Amory Golf Club tees off reopening after suffering March tornado damage
Now, almost 5 months later they're working on getting people back out on the greens.
AMORY, Miss. (WCBI) – After suffering heavy damage in the March tornado, The Amory Golf Club is teeing off for its new reopening.
Now, almost five months later they’re working on getting people back out on the greens.
The President of the Board of Directors, Dave Cresap said if you saw the Amory Golf Club just a few months ago, you might not have recognized it.
Now, with lots of hard work, they’re ready to get people back in the swing of things.
“This golf course, it’s got a lot of history. It’s one of the older golf courses in the state,” Cresap said.
After being hit by a devastating tornado, the possibility of reopening the Amory Golf Club seemed like a long shot.
“We lost all of our facilities. It came right here and destroyed our pro shop, our lounge, our cart shed, our rental carts, our individual-owned carts, all of those were gone,” Cresap said.
The club has been a staple in Amory since the 1950s, and its members were determined to get people back on the fairway.
“In order to build all that back we would have probably had to wait at least a year and our membership is scattered now in several places and we have a lot of members that are not playing at all so we decided to do some temporary facilities and open the course back up and get people back out here,” Cresap said.
Fortunately, the city renewed the lease for the member-run course, and rough work was able to begin.
“Our greenskeeper has been on the course since day one. He’s the only person that, he and a couple of helpers at times, the only person who actually was here full time. Then we started bringing in member volunteers and equipment and started cleaning up this area. hole 7, 8, and 9 we lost 90% of the trees, they were scattered all over the course,” Cresap said.
Cresap said golf is a lifelong sport and the Amory Golf Club hopes to be there with every swing.
“We got grandparents, we got children that play with them, and we got grandkids that play with them, but we’ve had a tremendous amount of outpouring from this entire community and others, volunteering, because this place has a world of history,” Cresap said.
The course will officially reopen this Saturday, September 9 at 8 a.m.
