HANOVER — If Dartmouth College’s heart is in operating Hanover Country Club over the long term, closing it for the year isn’t the way to prove it.
Several people with ties to the 120-year-old golf course echoed such sentiments last week after the college announced the country club would stay shuttered for the year in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Dartmouth Provost Joseph Helble announced the decision on Monday at the same time the college extended the shutdown of its campus, which has been silent since just prior to the current spring term, with summer term classes to be conducted online.
Dartmouth raised the potential of closing Hanover CC three years ago as a budgetary move, eventually setting up a study committee that in 2018 recommended keeping the course open with changes to how it operates in hopes of reducing annual operating deficits.
With that as a backdrop, some observers last week raised the issue of never seeing the course open again.
“What’s clear is that if they’re concerned about the financial viability of the course, this is just going to make everything worse,” said Charles Wheelan, the Rockefeller Center senior lecturer, former Dartmouth golfer and current Hanover member who chaired the study committee two years ago. “There’s no other way this can work differently. People who are members will join Quechee or (Lake) Sunapee or Crown Point or any of the other places that are going to respond with alacrity. We’ve already been losing members over the long run. It’ll be harder, if it opens in 2021, to get them back.”
All Granite State golf courses have been shut down since Gov. Chris Sununu listed them as nonessential businesses as part of the state’s first stay-at-home orders last month. Course maintenance is permitted, which Hanover was doing on Tuesday and will continue to do, but it stands to become an outlier if Sununu permits golf to resume.
“I don’t know if you want to call it a concern, but that’s what I think will happen,” ninth-year Hanover CC assistant professional Dustin Ribolini said of the course staying dark for good. “They’ve wanted to get rid of us for a couple of years. They can hide behind the decision. It’s consistent with what Dartmouth has been doing and they may try to open next year, but I don’t foresee a situation where enough members would come back to make it worthwhile. If I was a member, I wouldn’t come back.”
Golfers who had paid for 2020 memberships will be refunded their money.
Dartmouth spokeswoman Diana Lawrence said the decision to keep Hanover CC closed “was made on the basis of public health concerns related to the COVID-19 pandemic.” No part of the course will be open for play or practice; should students return in the fall, teams would use the practice areas while the course stays closed. Pedestrians may still use golf course trails to access Pine Park, but the course itself and other paths along the greens are not open.
“Dartmouth senior leadership, in concert with the College’s COVID-19 task force with input from public health experts, is making all decisions related to institutional operations during the pandemic,” Lawrence wrote. “We will assess the future as more information becomes available.”
A number of golf-playing constituencies stand to lose.
For one, Hanover High School will have to find a new place to play home matches. The Marauders have won more NHIAA team state golf championships (20) than any other school, with eight boys individual champs and two among the girls, the most recent last fall. Longtime coach John Donnelly has cited Hanover CC’s welcoming treatment of young golfers as important to his program’s success.
“I feel bad for the kids,” said Pat Pelletier, a former Hanover member and New Hampshire Golf Association player of the year who helped Donnelly with the Marauder junior varsity a couple of years ago. “I’m 32; I have other places to play, I have a car and can do anything with golf that I want. But a lot of kids, especially those under John for so many years … one thing I feel bad about is that the kids don’t have a place to play.”
The closing leaves Hanover head pro Alex Kirk at sixes and sevens as well. In addition to his duties operating the club, he also coaches the Dartmouth women’s golf team. Not having Hanover CC means the Big Green will have to relocate its Dartmouth Invitational in September, assuming students are back on campus then.
“The only logic that makes sense to me is that they put us in the same bucket with every other facility on campus, and there’s no students here,” Kirk said. “But this is more for the community. The community was more supporters of the college.”
The New Hampshire Golf Association is also affected. The NHGA had three state championship tournaments scheduled for Hanover this season, fronted by August’s Stroke Play Championship. Pelletier is the two-time defending winner of the tourney, which is considered second only to the New Hampshire Amateur in terms of stature.
“I think, more than looking at it selfishly from an NHGA angle, I think we’re disappointed for the golf community up there,” NHGA executive director Matt Schmidt said. “Hanover has been a great asset for us as an organization in its willingness to host for us. We have a great relationship with the staff there; the members support our organization. First and foremost, I feel for the golf community in the Hanover area.”
Ribolini said he’ll be looking for work once his Hanover duties wind down.
“Even if it reopens, I’m not coming back,” he said. “I don’t feel comfortable coming back here myself.”
Wheelan cited two outstanding and relevant issues — the potential for a biomass heating plant and ongoing debate of a revised college master plan — that will go a long way toward determining Hanover Country Club’s future.
Top college officials have also not ruled out one day developing the 18-hole course by expanding the campus north on Route 10.
“I don’t have any particular insight on that,” Wheelan added. “There’s no reason why it wouldn’t open in mid-May or June or July if other courses are doing it. I’m untethered from the decision-making process.”
Greg Fennell can be reached at gfennell@vnews.com or 603-727-3226.