Lockhaven Golf Club closes

GODFREY — Challenges in the last few years took a toll on Lockhaven Golf Club, formerly Lockhaven Country Club, with the public golf club announcing its closing Monday.

Lockhaven Development board member Paul Lauschke called the Telegraph Monday afternoon to say the club closed its doors. A letter from the board was posted on Lockhaven Golf Club’s Facebook page the same day about the club closing Monday. The future of the property is yet to be determined and will evolve over the next several months, Lauschke stated in a news release he emailed the Telegraph after he called Monday.

The once-private country club in Godfrey became a public golf club Jan. 1, 2013, in an effort to keep the club open and its tradition a part of the Riverbend community. Lockhaven Golf Club officially left behind its legacy as Lockhaven Country Club when its former board president signed bankruptcy papers on Aug. 13, 2013.

St. Louis-based Walters Golf Management ran the public operation, which formalized its transition from a private, members-only country club that began after Lockhaven Country Club’s Board of Directors filed for bankruptcy to reorganize the club.

Walters Golf Management eventually completely took over operations of the entity but Lockhaven Development Corp. still owned the property, which always was a separate entity from the former Lockhaven Country Club board. The Lockhaven Country Club board ran the country club operations on a volunteer basis after the bankruptcy was declared until Walters Golf Management took over operations as a golf club. Walters operated 18 clubs at the time, both public and private, including Sunset Hills Country Club in Edwardsville and others in the St. Louis metropolitan area.

“The reason for the demise of the country club model was because of a declining, aging membership, and it could not continue to function at the level a country club should with the amount of existing members,” former Lockhaven Country Club Board of Directors President Dr. Frank Bemis told the Telegraph in 2013.

Lockhaven Country Club’s transition to public began prior to 2013, with the Lockhaven Country Club board deciding to make the swimming pool and golf course available to non-members on a limited basis. Extra perks for members, including locker room privileges, preferred tee times and driving range access, still were available to anyone who wanted to pay extra for those benefits.

Throughout 2013 leading up to the bankruptcy as Lockhaven Golf Club, the main dining room ceased to operate as a sit-down restaurant and the space became available for special-event rentals, including weddings, receptions, golf outings and private parties. At the same time the golf club still offered a full bar and limited food menu.

The general public could buy a swimming pool membership with no prior association with the country club.

In fall of 2012, the Telegraph first reported that Lockhaven Country Club’s leaders were looking for a new business model and had asked standing members to buy stock in the country club.

But the property was owned by the Lockhaven Development Corp., which got behind in payments to its bank, Bemis and Lauschke confirmed at the time to the Telegraph.

The longstanding Riverbend institution faced hard times much like most country clubs across the nation over the past several years and especially since the latest U.S. recession. Also, as members aged and left the club, new generations did not seem to have the same interest in joining Lockhaven Country Club.

“We will become an equity club,” Bemis said in late 2012 to the Telegraph. “I think it’s very important. I’m just so concerned about entities like Lockhaven as an asset to the community.”

Lockhaven Country Club opened at its current location off of Illinois Route 100 in 1956 but its roots go back 100 years when an original club was built north of Rock Spring Park in Alton. The original club featured a nine-hole golf course, three tennis courts and a clubhouse and was completed in 1914. Lockhaven Country Club was built on land in Godfrey formerly owned by the Lock family, for which it was named.

For years when Alton’s long-defunct manufacturing industries thrived, such as Owens-Illinois Glass and Laclede Steel, those companies had multiple country club members each. Membership once was in excess of 500, but as of September 2012 it was around 250. As of Monday, a post by Lockhaven Golf Club on its Facebook page said it had 150 existing members.

Several country club management changes occurred since approximately 2010 to keep the club private, but membership remained static, Bemis said then to the Telegraph.