PULASKI — The man who bought the 90-year-old Pulaski Country Club at a foreclosure auction in May had only ever played one round of golf in his life.
But David Sale and his family are telling longtime members not to worry: they plan to keep the golf course almost exactly as it is.
The “lunch bunch” will keep playing the course every afternoon; the group that calls itself “cops and robbers” will still come each Wednesday; a group of women will keep their weekday bridge games going.
“This is their jam, this is their spot,” David Sale’s daughter and co-owner Amanda Sale said. “To take that away from them would have been horrible.”
The news clears a shadow of uncertainty that has hung over the course since April, when word spread that the club, burdened with $1 million in debt from the 2001 construction of a new clubhouse, was going into foreclosure.
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At the time, the Pulaski Country Club was owned by a group of mostly local, golf-loving investors. They had spent a decade reaching into their own pockets to keep the local institution limping along, but the group couldn’t keep that up forever, Club Treasurer Bob Adkins said before the sale.
In the end, David Sale’s bid of $900,000 was enough to take the course, complete with 146-acres of land along U.S. 11, tennis courts, a 7,786-square-foot clubhouse, lawn mowers, swimming pool and cooking equipment.
Sale wasn’t a member of the local golf community. The Radford native was better known for the Radford Auto Auction and farming businesses he owns, including about 2,000 acres around the area where he raises beef cattle and grows hay.
“I mean this in the most positive way: My dad is a land hoarder,” Amanda Sale said. “He gets that they’re not making any more of it, so get it while you can.”
Amanda Sale said the rumor around the clubhouse after the auction was that the family planned to ditch the golf course, developing the land instead for farming or some other use.
But she said the thought never crossed the family’s mind.
“We didn’t know them [the golfers] before, and they didn’t know us,” Amanda Sale said. “They’ve all kind of conveyed to us that they were really nervous. This is their hangout spot; this is where their buddies are.”
Amanda Sale and her younger brother, Matthew Sale, now run the day-to-day operations of the family business, with the family’s only daughter handling most of the event planning.
They changed the name of the golf course from the Pulaski Country Club to Thorn Spring Golf Course and Event Center, a name the course has gone by off and on since it was founded in the 1920s.
The Sale family, who for years drove past the club but never visited, also dropped the requirement that players buy annual memberships. A monthly fee will still get you unlimited golf, but more causal players can now also buy a round and rent a golf cart for $34 on weekdays or $39 on weekends.
“Our whole motto is that we want to create a place where all families, everyone can enjoy and not feel like you have to be an elite still come up here and hang out,” Amanda Sale said.
Sale knows the golf industry is struggling right now. The Pulaski Country Club foreclosure came on the heels of similar sales at Auburn Hills Golf Course in Riner and struggles at all three of the Roanoke Valley’s full-service private country clubs.
Two months after the Pulaski auction, news broke that The Meadows Golf and Swim Club in Montgomery County was facing a foreclosure auction of its own.
Shah Development also bid on the Pulaski course, but lost out to David Sale.
Thorn Spring has not been spared the struggles. Adkins, one of the previous owners, lamented a bygone era of the 1970s, when the course counted 350 members who were often lawyers, manufacturing executives and car dealership owners.
At the time of the foreclosure, Adkins said membership had dipped to 125 golfers.
Amanda Sale said she’s optimistic about the business. She hopes Thorn Spring’s family atmosphere, impressive grounds and top-tier customer service will be what sets it apart. She said it’s going to stay the kind of place where the owners know and care for the customers, just like the customers know the owners.
After three months in business, she said things are going well. They’ve hosted a few weddings, parties and golf tournaments.
Along the way, she added, it’s been the longtime members who have helped the Sale family learn the ropes.
“It’s been great,” Amanda Sale said. “It’s been a challenge trying to learn the industry, and learning the lingo and everything about the game. But it’s also been really rewarding at the same time because I’ve met some incredible people.”