The potential for big changes are on the horizon for the local March Meadows Golf Course.
The course quietly went up for sale last fall, with DTZ Barnicke real estate agent Ross Marshall citing healthy early interest in the property.
The Gazette contacted Marshall a few hours after the Victoria Times Colonist newspaper hit the streets with a story on the golf course’s real estate listing.
In that short time, the real estate agent had already received eight calls for more information on the site.
“It’s not that often that opportunities such as this come up,” he said, of the listing.
The 124 acre nine-hole golf course is listed at just shy of $2 million.
“A lot of people are spending that on houses on the lake,” Marshall said, adding that at this price, the golf course is priced to sell.
The decision to put March Meadows up for sale was made last summer, during a meeting of the course’s board of directors.
“We felt it was time for somebody new and younger to take it over, and take it to another level,” shareholder Carol Peterson said.
Carol and her husband Jim are majority shareholders of Honeymoon Bay Enterprises Ltd., which operates the course.
The sale comes 40 years after the Petersons, alongside Allan and Bud Vance and golf pro Norm Boden, began work on the golf course.
Well-known former locals Wayne Speer and Oscar Palsson helped out by working on the financial end of things.
The land was owned by Charlie March, who had inherited it from his father, Henry March; an English pioneer who came to Honeymoon Bay in 1887, clearing the current golf course site for a farm.
“With the help of volunteers and early members, they made the finances and set up tees, and it was ready in a couple of days,” Carol said of the course’s construction.
Since then, this initially rough golf course has improved drastically, she said.
Although she recognizes that what happens to the golf course in the future will remain in the hands of its future owners, Carol said that the course is somewhat protected by zoning.
“It will always be a golf course,” she said. “It will always be March Meadows, as far as I know.”
Marshall said that there are many potential futures for the golf course, depending on whether the owner is a developer or an owner/operator.
Piecing off the land as a subdivision isn’t very likely, he said, as the land would have to be re-zoned.
“They may not be able to get it out of agricultural land,” he said. “To a certain extent, they’d really be rolling the dice.”
He said it’s much more likely to remain a golf course, and that it has a lot of room for improvements.
Within the 124 acres is enough land to double the nine-hole golf course up to 18.
Another suggestion Marshall has for potential buyers is to have some of the land re-zoned to create residential land alongside the course.
The clubhouse and pro-shop also have improvement potential, he said.
But, whatever happens at March Meadows will depend upon the future owner’s intentions.
On advice for the new owners, Carol said that the new owner is more likely to offer her guidance.
“They could probably improve its exposure,” she said, of marketing the golf course.
Another piece of advice she has is “to retain the beauty of the golf course, because it’s naturally beautiful.”
Carol said that, with the sale of March Meadows on the horizon, Jim and herself will be able to devote more time to actually playing the game of golf. The couple does not intend to move away from their Honeymoon Bay home.
March Meadows Golf Course, located just west of Honeymoon Bay, is well-known as the place where LPGA golfer Dawn Coe-Jones learned how to play the game.
