Countryside Alliance Mourns Golf Course

With the golf course slowly turning to seed – literally – and the greens eroding away, the fifth annual Countryside Alliance picnic, held last weekend during May Neighborhood Month, could have been a wistful affair.

Instead, members of the Alliance, who first banded together in an attempt to save Countryside Golf Course, chose a bit of irreverence by wearing black ribbons on their yellow “Save Countryside Golf Course” tee shirts. They also blacked out the word “Save” on a banner hung out near the 11th fairway.

Ken Saunders, who attracted some attention when he chose to mow the grass on the 11th fairway near his house, was all smiles as he cooked hot dogs on his 70th birthday.  At one point he even delivered a plate of food to a man chipping and putting on what was left of the once manicured green – now mostly brown as the soil takes over.

“It’s so close to the house, I didn’t want it growing [too tall],” said Saunders, concerned that Countryside could end up with low-income section 8 housing on it. “We’re all worried …that’s the way we feel.”

Noting how Roanoke City now has a dog park which just reopened after having sod replaced, Saunders said the city government “thinks more about dogs than they do about people on this side of town [in Northwest]. They could care less about us.” Saunders was a charter member of Countryside in 1967; his son Kenny Jr. runs a golf course in Cancun, Mexico after overseeing several in Vietnam.

Saunders wasn’t happy that Roanoke City, which owns the course and shut it down in March, was only mowing one small strip, leaving the grass elsewhere to grow tall. As for his Countryside home, he calls it “the cleanest, friendliest, safest neighborhood in Roanoke, Virginia. I wouldn’t live anywhere else. We’re just a big family.”

“We’ll continue no matter what,” said Valerie Garner, president of the Countryside Neighborhood Alliance, which boasts about 100 members. Roanoke City has recognized the Alliance as an official neighborhood group. “That’s not all we talk about,” adds Garner. “We have issues just like every neighborhood.”  She wouldn’t have met many of her neighbors, if not for the Alliance.

Some residents are nervous that homes could be built where the golf course once stood; “the goal now,” said Garner, is to preserve “as much green space as possible.” Deer, fox, wild turkey, even skunks have been spotted at Countryside recently, added several of the picnicking Alliance members.

The uncertainty as to what will happen to the Countryside course has made selling homes there more difficult, according to one attendee who is trying to do just that. As for it becoming a golf course again? “We don’t hold out much hope,” said Garner. Roanoke City tried to attract a management company after deciding it didn’t want to run the course it purchased for $4 million, but found no takers.

Roanoke City Council member Anita Price and Roanoke City Neighborhood Services official Bob Clements attended the Countryside get-together, which was a potluck as well. Groups like the Alliance allow residents to “become a [stronger] voice for the community in which they live,” said Clements. “That means more clout at Planning Commission meetings and City Council as well,” noted Clements.

The grand door prize at the Countryside picnic was given to the person who guessed how many golf balls were contained in a plastic box. There were 250 – all collected by neighbors who walk the course. “I’ve got neighbors that leave them on the porch,” said Ken Saunders, just before he took a hot dog and potato salad out to the lone golfer, who was apparently not quite ready to give up on Countryside just yet.