It’s finally here.
When discussing Westwood Golf Course over the years, Newton News found the people who played it said the same things: They said the course is beautiful and well-maintained, and they said the back nine can be a good challenge. But all the nice things that could be said about the course ended at the clubhouse.
The old clubhouse looked like any other residential home in town, but over the years it had undertaken numerous expansions and facelifts. It became a Frankenstein’s monster of a building, but it served the public well enough. Time caught up to it and soon the clubhouse was beyond maintenance.
Replacing the clubhouse has been a top priority of the city’s park board for a number of years. Designs for a new clubhouse had fallen through in the past for being too expensive. Years of planning and scaling down — and a successful park bond vote two years ago — resulted in the new clubhouse we see today.
Nick Cummins, parks operations superintendent, said the old building was never meant to be a clubhouse. By the time it was demolished, it was over 100 years old and could only ever fit about 40 people in it. It wasn’t user-friendly for groups, and it had old wiring and plumbing and wasn’t very ADA accessible.
“It was never meant for commercial use,” Cummins said, adding that he hopes the new clubhouse complements the high quality of the course. “It’s going to be more conducive for events and large amounts of people. When you want to have meals and awards, being able to have everybody together is going to be great.”
Brad Sponseller, the golf pro and operations manager of Westwood Golf Course, had been waiting for this moment for the past 17 years or so he has worked for the city. The final building plan was worth the wait, he said. The size of the building allows the course to host more people for tournaments.
Coupled with a full bar, an updated food menu, a shop and the golf simulators, the clubhouse has never looked better. The community was able to see the finished product this past Monday during a ribbon cutting ceremony with the Greater Newton Area Chamber of Commerce.
“It’s great for people playing golf and making the turn — or even great for the guy that doesn’t golf — to come out here and enjoy some kind of food or whatever they want and enjoy the nice view,” Sponseller said. “The simulators are also going to let us be open year-round, and it’s going to add a huge revenue stream.”
When golf season is over, the clubhouse will also be available for rentals. But when the golfers are out swinging is when the new facility will make most of its money. These past few years have shown the golf course is bringing in plenty of players. Rounds played have increased year to year since the pandemic.
Several golf courses saw increased usage during that time, but some have seen play tamper off as the years went on and health restrictions lifted. Westwood Golf Course has yet to see those numbers plateau, and that was with the old clubhouse. Sponseller is excited to see the data this year with the new facility.
“I tell the bosses we’re going to plateau eventually, and as long as we can keep that number that’s great,” he said. “But every year I get done and I go, ‘Wow! How did we do this?’ This spring was really tough … Last year we had a great year for rounds. But we’re close to those numbers now even with a bad spring.”
The addition of a new clubhouse will most surely attract some outside attention and may even convince golfers to make the trip to Newton more often. Sponseller hopes so at least. So far all he has heard is positive feedback. Slaps on the back from smiling golfers telling him good job. He says it’s not about him.
“Everybody has been coming up and saying congratulations to me on this, but it’s a congratulations to the public, to the people that come out here, to the city, to Jasper County,” Sponseller said. “The city voters wanted this along with the dog park, pickleball courts and all those things that make our community better.”
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