The new Boothbay Harbor Country Club will close the front nine holes on October 1 and the back nine on October 15.

Then the fun begins, said owner Paul Coulombe.

Golfer Lincoln Brown of Ocean Point and Harold Bishop Insurance owner Alan Tilton of Boothbay Harbor anticipate the changes like a pair of second graders awaiting Christmas.

“I feel I have died and gone to heaven,” Brown said.

Since buying the course last spring, Coulombe has spruced up the course, fixed up the clubhouse, hired a friendly staff and blasted a posh practice range out of a granite hillside.

After a summer of planning, he has hired architect Bruce Hepner to draw up a course redesign plan, a project estimated to cost about $4 million, Coulombe said.

Construction of both the course and a new clubhouse is scheduled to begin this fall.

Golf course plans

Plans for the golf course call for more than cosmetic work, like repaving cart paths, dumping new sand in the bunkers and planting a few more flowers. The course was first built in 1921, with nine holes added in the 1990s.

Additional plans include redoing fairways, installing new irrigation equipment, blasting ledges, adding tons of dirt and fixing pesky drainage issues. Then they get to the fun stuff, like building new tees, lengthening some holes, relocating some greens and creating new vistas. Two retention ponds on the front nine will be linked and expanded with the sixth tee located on an island in the middle.

“Golf is a game. It should be fun,” said Hepner, a Traverse City, Mich., resident who spent years working with famed architect Tom Doak.

Both the architect and owner said they want to make the course playable for all. But that does not mean it will be bland or easy.

Coulombe wants the course to be playable for all, but he has an ulterior motive too. “I want this course to become a destination course in Maine, like Belgrade Lakes, Samoset, Sugarloaf and Sunday River. I hope my investment will spur others to invest in our region,” Coulombe said.

Duffers and pros alike will love one of the planned changes.

Coulombe plans to chop off the top of a hill that currently backstops most tee shots and requires players to execute a difficult uphill and side hill lie for their second shot. The fairway that often sends long drives down a hill into a mass of tall rough, will be tilted toward the fairway and the green. Hepner said his goal is simple. “I want to make it strategic, interesting and playable.”

Plans call for the new layout to measure 6,556 yards from the back tees, compared to the present 6,356 yards. From the white or forward tees, the course will also be lengthened by about 250 yards.

As for the reworked course, Hepner pledged it will still look like a Maine golf club with lush fairways and greens wandering among hills ringed by a rugged landscape peppered with boulders, ledges and native trees.

The clubhouse

Current plans call for the new clubhouse to be built just up the hill from the current structure on a ridge overlooking the course. After the new facility is built, the old clubhouse is to be torn down.

Some members have expressed an attachment to the old log cabin style clubhouse, but the owner said it is on its last legs.

“I know some folks want us to preserve the old log cabin clubhouse, but it is in bad shape,” Coulombe said. “We opened it this year only after shoring up the building. It is not structurally sound.”

In addition, he said the current clubhouse lacks locker rooms and changing rooms, the restrooms are tiny, and the dining room is too small to accommodate large gatherings.

So far, he said the changes he has made to the club since buying it in the spring of 2013 have been well received. 

For 2013, about 200 members have joined the club. Many praise the owner for not pricing the fees out of the price range of the local residents. Membership is split about evenly between the year-round residents and summer visitors. The dues for the coming year will be about the same as this year.

Rob Wylie, the course superintendent, and a former superintendent Clayton Longfellow, will over see much of the work to be done by golf course construction firm, NMP of Williston, Vt. Boothbay’s Knickerbocker Group will build the clubhouse.

Tilton recently chatted with Coulombe and thanked him for improving his beloved hometown golf course.

Tilton said the owner answered with a smile and a quip: “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”