ROWLEY — The Carriage Pines Golf Club, formerly the Rowley Country Club, and the on-site restaurant The Back Nine Tavern and Affairs Catering, located on Dodge Road, will remain open until at least March 2011.
Windover Development LLC. of Manchester, the company that now owns the property, recently signed a two-year lease agreement with B&D Golf Enterprises Inc. of North Reading to operate the golf club. A separate lease for the same time period was signed with Mitch Mitchell for the Affairs Catering and Back Nine Tavern businesses.
Justin Belliveau, director of development for Windover, indicated that the troubled market and economy has further stalled the start of their 54-unit development on the 89-acre golf club property on Dodge Road. The course was originally slated to close for good on Oct. 31, 2006, but poor market conditions led to the decision to delay the project. Windover bought the property from its former owners — the O'Neill family — for $3.7 million in February 2006.
"The golf club and restaurant are nice amenities for the community, and we are happy to keep them open for a couple more years or more, depending on the economy," Belliveau said. He noted that visitors to the course will see improvements that B&D Golf Enterprises are making, such as adding sod and changing the bunkers, and keeping the course in fantastic shape.
"We are working to upgrade the course with the hopes that it stays open permanently," said Burton Page of B&D Golf Enterprises.
Windover has a vested interest in the golf course, even changing its name last year for marketing purposes.
"We decided to create a new brand to highlight the fact that the golf club was under new ownership and still fully operational," Belliveau said. "We are committed to marketing this property and brand until such time that the market improves enough to move forward with our building plans for the site."
Page said the golf course employs 13 people, and while membership has been a soft this year, he attributes it to the economy and not the change in ownership. This year, the club will have many programs for junior golfers and clinics for local groups.
Meanwhile, business at the Back Nine Tavern and Affairs Catering, where 10 full-time people are employed, is going strong, said Mitchell, who manages both businesses.
The golf club, which opened in 1965, is a nine-hole course featuring 3,325 yards of golf from the longest tees for a par of 36. The course rating is 35.4 and it has a slope rating of 127 on blue grass. Scott McDonald is the general manager of the club.
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