the course, and one of them has a sign that says the course is closed. On a recent visit, golf carts were lined up in front of the clubhouse.
Umphrey said several investors, including Melissa Bois’ father, belonged to the group that purchased the club in 1998 and renamed it Leicester CC, but members of that group are getting older, and they figured it was time to sell. Those owners replaced two of the course’s shortest holes with two longer ones in 2003.
According to Umphrey, there was some interest by potential buyers to keep the entire golf course open. One group considered building housing, but keeping nine holes open. Umphrey said it was difficult to make those dollar numbers work, however.
The club closed its banquet operation at the start of 2021 due to the pandemic.
“Golf courses are very expensive to own,” Umphrey said. “The majority of golf courses around here, they’re working on pretty skinny margins at the end of the day.”
Leicester CC was an 18-hole, 6,000-yard, par-70 course with five par-3s. The club opened at 1430 Main St. in 1894.
Leicester CC served as the original home of Mount Pleasant CC before it moved to Boylston in the mid-1950s and later changed its name to The Haven CC. Over the years, Leicester CC was also known as Leicester Golf Club, Leicester Hills and Strawberry Hills.
Umphrey knows real estate, but he also knows golf. He has been a member at Tatnuck CC for about 30 years, and he has belonged to Worcester CC since 2019. At Tatnuck, he has won a senior club championship and an A Division club championship. His son, Tim, plays mini-tour golf in Florida, and he won the club championship at Tatnuck five times and at Pleasant Valley CC three times. Umphrey’s son Matt won the club championship at Tatnuck a few times as well.
Umphrey remembers playing Leicester CC about 40 years ago when it was called Strawberry Hills CC. He still remembers that it was buggy by the ponds.
The closing of Leicester CC leaves the town of Leicester with one golf course, the nine-hole Hillcrest CC, which the town has owned since 2003.
Leicester CC is the first golf course in Central Mass. to close for good since Clearview CC in Millbury and Twin Springs GC in Bolton in 2020. Other courses which closed over the past decade include Bay Path GC in East Brookfield in 2019, Edgewood CC in Uxbridge in 2017 and Winchendon GC in 2016.
Borden returns to area as head pro at Ellinwood CC
Tom Borden is glad to be back working at a golf course in Massachusetts.
Borden, 57, was hired in January as general manager and head pro at Ellinwood CC in Athol after spending nearly a decade serving as head pro in New Hampshire at Shattuck GC and Crotched Mountain GC.
Borden was head pro at Winchendon GC off and on for more than 15 years before the club closed for good in February 2017 for financial reasons. The Winchendon School, which owned the club, had solar panels installed on the course.
Borden enjoyed his time as head pro at Crotched Mountain in Francestown, New Hampshire, where he will continue to serve as a ski instructor during the winter, but he wanted the opportunity to become a GM for the first time as well as the head pro at Ellinwood. He applied for the position last year, but wasn’t hired. When the position became available again this year, he applied again and got the job.
“I’m so excited to be back,” he said. “It feels really good inside. Golf’s a part of me, and I was just very excited at my age to get this job. Up and coming pros are 20-something and 30-something. So it’s tough out there. That’s true in any job market, but I’m so excited to get here. People are coming through the door who I know and haven’t seen in 10 years.”
Borden plans to introduce Ellinwood to such PGA of America programs as PGA Family Golf on Friday nights, the PGA Junior League and Women’s Golf Day. He’s a big believer in one-course instruction, including using the PGA Coach App, to help introduce new golfers to the game. Borden is also a big believer in customer service.
“I’m not one to hide in the office,” he said. “I’m right out front and center, and that’s what it’s all about to me, enhancing the time of the people who come here.”
Borden said instead of getting upset with new golfers who don’t know what to do, he prefers to teach them how to play and to develop a respect for the course by replacing divots, fixing ball marks and keeping up with the pace of play.
“That really does help them have a better time,” he said. “It’s less of a competition and more of an entertainment, recreation, something they want to come out and do with the family.”
Donald Ross designed Ellinwood’s original nine holes which opened in 1929, and Geoffrey Cornish designed the second nine, which opened in 1965. The course is a par 71 and plays to 6,153 yards from the back tees. Borden said the course plays longer because of its hills. The Ross greens are sloped and double-tiered. The Cornish greens are larger.
The course has undergone recent drainage and cart path work and the club ordered 20 gas carts.
Ellinwood is owned by its 300 members and run by a board of directors. Members pay no more than $1,000 a year, and the club charges the public $55 to play with a cart during the week and $65 on weekends. After 2 p.m., the price drops by $20.
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—Contact Bill Doyle at bcdoyle15@charter.net.
