Fore the last time
Chattanooga’s last 9-hole golf course closing after 80 years
James Leeth plans to spend New Year’s Day where he’s spent nearly every day for more than eight years — in the messy clubhouse at the Lupton City Golf Club, with customers who have become his closest friends.
Whether rain or shine, sleet or snow, Leeth wants to keep the old wooden building open for the regulars he considers family. He’s not sure how the day will go, but he knows
people will come. They always do. Maybe they’ll grill some food and drink some beer, he said. Maybe they’ll play some golf. Football will be on the dated big-screen in the front corner, and the club’s regulars will tell stories about the memories they’ve shared.
On a day that is usually spent looking toward the year ahead, filled with unkept resolutions and optimism, the men will spend the day in
fellowship, reminiscing about days that soon will be gone.
The property that is home to Chattanooga’s last nine-hole golf course has been sold. Plans for development are well underway, and with that, the golf course will be destroyed. But Jan. 1, 2019, means something to Leeth and the club’s regulars, and it’s a date they plan to honor.
Leeth bought the lease to the club and took charge Jan. 1, 2010. More importantly, the new year will mark the 80th anniversary of the course.
“That’s very important to me,” Leeth said.
After that, Leeth will take it day by day. There isn’t a scheduled closing date, but developers plan to break ground on new houses by the end of 2019, said one of the principles in the development, Becky Cope English. Leeth will stay as long as he can, but the days are numbered.
BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee owned the property for more than 15 years. Leeth just owned the lease to the course. It was a potential home for the insurance company’s headquarters that was instead built downtown on Cameron Hill. The decision meant the golf course got to stay, at least for a while.
But the property became highly coveted as the largest undeveloped riverfront property in the city. BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee agreed to sell it to a local development group for $8.1 million earlier this year. The owners are part of the newly formed Riverton Development Group — a name they chose by combining “river” and “Lupton.”
Developers will break ground on the more than $200 million residential and commercial development project later this year. Leeth doesn’t seem surprised by the move, and it’s one developers said was needed.
“You no longer have developments around golf courses. It’s just not the direction neighborhoods want to go in,” Cope English said. “It’s sad, but I think he would agree the plan here was a lot better than the alternatives.”
The property is the latest move in a long line of developers focusing on natural habitat and green space within community living. The Riverton community will have walking trails, a community garden and preserved wetlands.
Leeth is optimistic about his life and the project moving forward. He recently purchased another piece of land to possibly build on and will consider other opportunities once the course closes. He’s been pleased with the current developers.
“It’s been a very good working relationship. They’re allowing me to stay until the last possible moment. That’s what they’re allowing me to do,” he said. “… For the property, I hate to see it go, but the people who are doing it right now, I think they’re the best people to do it. They are really concerned about the property. They’re going to leave as much as they can possibly leave natural.”
But that doesn’t make the decision much easier to accept for the course’s regulars.
“It’s a crying shame,” Brad Allen said. “It’s the third-oldest golf course in Chattanooga. You know, it’s not the best course in town, but it’s probably one of the hardest. There’s been a lot of people who play on that course.”
The course is a piece of what remains of the original Lupton City community built around the old yarn mill in the 1920s. John T. Lupton bought 1,000 acres of farmland on the Tennessee River to develop the manufacturing community for the yarn and thread maker then known as Dixie Mercerizing Co. As business grew, houses, a post office, church, gym, movie theater, swimming pool and the golf course were built.
Most of that has long since closed, but the golf course remained.
“We always thought it was funny that Jack [John T. Lupton’s son] had his hand in the highest and lowest golf courses in the area, between this and the Honor’s Course,” Leeth said. “I don’t think this is the lowest course in the area [now]. It probably used to be, but you get the point.”
Allen and some of the 20-25 regulars will continue to play as long as they can. Comparatively, Allen is relatively new, he said. The 62-year-old has been playing the course a couple of times a week for about seven years. Others have been there for decades. Several have played the course nearly as long as it has been in existence.
One of those members is nearly blind.
“He can’t hit a driver. He can’t hit an iron, but people still pick him for their team just for his putting,” Allen said. “You walk him out onto the green and rattle a stick in the cup, and he will make the putt. He’s putted on those greens for so many years.”
It’s those stories and those people Leeth will miss most.
“A small part of me looks forward to what’s on the horizon, but the biggest part of me is going to miss this place so much,” he said. “As much as the guys complain and gripe, they’re my friends. They’re my family. We’ve created a good family out here. I’ll miss them. The worst part is to see all the guys scattered to the four winds.”