Finances again shutter Birmingham club
BIRMINGHAM – Not even the current golf boom could save a Birmingham-area golf course. Multiple reports in recent days indicated that Heatherwood Golf and Country Club closed its doors Jan. 31.
Its website lists the course as permanently closed, apparently ending an on-again, off-again financial struggle for the 18-hole golf course and club
Heatherwood lies just south of I-359 near Mill Spring Estates, about 20 miles south of Downtown Birmingham.
Owner Kishan Amin told the Shelby County Reporter that the club did not generate enough revenue. He said he has no plans to sell the property.
Heatherwood Country Club first opened in 1986. It was designed by Arthur Davis. John LaFoy redesigned it in 2001.
Heatherwood faced bankruptcy in 2010
This isn’t the first time the course has closed due to financial issues. The course went into bankruptcy in 2010 and was closed for seven years before about 100 local homeowners and other stakeholders purchased it. Heatherwood reopened in 2016 and it reverted from a private club to a semi-private facility.
According to the Shelby County Reporter, Amin bought the club for $220,000 in 2020 and rebranded it as Heatherwood Golf and Country Club.
According to the club’s website, a single membership cost $1,800. There were other tiers of memberships, including family memberships and pool memberships. The club also operated a restaurant and served as an event site.
Heatherwood played as a par-72. From the tips it measured 6,351 yards. Heatherwood was known for its tight fairways and scenic views.
Efforts by loyal club supporters fall short
According to a 1018 article in Golf Industry magazine:
“A group of homeowner members banded together to block the sale of the property for non-golf uses. A bankruptcy judge ruled in 2011 the property couldn’t be sold for any reason other than to be kept as a golf course. The group’s objective included returning the property to a golf course. However, obtaining the proper deed and securing the necessary funding represented a ‘long process,’ says board member Mary Anna Raburn.
“Relying on personal and business connections, the group worked with subcontractors to prepare multiple parts of Heatherwood, including a clubhouse damaged by vandalism, for a reopening. The group hired Cypress Golf Management to operate the facility.
“But those moves, Raburn says, only “represent part of the story.” The group, which she describes as around 100 “core people,” contributed funds to purchase the course out of bankruptcy and to reopen the club and course. For seven years, the tight-knit group maintained the empty course, preventing former – and hopefully, they imagined, future – playing surfaces from becoming nuisance land. “We had people pitching in, getting work done where it needed to be done,” Raburn says.”
Gregg Dewalt is the editor of Alabama Golf News
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Featured image courtesy of the Hero Golf Tour
