In a bit of an anomaly, two local municipal courses are opening clubhouses this summer, Ridgewood in Parma and Ellsworth in Hudson.
The whole new clubhouse phenomenon is usually reserved for private courses, but recently I’ve noticed that public courses are going this way too, or more precisely, municipal courses. Several years ago, Twinsburg invested in a new clubhouse, a move that was split among its residents, but it gave the city a place to host events, and in my opinion, is geared more towards the restaurant inside than golfers. Fast forward to last year where Cuyahoga Falls renovated their clubhouse at Brookledge, which honestly, would benefit tremendously from a new building, but they focused more on egress and moving players between purchasing golf and food. Even the Metroparks got into the act when they built the new clubhouse for Big Met. Everything boils down to what each city is trying to accomplish. Unfortunately, I feel Parma took Ridgewood’s new clubhouse as an opportunity to compete in the event center game. It’s a huge sterile building that required them to expand the parking lot in both directions. Like Twinsburg, it will have a pub/restaurant attached to it. They did invest a bit into the course, most notably redoing the eighteenth green (soon to the ninth when they reverse the nines) and pulling out the trees so people have a great view of the par five seventh (sixteen) and the lovely short par four ninth (eighteen). Now Hudson on the other hand put in a really wonderful clubhouse that almost competes with Lake Forest and CC of Hudson as a third, albeit public, country club. In fact, I expect the new clubhouse will make Ellsworth one of the best, if not the best, stop on our schedule at CNCGA. As I’ve gotten older, the clubhouse has become a bigger part of the golfing experience, and I expect the guys will love it!
