After nearly a century of existence, the Columbia Country Club faces an uncertain future as it goes into foreclosure.
The property is scheduled to be sold in a courthouse auction Jan. 3, according to a public notice.
Clyde Gates, a member at the club who has helped oversee it, said they had been expecting this. He said they have about 60 paying members now and need about 90 to be self-sufficient.
He said the club does not have a board or president and that it’s fallen on him, fellow member Steve Mullins and longtime employee Liz Dore to make decisions about its management. Gates said they had discussed going up on the dues and assessments but felt like it was too little, too late.
“It’s a shame considering the history of the place,” Gates said.
The club dates to 1923 when Hugh White, an influential Columbia business leader who would later become Mississippi’s governor, bought the 41 acres on the north end of the city.
“The course was ‘hand built’ with mules and slips, and the greens were often plucked of foreign grass by hand,” a history of the club, written in 1979, notes.
But the Great Depression brought hardships to clubs throughout the country, including Columbia, and White sold the land to Sam Portero, who used the clubhouse as a residence while the course fell into disrepair, according to the history.
In 1949 a group of golfers, which would later become the Columbia Golf Association, made an agreement with Portero to maintain and use the golf course. They ended up buying it from him in 1953, and the club was incorporated in 1955. That led to its heyday, when the club was a center of the city’s social life, making numerous improvements to its buildings and property and boasting a membership of 263 as of 1976.
Membership has gradually declined over the ensuing decades. Gates said many of those who were actively involved have died and that many golfers now go over to Hattiesburg. He said they pay two or three times as much rather than keeping the money in Columbia so they can get the greens in shape so they’re comparable to other courses.
Gates said the club lost its irrigation two years ago because the computer system that ran it failed. Without water, the club couldn’t fertilize or spray, either, and playing conditions worsened. After not being able to find anyone who could fix the computer system, the club was able this spring to get irrigation back by running it manually. Gates said that led to them getting the greens in better shape, and they lowered the dues from $100 to $85. Membership increased from about 50 to the 70s, he said, but “it just wasn’t enough.”
The club’s pool has also been closed because it needs repairs.
The public notice said the country club is in default from money it originally borrowed from First Federal Bank for Savings (now First Southern Bank) in 2005 and refinanced in 2009 and 2015.
Gates said the club also has unpaid payroll taxes dating back from many years ago but said he thought that would not transfer to a new owner.
Gates said he would hate for it to no longer be used for golf considering the work they’ve done to the course and the clubhouse and hopes someone comes in who can run the club like a business, which he said had not been done for a long time. He said it wouldn’t take a lot to make it a really good golf course.
The property is scheduled to be offered for sale in a public auction to the highest bidder on Jan. 3 at the courthouse by Donovan McComb, a Columbia lawyer and trustee for First Southern Bank in the matter, according to the public notice.
In the meantime, the club plans to remain open. “We’re going to rock on until they come lock the door,” Gates said.
