Fundraising up next for Maine Golf House Several associations, museum to use facility

With plans announced last week for a Maine Golf House to be situated at Highland Green Adult Resort Community and Golf Club in Topsham, all that’s left now is the fundraising.

“We figure we need between $800,000 and $1,000,000 for the building and to outfit it,” said Nancy DeFrancesco, executive director of the Maine State Golf Association. The MSGA has been the driving force behind the Maine Golf House.

“We originally talked about it in ’98 when I first came on board,” said DeFrancesco, “but first we needed to get the scholarship fund [on solid footing].

“The board says now is the time [for the Golf House].”

The current plan for the Maine Golf House is a two-story facility with approximately 4,500 square feet of office and meeting space for several of the state’s golf organizations, in addition to the MSGA.

Among them are the Maine chapter of the New England PGA, the Women’s Maine State Golf Association, the Southern Maine Women’s Golf Association, the Maine Golf Course Superintendents Association, and Golf Maine, a group which promotes Maine golf courses at golf shows and other venues outside the state.

“Whatever [the associations] do to promote golf benefits everybody,” said DeFrancesco.

Nearly 1,000 square feet of that 4,500 will be display space dedicated to a golf museum and a permanent exhibition area for the Maine Golf Hall of Fame.

Also, a Golf Learning Center is part of Highland Green’s plans, with the driving range expected to open later this year. Other aspects of the learning center will be added later.

It works well for Highland Green as well as the golf associations because some of their new owners may not play golf.

“It will provide the [home] owners of the community the ability to learn to play golf, and it will be a hook to attract new owners,” said Keith Wegener, a sales representative for Highland Green.

The merging of the two concepts at one site came about last September, according to DeFrancesco.

“I was talking to James Dodson at the [Golf] Hall of Fame dinner last year,” she said. “I told him about it and he said he had just the place in mind.”

Dodson, a best-selling golf writer based in Topsham and the designer of the learning center, broached it to the Highland Green owners, who embraced it, according to DeFrancesco. They donated the land for the Golf House.

“To have land given to you is hard to pass up,” she said.

The Highland Green Adult Resort Community and Golf Club is located off Route 196, a couple of miles from Interstate 95, exit 31.

“It’s a great spot really,” said DeFrancesco, whose offices are now in Yarmouth.

DeFrancesco anticipates doing a lot of things to raise money for the Maine Golf House, including approaching individuals who might make a sizeable donation to help get the project started.

“We want to start building early next summer,” she said.

MSGA awards scholarships

Nathan Stevens of Lee Academy and Noah Goldstein of Belfast High School are two of a baker’s dozen of recipients of MSGA scholarships awarded recently.

Stevens, Goldstein, and their fellow recipients were selected from a field of 40 applicants for the $1,100-per-year grants. They are renewable for up to four years of undergraduate study.

The other recipients and their current schools are: Ian Biggers (Lake Region High School of Naples), Stephen Coopersmith and Nick Waltz (Lincoln Academy in Newcastle), brothers James and Paul Dufresne (Scarborough), Joe Flowers (Waterville), Jarrod Googins and Thomas Mooney (Gray-New Gloucester), Richard Matthews (Portland), Audrey Roy (Noble of Berwick), and Matthew Seymour (Cornell University).

Dave Barber can be reached at 990-8170, 1-800-310-8600, or by e-mail at dbarber@bangordailynews.net.