After enduring years in the rough, the Summerlea Golf & Country Club in Vaudreuil-Dorion is back on the financial fairway after its sale to a group of local businesmen for $11.4 million.
Summerlea president Rick Bougie said the sale will sustain the venerable club that had fallen on hard times in recent years due to industry-wide problems facing private courses across North America and an endless stream of 19th hole rumours that predicted the club’s demise.
Bougie said rumours that Summerlea was going to close were fed in part by a declining membership base at the 36-hole club, located on a picturesque property in Vaudreuil-Dorion that offers sweeping vistas of Lake St-Louis.
“The rumour mill is incredible,” Bougie said. “Anywhere I go with my Summerlea hat on and people would ask, ‘Aren’t you closed?’
“I hear that all the time and that prevents people from reaching out to us. And because we don’t have the same knot of members, the whole family feeling, the sentiment d’appartenance is not there.”
Like many private courses struggling to stay afloat these days, Summerlea has seen its membership decline from 1,200 to about 450 over the last decade or so.
“The last 10 years have been a slugfest,” Bougie acknowledged.
“Over that time, we’ve lost a lot of members. And some of because of just age, but a lot of others because of concerns about financial stability and fear of assessments. So now that we’ve settled the financial viability, we already have 35 new members.”
Bougie said it was a no-brainer for the club members to overwhelmingly approve the sale of the club to a business group, headed by Jean-Marie Bourassa, who plan to eventually turn at least nine holes into a residential development.
But all 36-holes holes will remain open for at least the next five years, noted Bourassa.
“It’ll be just nine holes and not more than that,” said Bourassa. “For the next 10 years, maybe we can work with nine holes (on the front nine of the par-72 Dorion course) to build some houses, but that will not be done before five years. But for next 10 years we cannot do anymore than that.”
Bourassa said the new ownership group, which includes his brother Marcel, Raymond Allard and Sylvain Ménard, is hoping to make Summerlea the “top golf destination in the area.” On Friday, he announced plans to spend $1.5 million to refurbish the clubhouse, terrace, dining areas and other improvements over the next year.
“The biggest change golfers will notice next year is the atmosphere and ambience,” Bourassa said. “We have to work on that. Our target is to get 70 to 100 new members for next year and that will change the atmosphere in the clubhouse.”
