Selling the ranch

Not every story has a happy ending. This story does not have a happy ending — not yet, at least. In another year, or two, or five, it might. For now, its ending is open, still full of possibility.

It does at least have a happy beginning.

This is a story about Judith Shadows, a golf course in the middle of Montana, but it starts in 1867, after a Swiss immigrant named Zacharias Tresch traveled across the Atlantic Ocean with his brother Joseph and landed in New Orleans with gold rush dreams. They were headed for the territory, for the land where the West started and fortunes were panned from the earth. But the Confederate Army intercepted them, and mangled Zacharias’s first name to John, and conscripted the brothers to fight in the Civil War. Joseph disappeared some time after the Second Battle of Bull Run. The Union captured Zacharias, who was now fully John, imprisoned him, then freed him in an exchange. Wanting no part of more war, he boarded the first boat he could up the Missouri River, finally, for Montana.

He landed in the wonderfully named Diamond City and mined enough gold at Last Chance Gulch to purchase a team of horses, craft a ring handed down through generations, and start a new life. He met a fellow Swiss immigrant named Maria Danioth, married her, settled on the homestead, built two cabins, helped raise six children, and lived until 1932. Maria lived until 1946.

Around that same time and not far away, a local man named Joseph Charles McDonald opened his first business, a sand and gravel plant in Brooks. He moved into concrete, launched McDonald Ready Mix Concrete, expanded his footprint. Starting in 1952, he purchased almost 800 acres in Lewistown. Part of it remained a gravel pit for the concrete business. Part of it became a hobby cattle ranch. He became a bit of a rancher and went by Bill.

The Tresches and the McDonalds remained on their land for decades. Some have never left. Some have traveled the country — the world — and returned.

John’s great-granddaughter Maria is among the latter. She left home in Lewistown for Montana State University in Bozeman, studied education, and worked in the creative arts library, where she met Bill’s grandson Jeff Whitcraft. He grew up in Kalispell but summered in Lewistown, where he worked on the ranch and had somehow never met Maria even though her mother had baby photos of him. He studied architecture, dreamed about buildings and travel. They married — 40 years ago this month — and, rather than homestead, hit the road for wherever. An uncertain economy pushed them to Arizona, California, Texas, Florida. He worked on plenty of projects. She substituted in so many classrooms. They welcomed two sons, Dylan and Kyle, along the way.

And then Grandpa Bill called Jeff.

“I’d like to think it was because he and I always got along really well,” Jeff says. “He was like a second dad. I spent my summers growing up with him. We were close. I didn’t ask him, but that’s what I’d like to think the reason was.”

Jeff says Grandpa Bill wanted him “to get the hell out of Montana in 1980,” but by 1994, approaching 80 years old, he wanted to bring Jeff back home. “He wanted us to not be in the city,” Maria says.

They talked about the concrete business, but Jeff “wanted nothing to do with that.” The cattle ranch, though.

“We started talking about a golf course,” Jeff says. “The fall of ’94, I came up here and we had a verbal agreement about how everything would work and what we would spend a month. I started wandering around the field with 6-foot-tall poles and flags, and going up on the hill and looking down and trying to visualize how it was all going to come together.” Never mind that Jeff had hardly even worked on a golf course, that the extent of his design and construction experience in the industry was spending quality time with the bankers as a cluster of Florida courses popped up throughout the early 1990s, because, Jeff says, “I learned early on if you go golfing with the bankers, you’re a lot better friends than if you just meet them in the office.”

After planting those flags, Jeff went back to Texas for the winter, “and the next spring,” he says, “we packed our stuff and moved up.” The Whitcrafts were coming home.

This story does not have a happy ending, at least not yet. It does not always have a happy middle. Chaotic construction. Far more fallow years than not. False starts and a flash tornado and winters cold enough to freeze faces and turf alike. But also family and friends and a sense of community. Bringing the game to people who might have never otherwise played it and who now never miss league night. Finally making it — and finally making some money from the course.

And now saying goodbye, because after almost three decades, the Whitcrafts are ready to sell.

But hold on to that bit of information, because that’s the ending, and this is still the beginning — and a new golf course, no matter the challenges, is a very happy beginning, indeed.

