Harris Golf completes purchase of PVCC

ORONO – Harris Golf, the Maine-based course developer, contractor and operator, has completed the purchase of Penobscot Valley Country Club with plans to increase membership, right club finances and restore a Donald Ross routing that has sat virtually untouched since the famous Scot finished his work in 1923.

The membership at Penobscot Valley Country Club numbers some 250, down from 400 in the late 1990s. Members voted 153-10 on Oct. 26 to sell the club to Harris Golf for $3 million with a promise that Harris Golf would spend $500,000 on golf course refurbishment.

“We will spend at least that much, because Penobscot Valley isn’t merely one of the great old clubs in Maine – it’s a Donald Ross design that hasn’t been tampered with,” said Jeff Harris, president of Harris Golf. “We have Ross’ original as-built plans. They are detailed and mighty revealing. It’s amazing how much the greens have shrunk over the years, how narrow the fairways have become. It’s pretty simple – we’re going to put it all back the way it was. We see this as an opportunity and privilege.”

Harris Golf is the developer, builder and operator of Sunday River Golf Club in Newry, a Robert Trent Jones II design that sat on the drawing board for 10 years before Harris Golf revived it. Sunday River was named among the top new courses for 2006 by both Golf Digest and Travel and Leisure Golf magazines.

Penobscot Valley Country Club leaders approached Harris Golf this fall about assuming ownership of its semi-private club, which had struggled to make ends meet since construction of a sizeable clubhouse in 2001. As cash flow waned, course conditions deteriorated, and members fell away.

“The board of governors felt that in order to preserve [the club], we needed help,” club president Paul Rudman told the Bangor Daily News. “We sought a guarantee that for 15 years it would remain a semi-private golf club and that it would have the financial support it needs. Harris Golf has the skill, knowledge and [financial] capacity to do what we could not.”

In the short term, Harris Golf has restructured memberships at PVCC, waiving initiation fees for past, current and new members “until we’re full,” Harris explained, with a membership target of 350.

Annual fees have been reduced, in some cases by nearly half. Individual memberships have gone from $2,772 to $1,500. Membership for a couple, a new category, is $2,250. Family memberships are $2,750. Monthly food and beverage minimums have been removed.

The interim golf course superintendent is Clayton Longfellow of Machias, Harris Golf’s chief of development and construction.

“We felt it was vital that Clayton take over immediately so the course could be ‘put to bed’ properly for the winter, no matter the cost,” Harris said. “He knows the climate up here and how a course should be prepped for winter.”

“When the spring comes,” Longfellow said, “we want to begin the season as strongly as possible. To that end, we’re working now on slicing and seeding the tee boxes.” Plans also call for aerating the fairways and greens. “Next we’ll treat all of the greens to prevent snow mold over the winter and prevent other winter-related damage. Finally, we’ll do a dormant seed-and-feed, which will really bring the turf to life when things warm up next year.”

Long term, the team at Harris Golf is enthusiastic about the prospect of restoring the Donald Ross design. Except for the renovation of a dozen bunkers on six holes in the 1990s, the course is essentially untouched since Ross directed the construction of PVCC in 1923.

“Ross didn’t personally supervise construction of all his designs, far from it, but we’re quite sure Ross was here, on site, which makes his plans even more valuable as a guide,” Harris said. “The fact that no one has tinkered with that design is something of a double-edged sword.

“It’s a good thing because very little has been altered – by another architect or some green committee from the 1960s with questionable design ideas,” Harris said. “Short of some tree planting and the shrunken greens, there’s very little to be undone, in other words. On the other hand, 80-plus years of natural erosion and sometimes short-sighted maintenance and mowing practices have changed the golf course considerably. Thirty-one bunkers have disappeared. The fairways have been narrowed. The current greens are just a bunch of big circles.

“It’s amazing to see what these things look like on Ross’ own plans,” he said. “Enormous greens, some square-shaped and with some of the neatest contours I’ve ever seen. On average they are 50 percent bigger than what’s there now.”

Harris Golf will direct the restoration effort at Penobscot Valley. It will include bunker renovation and the recapturing of PVCC’s original green footprints, in addition to aggressive aeration, topdressing and overseeding.

For more information on Penobscot Valley Country Club or Harris Golf, call 442-8725 or visit harrisgolfonline.com.