By Paris Goodnight
Salisbury Post
The Crescent Golf Club has a new owner, and he has plans to bring his country club experience to the course.
Frank Hedderich said he actually looked into buying the course a couple years ago but never got the details worked out. This time, his Crescent Golf Club LLC purchased the course from Run & Jump LLC for $1.8 million.
The Run & Jump partnership paid $1.975 million for the golf course in 2003. Members of that partnership included Salisburians Franco Goodman and Rick Hardesty, and former Salisburian Tony Withers, James Tucker and Jay Klompmaker.
Hedderich said Withers took control of the Crescent, but he also owns Crooked Creek in Cary, and couldn’t run both. Frank A. Kemo Jr. of Salisbury is listed as the agent for the new Crescent Golf Club LLC in corporate filings with the N.C. Secretary of State.
The Crescent is eight years old now, so Hedderich says it’s starting to mature some. He’s coming from the Waynesville Country Club in Virginia, where he spent the past 17 years as general manager and golf pro. That private club had 538 members and 40,000 to 50,000 rounds of golf played a year.
He’s hoping to get 80 to 90 rounds on weekdays and 120 to 140 played on weekends. He said with the warm weather earlier this month, the course had a couple of 100-round days.
He said the Crescent had 86 members when he first arrived, and that’s up to 132 now. He’s hoping to have 150 at the first of the year and continue growing the base from there. Through January, memberships cost $200 with a $100 monthly fee after that.
He said prices likely won’t change for the first year on things like greens fees, but he expects to offer more services, especially in the expanded pro shop with things like club repair and sales. He has purchased new carts and a new computer system.
He’s got a five-year plan to be up to 300 members and complete work on the fairways.
“You can’t just go in and resod everything, or you’d put $1.5 million into it,” he said Thursday.
Hedderich said the course’s greens are in good shape now, but he plans to put more focus on the fairways. He said any work done doesn’t usually pay off until a year later, so he’s hoping a lime program and some other controls will help the grass thrive.
“We’re spending money there,” he said. “We’re drilling a well to have enough water. Money needed to be put into it.”
As the course conditions improve, Hedderich wants to add more opportunities for events through a men’s organization and trying to get juniors involved.
He said the course hasn’t been marketed toward the Concord and Charlotte areas and he wants to draw more players in from that area.
Six full-time employees work at the course, along with other part-timers. Jason Kemp is the other pro. Course superintendent Martin McMillan is in his first year at the course. “He’s done a great job on the greens,” Hedderich said.
Contact Paris Goodnight at 704-797-4255 or pgoodnight@ salisburypost.com.