The closing of Green Gables Country Club has been a foregone conclusion for several months now, but that doesn’t make the end easy to accept.
“I never dreamed that course would close up,” said Ron Vlosich, a former longtime director of golf at the private club in west Denver. “You think of all the great times out there, and you get real sad.”
Green Gables is scheduled to close for good after this weekend, ending a run that dates back to the Roaring ’20s. The financially troubled club was sold in June to a group of investors who plan to redevelop the property at 6800 W. Jewell Ave.
According to the Colorado Golf Guide, only about 20 existing golf courses in Colorado have been around longer than Green Gables, which was established in 1928, with a nine-hole course debuting the following year.
“This is pretty sad for a golf course that old,” Green Gables director of instruction Perry Holmes said recently.
“It was a great club,” added Vlosich, who led the golf operations at the club from 1989 through 2006. “It’s been there since 1929. It’s been a mainstay in the Jewish community and the golf community.”
And few courses in Colorado have hosted more big-time professional golf tournaments than Green Gables.
Six times, the LPGA Tour played events at Green Gables (1972, ’73, ’76, ’78, ’79 and ’84), and the Senior PGA Tour paid a visit in 1983. Among the winners of those tournaments were three World Golf Hall of Famers: Kathy Whitworth, Betsy King and Sandra Haynie.
And another World Golf Hall of Famer, Paul Runyan, who won two PGA Championships and was a world-renowned golf instructor, served as the director of golf at Green Gables from 1972 until the early 1980s. Runyan was inducted into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame this year.
Recalling some of the good times, Vlosich can remember when the golf shop received a call out of the blue in the 1990s, and a guy named Phil Mickelson said he’d be coming to the club in a few days. When he showed up, he gave a little clinic and played golf with one of the members.
“The club had a great group of members — a lot of different characters and different personalities,” said Vlosich, who was given an honorary membership after departing as director of golf. “There were a lot of great times and good memories. It was always interesting and fun.”
The course at Green Gables was expanded from nine to 18 holes in 1948, according to worldgolf.com. But the course underwent a total redesign — by Arthur Hills — that started in the fall of 2003 and lasted to the spring of 2005. The total make-over cost a reported $6 million, which led to financial stress for the club.
“It was a matter of a couple of things coming together at the same time,” Vlosich said. “When they did the renovation they took on some debt, then the economy tanked in ’07 and ’08. They couldn’t at least break even anymore.”
Vlosich played one of his last — if not the last — round at the course on Monday of this week. He’s prepared himself for the end, but that still doesn’t make it easy to say goodbye.
“Anytime you lose such a good course, it’s kind of tragic,” he said.
