WILLIAMSBURG -- A former award wining golf course in Williamsburg is getting another chance at life.
7&4's Kate Fox has more on the rebirth of the LochenHeath Golf Club.
The course opened in 2001 as one of the top ten courses in the country but after a series of management changes it ended up in foreclosure. Now a passionate group of Traverse City investors have taken it into their hands to bring it back to life.
One of the Traverse City investors Sandy Denton says, "We were very, very fortunate that we have good community sprit, everyone here that's invested is a golfer they appreciate the fine design of this course, the landscape and the challenges."
Sandy Denton is one of the eleven investors who bought the course and has lived in the LochenHeath community for over ten years. She and the other investors have made it their mission to restore the course back to its award winning potential.
To do this they hired Mike Husby as general manager who says he's helped turn around other troubled golf properties. Husby says, "I've had some great opportunities in my career but to have a chance to step in to a facility as strong as LochenHeath and turn it around and make it a viable club it's an honor and really looking forward to it."
Husby says they've already got a lot done with restoring the golf course, "Getting the mowing heights back to playing condition, consistently mowing them, went into every sand trap edged it, any tress that had fallen down over the last couple years got rid of them."
This reopening also means job opportunities. Husby explains, "...a couple permanent, full time jobs starting in January then approximately 24 part time seasonal jobs in the first of April."
Denton says she and her fellow investors are optimistic of LochenHeath's future. She says, "I’m sure that we can bring in new golfers into this community to enjoy this course, a golfers a golfers, he's going to golf if he's in the moon or in the desert, he’s going to golf."
The course should be open to play on in April. The new owners did not purchase the development at the golf course -- that property is still owned by a lender in California.
