The groundbreaking at a new Middletown private golf club on Tuesday brought news that will change the status of an existing public course near Middletown.
Back Creek Golf Club, which opened in 1997 and has been praised as one of the better public courses in the area, will turn private by 2006. Back Creek will be associated with The Saint Annes Club, an 18-hole course and 438-home housing development that held its honorary ground-breaking Tuesday. The Saint Annes course, co-designed by PGA pro Jim Furyk, is scheduled to open in the summer of 2006. Next year, Back Creek will remain available to the public while opening itself to early members of the Saint Annes Club awaiting the completion of the other course.
Allen Liddicoat, co-designer of Saint Annes and co-designer and co-owner at Back Creek, said he expects that some golfers will miss the opportunity to play Back Creek, but he has no plans to build another public course in the Middletown area. He said Frog Hollow, his third Middletown course, would remain public, for now.
"That still leaves what I consider a pretty nice golf course for people who want to play a daily fee course," Liddicoat said. "I think what we have right now will be fine."
But the developers of Saint Annes feel like Middletown is ripe for an upscale private country club. Golf course developer Ron Coruzzi, who pulled this project together, said research he conducted four years ago showed that a development like Saint Annes could succeed.
"The demographics, how many homes are being built here every year, this should have happened five years ago," Coruzzi said. "I always knew there was a need for a
private club south of the canal."
Standing in the backyard of Don and Clydia Isaacs on Tuesday, watching Furyk and Liddicoat traipse through hundreds of acres of farmland, it was apparent how drastically Saint Annes will alter the landscape of Middletown.
In 1957, the Isaacs moved onto their land on the edge of what Don Isaacs, a former state senator, called "a nice little town." Now heading into retirement, they didn't want to move. So instead they sold more than 300 acres of their property, kept their home and 36 acres, and will now watch a golfing oasis rise up around them. The pond Don had dug out years ago as a haven for geese and other wildlife will now serve as a water hazard on holes No. 3 and No. 17.
"I look forward to sitting on the porch and watching the golfers go by," Clydia Isaacs said.
Coruzzi said the course would cost between $6 million and $7 million to build. His plan is for Saint Annes to be a family golfing development, and he imagines the typical homeowners to be 35-year-olds with children. He said that's one of the reasons he brought in Furyk, a 34-year-old about to start a family of his own with his wife, Tabitha.
"We wanted to identify with a nice young man, a family man," Coruzzi said. "I'm not sure it will help sell the course, but that's what we wanted."
Furyk, an 11-year tour pro and the 2003 U.S. Open champion, grew up in Lancaster, Pa., and wanted his first foray into course design to be close to his roots. Liddicoat already laid out the 18 holes, and Furyk has been looking at the plans on paper for more than a year. But Tuesday was his first chance to walk the course, where white stakes amidst the grasses and soybeans marked where greens and tees will be located.
Construction will begin in October, and the course may be built in groups of four or five holes at a time. Furyk, a full-time member of the PGA Tour, plans to return a handful of times as the course takes form.
"My name is on it, and it's my first project, so there's going to be a sense of pride," Furyk said. "I don't think you should lend your name to it and then have nothing to do with it.
"There are going to be some key times, so I'm going to have to fit it in. The project is not going to stop so I can get here, so I'll have to work it into my schedule and make sure I can get out here."
Don and Clydia Isaacs will be watching from the porch.
Source: The News Journal (Wilmington, Del.)