The Whitcrafts arrived back in Lewistown in early 1995 and started work on Judith Shadows almost immediately. In April, their original plan was to open nine holes on temporary greens by the fall and on permanent greens the next spring. In October, they hoped to open by the next summer. The next April, they hoped to open by July or August.

The front nine opened on June 1, 1997.

The back nine followed in August 1998.

The first word Jeff uses to describe those years of construction is mayhem.

“We hired a whole bunch of kids from my age” — Jeff was in his early 30s then — “down to high school. There were five of us.” Maria calls it “less than a skeleton crew.”

“We got up every day, and we went to work, and we worked hard,” Jeff says. “Moved some dirt, laid a whole bunch of pipe, whole bunch of wire, all the parts and pieces that go with it. Suppliers were pretty helpful steering me in the right direction.

“It was hard work, but I don’t recall it being horrible. I’m the type of person who, once I make the decision I’m going this way, I just go. You’re tired, it’s hot, it’s cold, you’re hurt, it doesn’t matter. You made the decision, that’s what you’re going to do, and you just keep going. That’s just how I work.”

Before heading north from Texas to Montana, Jeff talked with a golf course architect in Florida. Jeff knew plenty about architecture, just not golf course architecture, and wanted to pick up some veteran perspective. Jeff showed him an aerial photo of the ranch. You could do this, you could do that, the architect told him. “But he was building courses that cost $20 million,” Jeff says, “and I wasn’t going to spend even close to that.” “Not even a million,” Maria says. “Our original budget,” Jeff says, “was under a million for 18 holes.”

Somewhere along the construction odyssey, Jeff talked with a contractor who had laser guided leveling equipment, perfect for tee boxes, “but his cost and my budget were on two different levels,” Jeff says, “so we went back to hand rakes and shovels and did it the old-fashioned way.

“There was no more money. That’s all there was. I didn’t buy sub-standard materials. We were just careful where we shopped. We know of another course that was built around the same time. They spent close to $1 million on a pump station. We had about $15,000 invested in ours. It pumps water, like it’s supposed to. It’s all in how you approach it and what you’re willing to do.”

Dylan and Kyle were both in elementary school for the move and throughout construction. After the course opened, they washed clubs — with the washer filched from the first tee — for $2 a set and later mowed the course, their short legs aided by wood blocks zip tied to the accelerator and the brake pedal. But their earliest responsibilities on the course were far simpler.

“The first couple years was all construction,” Dylan says. “Tearing out the ground, putting in irrigation, running electrical lines for the sprinklers, dumping out sand. My first job was picking rocks. I picked most of the rocks off No. 1 fairway. It wasn’t a fairway when we started.”

“My recollection is that we worked all the time,” Kyle says. “That’s all we did, was work on the golf course. In hindsight, that’s probably not true. We were kids. Even if we thought we were working, we were probably screwing around more than anything. But Dylan and I both mowed for a lot of years. Once the course opened, we helped build tees boxes, plant seed, set sprinklers. But I’m sure we had plenty of time to go float the crick in town and do all that other fun stuff.”

Kyle remembers working alongside — or at least in the vicinity of — Carson Robertson, one of those handful of construction and maintenance team members throughout the early years. Robertson, now Dr. Carson Robertson and a chiropractor in Arizona, had worked maintenance at Pine Meadows and started at Judith Shadows as the first nine was being planted and construction on the second nine was just starting — a timeline that Maria says “may or may not have been a mistake.”

Because Robertson was the only person there with any real mowing experience, he helped groom the front, then helped build and mow the back. “There was very limited grass, hardly a tree to be found,” he says. “It was a wheat field a few years before. We used to carry guns on the back of the mower to shoot the gophers running by, until Maria put a kibosh on that. It was just a lot of dirt, a lot of mud, a lot of digging, filling in holes, putting in sprinklers — and digging them up six months later because the ground had shifted.

“It was a lot of work. And Jeff and Maria worked hard. You think you work hard, and then you see someone work really hard, hours upon hours, day in, day out — you just gravitate toward that and match it, or you get out.”

The early years were even more challenging than the construction.

