LUCERNE-IN-MAINE – The little white clubhouse shack has a “closed” sign tacked to it. The leaves are mostly off the trees now. They hide from the chill November wind in the crannies of the deserted fairways.

Roger Tracy, the man responsible for resuscitating the golf course here above Phillips Lake, is busy this week preparing to spread fungicide and fertilizer on the Lucerne Hills Golf Club’s nine tender greens.

Tracy is not too busy, though, to take a last tour around the course in a cart before lovingly bedding down the putting surfaces for their first winter’s nap.

“On a scale of one to 10, I’d bill it a nine,” is how Tracy summarized the now-completed first season of his effort to make Lucerne part of Maine’s golfing landscape once again.

“I’m extremely pleased,” he said, gunning the cart’s engine. “We didn’t make any money. I’m still working on the final books. We spent a lot more than we took in. But to get the greens where they are, I’m tremendously pleased.”

He should be. At this time two years ago the greens to which Tracy referred might as well have been archeological relics buried beneath a hayfield. But that was before this Baptist minister from Bangor pursued his vision and began excavating a course that had stood abandoned for more than a decade.

Now, even at this late date, the greens look like real greens as opposed to the patches of fairway grass with cups cut raggedly in the middle that the course featured back on July 2, when Tracy opened for business.

“They came in late, but when they came in we had some beautiful greens,” Tracy recounted. “The fullness and texture was as good as has been around here for a long time.”

Now, Tracy works to ensure the greens will be back when the spring sun returns.

The course itself? Yes, Lucerne Hills will definitely be back in the spring. So will Tracy. And there will likely be a new superintendent on board. Contrary to the skeptics, this vision appears to have staying power.

“No question we’ll be ready to go next year. I’ll probably try to raise some money over the winter to try and put up a clubhouse. But even if we don’t have a clubhouse next year, we can operate the way we are,” said Tracy.

This year was all about little triumphs, Tracy said. No, the course probably shouldn’t have been opened so soon. But Tracy knew the doubters needed to see it, to touch it. So he opened it, shaggy and rough, charging five bucks for a nine-hole round. And the players came. Even with temporary greens.

“We ran out of golf carts on two different weekends while we had temporary greens,” Tracy said. “We only had 11 carts, but we had ’em all out. We weren’t charging much, but people were there, playing.”

Enough money was made to purchase a riding greensmower for the precious putting surfaces. And when the greens came in, the greens fees were raised to a more realistic $8 on weekdays and $10 on weekends. A foundation had been laid for next year, for the future.

“We opened so late, by the time we got the greens the season was over,” Tracy explained. A lot of our play is going to come from the (Phillips) Lake people. A lot of those leave on Labor Day,” Tracy explained.

The promise of a full season next year means Tracy’s plan shifts from the survival mode to the improvement mode. The immediate strategy, according to Tracy, is to sell memberships.

“I’ll be running an ad before Christmas for early memberships. I’m hoping to get 100 or 150 memberships. If we can do that, it will help,” he said.

Physically, the plan is to put in drainage this fall, especially on the troublesome fourth fairway.

After that, the top priority is a full-time superintendent, followed by a bigger clubhouse. Somewhere down the list is constructing a tunnel under Route 1A so golfers don’t have to wait for traffic.

“We were incident-free crossing the road all summer,” Tracy pointed out. “Augusta Country Club does more golf on a busier road than this. The tunnel isn’t a top priority.”

The long-range plan is still the stuff of pillow talk between Tracy and his wife, Sylvalyn.

“We’ll need a couple of years, a couple of full years of income and a good track record. My wife and I were talking about a back nine. The plan is still there. I’ll know better by this time next year. But I think it’s going to go,” Tracy confided.

Until then, there is the uncertainty of this winter and what damage the combination of snow and humanity might bring. Tracy will rope off and flag the greens in the hope snowmobilers and cross country skiers avoid them. And he will hope for an easy winter followed by an early spring.

“I can’t wait,” said Roger Tracy, as he tucked in his greens for the long winter’s night.