Ashland Golf Club marking its centennial summer
The Ashland Golf Club will mark its centennial summer with a 100-day celebration calendar kicking off May 28. The celebration will feature events, course and pro shop specials and giveaways, and 10 different Parties on the Patio, where attendees will be treated to music and food.
In the midst of prohibition, a two-time British Open champion designed Ashland Golf Club, and over the years PGA Tour legends headlined by Sam Snead, Arnold Palmer and Lee Trevino played it.
The original clubhouse hosted mystery dinner theaters and the big-band sounds of musicians like Jimmy Dorsey, Glenn Miller and Maynard Ferguson. Some staff members even thought the more recent rendition of the clubhouse was haunted before it was torn down in 2013, the same year the course switched from private to public.
Those recollections will be part of the story when the Ashland Golf Club celebrates its centennial summer with the public. A 100-day celebration kicked off May 28 and will feature events, course and pro shop specials and giveaways, and 10 different Parties on the Patio, where attendees will be treated to music and food.
“The words hidden gem are used a decent amount from players that come out here,” said Dennis North, the club’s eighth-year PGA golf pro who said rounds played have been up over 4,000 per year since he arrived in 2015. “They absolutely love the golf course.”
In 2016 Golf Advisor named the Ashland Golf Club the No. 1 public course in Ohio and No. 8 in the United States with greens fees under $50.
The par-72 spread features rolling, bent-grass terrain and maxes out at 6,699 yards. Many of the pines lining its tight fairways were Christmas trees planted after the holidays by club members in the 1950s.
Steve Paramore, a club member and Ashlander who won individual and team state titles as a golfer at Ashland High School, got some of his best training at the Ashland Golf Club during his rise to becoming one of the best linksters in Ohio.
“I’ve played golf courses that are as nice as Augusta National,” said Paramore, a 2003 Ohio State Amateur champion and four-time All-American at NCAA Division II powerhouse Florida Southern College. “I know when I was even a 20-year-old guy, I always felt it was a true privilege to play (the Ashland Golf Club).”
In 1921, course architect Willie Park, Jr. — a Scotsman who also built well-known courses in Europe and Canada — designed the original nine holes of what was known at its inception as Ashland Country Club. The links covered 143 acres of farmland and expanded to 18 holes in 1973.
Keep up with everything going on at the course this centennial summer by visiting www.ashlandgolfclubohio.com or following events, specials and updates on social media (Ashland Golf Club on Facebook, agc_ohio on Instagram and @ashlandgolfclub on Twitter).