Most 9-hole golf courses — at least those constructed across Montana throughout the 1990s and locally owned — tend to build up a base of golfers and steady revenue streams before thinking about expanding to 18 holes. “For whatever reason,” Maria says, “we didn’t do that. We just went gung-ho and built the second nine.

But then again, she says, “Most golf courses that wait to build the second nine never get it done. It takes so long to grow in up here. It takes so long to develop a clientele. It takes so long to do everything. Especially in Montana, it’s such a harsh environment. It takes years just to get turf to look like a lawn. Most of the golf courses we know that were going to do 18 have never done it. We went all in and did all 18.”

The course remained pretty empty during some of those early years. The Whitcrafts don’t track rounds played. They offer season passes, like a ski resort, with almost every round played by a passholder. The work schedule of most everybody in and around Lewistown means scheduled weekday tee times before 5 p.m. are rare. The family struggled for a while to attract golfers. The old Elks Club, a 9-hole course now called Pine Meadows Golf Course, sits 10 minutes south of Judith Shadows and benefitted from what Maria calls “a 50-year head start.”

“There are people here today who came out for our first year,” she says. “We’ve had some very loyal people, and we’re super grateful for that. A good crew. We did open the golf course in a small town that had a country club, and the country club wasn’t happy. When we opened the golf course here, they became public. They’re our competition.

“Most of the people who golf here have been people we have developed as customers through the years. A lot of them had never golfed before — the vast majority of them had never golfed before we opened. We try to bring more people to the game, and we try to pull them along with us. I think too many times the game of golf becomes too wrapped up in itself and doesn’t bring people into the game. If you’re not good instantly, there’s this perception that you shouldn’t be on the course. It’s our perception that if we bring someone along, and they’re comfortable here, and they’re not in anybody’s way, they will become a customer. That’s been our strategy since the beginning.”

“And it’s worked,” Jeff says.

Larry Phillips has been a regular since the course opened and jokes that he’s “still no good.” He plays in two different league nights — partnering with Greg Smith in the Wednesday night mixed league for more than 25 years. Mark Malone, who runs a farm and ranch supplies store and sold the Whitcrafts oils, tools, fasteners and other items throughout construction, seldom misses a league night, either. Same for Ted Knerr, who sold the Whitcrafts their grass seed back in the 1990s and loves Judith Shadows so much he still ferries visiting friends around all 18. Wayne Riley, who has lived in Lewistown for almost 60 years and started walking 18 holes most days after retirement, is another Judith Shadows stalwart.

“They’ve treated me really well up there over the years,” Riley says. “I’m just comfortable golfing there. They’re friends.”

“Once you discover the place, a lot of people find it comfortable and appealing,” Malone says. “I love the golf course. It’s kind of rustic. It’s not as refined as some golf courses, but there’s plenty of room out there to stay out of trouble. It’s like a little wildlife refuge. You never know what you’re going to see. The thing people complain about most is Jeff has unmaintained areas all over the place and they lose a lot of golf balls. I just buy used golf balls.”

Even with league nights and an expanding group of regulars, Jeff and Maria struggled for decades to build Judith Shadows into a financially viable golf course. An unexpected tornado ripped through Lewistown in August 1999, damaging or destroying more than 100 buildings. The old clubhouse was among them, its roof ripped off as Jeff and Maria hurried friends from the eye. They started to rebuild the next day. Montana winters were never easy. Regular repairs added up. Both Jeff and Maria balanced side work, Jeff handling architecture projects when not on a mower or fixing equipment, Maria adding embroidery and wood burning to her responsibilities outside of the clubhouse. A new cart barn, opened in 2016 and able to host more than 200 people for weddings and other events, has helped. So has the acquisition of a state liquor license. They have a small maintenance team during the season, with Steve Olson, a local high school teacher, mowing eight to 10 hours a day throughout the summer, Mary Jennie on fairways, Dale “Shorty” Longfellow on tees and collars, and Lonnie Mannin helping everywhere.

“It’s such a tediously slow process to get to where you’re even above water,” Jeff says. “Those first years, if the course paid bills during the summer, ‘Hallelujah, what a great year we’re having.’ You’re certainly not going to turn around and invest another million dollars in something with that kind of an outlook.”

