I had the privilege of working at Acacia on the golf professional staff from 2003 to 2007. It has been very disheartening for me personally to witness the decline of the club over the years. The east suburbs of Cleveland are overpopulated with great golf courses with the oldest ones having been built on the best pieces of land in the area. It is inevitable that more courses in this area will close and create more of a balance between the supply and demand between the courses and golfers.
Acacia is a great golf course. It is the type of course that can provide a great challenge for the expert golfer. We hosted the Ohio Open along with Little Mountain G.C. (a very nice modern Hurdzan design up in near Mentor) back in 2006 and the stroke average was exactly the same during the first two days on both golf courses. However, more importantly, Acacia is a very user friendly course where the average to below average golfer can play on daily basis and ENJOY the game. We need more courses like this, not less.
As for the golf course, it has evolved like many in the area. Too many trees have been planted over the years, bunkers have been removed or “saddled in” to accommodate the trees and all of the greens have shrunk in considerably from the edges of the fill pads.
Check out the aerial of the golf course below from 1954.
Many of the bunkers that were on the golf course in the early days are still there but are now grassed-in or have trees growing in them. IMO, removing many of the trees that have been planted and restoring the bunkers along with some new tees (both forward and back tees) could improve Acacia very much.
As for greens, they contain some of the most interesting internal contours of any golf course in the area. It is puzzling to me that someone could observe them as being “devoid of real contours”. A green expansion project could greatly improve them and regain many great hole locations along the edges that have been lost over the years. I don’t think many of the greens have been modified by the club except for holes #11 & #13 where the front edges have been raised to keep balls from rolling off the front of the greens. Also, I believe the green on the second hole was shrunk considerably on the left side when Tillinghast stopped by and made the recommendation in 1936 during his PGA Course Service Tour. Restoring the left side of the second green would be an improvement as well.
During the time I worked there, I would put the condition of the golf course up against any in the area when considering the budget that head golf course superintendent Craig Kachline (a former assistant of Terry Bonar at Canterbury) had to work with. The greens, from a condition standpoint, were easily comparable to the best in town on a regular basis.
Lastly, to comment that they haven’t put money in to the golf course in the past few years because they were planning to sell the property, IMO, is not very accurate. Back in 2003 they had over 300 members and I’m pretty sure they have been under 100 members for the past few years. Could it be that they haven’t put money in to the golf course simply because they don’t have money to do so? Also, they built a brand new clubhouse back in 2005. If they had been planning to sell the property, then why did they build a new clubhouse instead of fixing up the old one for just a few more years?
Sadly, I think the fate of Acacia is not good even though I am hoping for the best. Don’t miss out on an opportunity to play there if the members vote to sell and it remains open for this season, especially if you haven’t seen it yet.