- A New Day for Golf in Maine

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A New Day for Golf in Maine

May 22, 2007

TOPSHAM, Maine – In a unique partnership with Highland Green Adult Resort Community and Golf Club of Topsham, the Maine State Golf Association, Inc. and Maine Golf Hall of Fame announce a joint agreement to create a permanent home for the state’s various governing organizations and a museum celebrating Maine’s rich golfing heritage. The plans call for the Golf House to be built on the grounds of the Midcoast region’s first comprehensive golf learning center and training facility, The Highland Green Golf Learning Center.
 
According to MSGA president Bob Timmins, the architectural plan for Maine’s first-ever “Golf House” will provide over 4,500-square feet of office and dedicated meeting space for six potential different state golf associations, including the Maine State Golf Association, Maine Golf Course Superintendents Association, Southern Maine Women’s Golf Association, Women’s Maine State Golf Association, Maine Chapter of the PGA, and Golf Maine. This figure also includes a nearly 1,000-square feet of display space dedicated exclusively to house a state-of-the-art golf museum and permanent exhibition hall for the Maine Golf Hall-of-Fame.
 
“One of the most exciting aspects of this project is the immediate access and versatility a permanent Maine Golf House at Highland Green’s proposed new Learning Center will bring to all golfers in Maine,” says Timmins. “Not only does it permit us to comfortably house all the golf organizations of the state under one roof, providing us with far greater ability to promote the game and share information, but it grants us all immediate access to a terrific learning center and short-game facility right on the premises, allowing us to conduct seminars and showcase golf in Maine as never before. In every respect, this is a new day for golf in Maine.”
 
“It’s long been our dream to have a permanent home for golf in Maine,” echoes MSGA Executive Director Nancy Storey-DeFrancesco. “The great visibility of a Golf House and Learning Center gives us a wonderful opportunity to expand and stimulate the game on the grassroots level, attracting new people into the game and promoting golf in this state as never before. For us to be able to promote the game and its most positive values to a group of people who have not previously had the opportunity to love the game is very exciting for us. It’s a very pro-active step that we are taking to preserve the future of the game.”
 
The Maine Golf House, Museum, and Learning Center will be built on the Coastal Connector in Topsham. The driving range component of the Learning Center is scheduled to open later this year with other features to follow.

 In addition to the administrative offices and dedicated museum space, current plans include a travel industry component aimed at showcasing the rich heritage and broad diversity of golf in Maine, highlighting more than 125 private and public golf clubs and courses throughout the Pine Tree State.
 
“Obviously, for those of us who understand what a rich and colorful golf legacy Maine has,” says Gary Rees, Executive Director of the Maine Golf Hall of Fame, “the museum is going to be a great way to finally get our story out – not to mention a whole lot of fun to visit. To have a Maine Golf House, learning center and wee course right on the premises will be like a magnet, we feel, to attracting visitors to the museum – a winning proposition for everybody.”
 
The Highland Green Learning Center is been designed by bestselling Topsham-based golf writer James Dodson in close collaboration with the owners and residents of Highland Green and will feature a 15-acre practice range and comprehensive teaching facility that includes video teaching and training space, advanced putting greens and bunker complexes, dedicated short-game practice areas, all-grass tees and covered all-weather teeing sites, plus a 2800-square for Meeting House facility suitable for any kind of corporate or private function. Dodson is also designing a par-three Scottish-style “wee course” to enhance the comprehensive training experience.
 
 “One of the unique factors with this complex is that it’s designed to integrate all aspects of the learning experience and to provide golfers at every level the chance to improve their games and have a good time doing it,” says Dodson. “There are very few places around where you can take your game directly from a dedicated teaching facility of this caliber to a regulation golf course or a specially designed short-game course to put what you’ve just learned into practice. Maine’s facility will be one of the first of this kind in the nation. And having the Golf House and Museum right on the premise will truly make it a special place for nurturing the game.”
 
Visitors to the Museum and Learning Center, he points out, will also have easy access to the award-winning Highland Green Golf Club for regulation play.
 
“The Golf Learning Center at Highland Green is dedicated to preserving open space and providing top-notch recreational opportunities to this region’s growing communities and to the thousands of visitors to Maine who pass our entrance gates every season of the year,” says John Wasileski, owner of the Highlands of Maine and Highland Green.
 
“That’s why we’re extremely pleased to support the MSGA and Hall of Fame and excited that they’ve selected Highland Green as the place they want to make their permanent headquarters and museum. It’s our hope and belief that this unique partnership and the splendid practice facilities, public Meeting House, and short-game course at the HGGLC will attract new people to the game of golf and enrich the active outdoor lifestyle of many people throughout the state of Maine.”
 
For further information, including proposed architectural drawings or to schedule a personal interview with any of the project principals, please contact: Jon Leahy with Highland Green at 207-725-4549.


 

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