But the course is finally profitable. The Whitcrafts are in a better position than they have been since at least 1995 — maybe ever. And they want to sell.

Not long after Judith Shadows opened, Maria joked that if she and Jeff had understood how consuming the course would be, they might have never broken ground. By the time they figured it out, it was too late. “There are a few privately owned golf courses in Montana,” she said then. “They’re people with lots of money. This was just a family dream.”

A dream for Grandpa Bill, who lived to see all 18 holes open — often driving his small pickup all over the course and requesting to help fix equipment, only for Jeff to fix it again later — before passing away in 2002 at age 88. A dream, too, for Jeff, who carved a course out of a field with next to no experience and a team greener than the grass it needed to grow. And, after a while, a dream for Maria.

“We’ve seen other golf courses come and go,” she says. “There have been other people who have tried to start golf courses and not been able to do it. The one thing we are is persistent. We’re just too dumb to give up. We don’t know when to say no.”

So, why sell now?

“If it takes five years, that puts us at 66,” she says. “And that’s the catalyst for us to get out now, because we think it might take five to 10 years to sell. That puts us to retirement age, and that’s what’s driving us.”

Working with Phillips — the longtime regular with the same league partner the last quarter of a century who also happens to work as a real estate broker — they have priced the golf course at $2.4 million. They are selling an adjacent 65-lot subdivision already passed through state regulations for another $2 million. “We think those two things together can bring someone to the table,” she says.

They explored other options. Both Dylan and Kyle talked with their parents about the course. They both worked at the course until they were 16, when their parents insisted they learn to work for somebody else. Dylan headed to Ace Hardware. Kyle wound up at Fabian’s Machine & Welding. Then they went off to college, dived into other interests, built careers, started families. Dylan lives outside Seattle now with his wife, Nicole, and 3-year-old son, Oliver. He’s a licensed financial adviser and works with small businesses — many similar to the one his parents have built. He understands the challenges. Kyle and his wife, Lisa, are closer geographically. Their home sits at the end of the course parking lot, just 100 yards from the clubhouse. Kyle plays four rounds most weeks, normally nine holes and home. He sees how hard his dad still works — out on the course before Kyle starts his own workday in quality assurance and human resources, and often still out after Kyle is home for the night.

How do you say goodbye to the course you’ve known for all of its life and most of yours?

“They’ve been working on this a long time,” Dylan says. “This is their retirement plan, and we’ve always known this is where it’s going, and I’m happy for them. But to all of a sudden think of it of not being the first place I drive into when I go to Lewistown, it’s just different. There was some sadness, but in the big scheme of things, I’m happy for them.”

“How do I look at that?” Kyle asks. “It’ll be what it is, I guess. It’ll be tough, for sure. It’ll be hard on my folks. When we talked about it the last time, my first question was, What if it’s not a golf course? And the answer to that is the guy or gal or group who comes in can do what they want with it. It’ll be theirs. It’s tough to think about. But it’s equally tough to think about if somebody were to come in and buy it and keep it a golf course and run it poorly or have a country-club attitude. There’s no hierarchy, no pecking order. It’s always been the workingman’s course. If you pour concrete or if you’re a banker, it doesn’t matter. I think to see someone come in and ruin it that way, I would almost rather they turn it into a hayfield.”

The best possible buyer, Kyle says, is either somebody so wealthy they just want to own a golf course, money be darned, or … or “a young couple with a lot of ambition that can continue what my parents have done.”

Whenever Judith Shadows sells and Jeff and Maria hand over all the keys, they say they want to travel. Australia. New Zealand. Easter Island. Iceland. Africa. A whole bunch of the United States. Everybody who knows them, though, figures there will be some other project.

They are, to hear Kyle tell it, “pretty incredible people.”

Until then, they are happy to maintain the land they have shaped, to keep opening their doors and their course to anybody who wants to play or just hang out for a while.

Dylan drove into town a few weeks ago with Oliver. His son had never experienced the course. Maria drove her grandson around in a golf cart. He loved that. “He got to run his little heart out,” Dylan says. “He was in seventh heaven.

“I want to say it was almost overwhelming.”

Matt LaWell is Golf Course Industry's managing editor.