Ties that bind

Selling a golf course can mean unloading all useful pieces of steel and plastic. Mowers. Carts. Spare parts. Handheld tools. Set prices, find buyers and maximize every dollar before fleeing. And why not leave useless crap behind for the next person to handle? Removing busted equipment and decrepit parts costs money. The accountants often urge the departing to pass costs and hassles onto the arriving.

Seth Rainier is a golf-lifer in the front nine of his career. His great grandfather, Bud Rainier, designed and built a central Ohio golf course. Homestead Springs Golf Course remains in the family. Seth learned the game and business from his father, Bruce Rainier, at Homestead Springs. He enrolled at nearby Ohio State University and deliberated between a career as a superintendent or golf professional. Turf enthralled Seth, and he spent a decade working for one of Ohio’s best: Scioto Country Club director of grounds Bob Becker.

Seth possessed the competence, confidence and experience to become a superintendent anywhere. But golfers can’t break par without clubs, anglers don’t catch trophy walleye without a rod and superintendents won’t produce tidy surfaces without operable equipment.

The business of golf acquisitions left Seth with a two-unit fleet consisting of a functioning sidewinder and a feeble fairway mower capable of reaching 3 miles per hour when he reported to Lancaster Golf Club on Jan. 9, 2022. Neither training nor instincts fully prime anybody for this type of superintendent job.

Family and terrain subsided the initial stress of Seth’s first day as a head superintendent. “My dad ensured me I was making the right decision,” he says. “And once I walked the course that day, I knew I was going to make something great out of this place.”

Lancaster Golf Club is a lovely spot for a winter … and spring … and summer … and fall walk. Located 34 miles southeast of Columbus, the course melds holes unveiled in different eras — the current back nine, designed by Donald Ross, opened in 1926; the holes comprising the current front nine, designed by Ohioan Jack Kidwell, debuted in 1961 — to provide a heterogeneous golf experience.

A white picket fence lines the entrance on the property’s north and west sides, site of the Ross holes. The fence represents a subtle separator between the real estate development occurring in Fairfield County and the solitude sought in a place director of golf and Lancaster native Allie White describes as “where Appalachian Ohio meets Columbus sprawl.” A farm and dense tree clusters border the Kidwell holes on the south and east stretches of the property. Ross and Kidwell force golfers to play left, right, blind and at-you shots.

Two par-3s personify the land’s diversity. The third is 223 yards from the back tees but plays downhill. It begins between a chute of trees. The 14th is 130 yards from the back tees but plays uphill. It borders the white picket fence.

The setting provides a fabulous spot to decompress, as Rainier discovered on that early January 2022 day. Since then, Rainier has learned something deeper about golf, turf and equipment.

The viability of a beloved asset hinges on people motivated by passion. Rainier had a job at a course with just two running pieces of equipment because 27 people understood how a quality golf course boosts a community.

The cycles of a small city — Lancaster, population: 41,422, fits into this category despite the Columbus sprawl — resemble a golf course. Prosperity follows reinvention and adaptation overcomes struggle.

On an early 2025 morning, David Smith discusses two of his favorite topics while driving from central Ohio to Florida to reunite with a group of high school classmates: Lancaster and its eponymous golf club. Smith is a Lancaster native who served three terms as the city’s mayor. His local history lesson begins with a common Midwest theme. First came the farms. Then came the factories.

The agricultural to manufacturing shift intensified in 1905 when glassmaker Anchor Hocking opened a facility in Lancaster. Four years later, a group of business leaders formed Lancaster Country Club. More manufacturing entered Lancaster as a central Ohio location, hands-on people and a sizable aquifer filled with what Smith calls “high-quality water” turned Lancaster into an attractive place to make things.

The club existed as Lancaster Country Club for more than 110 years, before formally changing its name and operating model. For purposes of this story, we’ll refer to it as Lancaster Golf Club.

Lancaster, according to Smith, endured the Great Depression better than most cities because Anchor Hocking never significantly slowed production. The community and club prospered following World Word II, attracting enough manufacturing executives, doctors, lawyers and local business leaders to generate demand for a second nine.

“I guess our country club was typical of other places,” says Smith, a third-generation club member. “You had to be a successful businessperson of some sort to afford to be there.”

The club’s roster swelled to more than 400 members, most of whom had full-golf privileges, but numbers started dipping in the 1980s and 1990s, when Smith says it became tougher to claim a private club membership as a business expense. The slow membership decline continued into the 2000s.

The Great Recession hindered Lancaster more than the Great Depression. Around the same time, the club borrowed money for an irrigation system. Members sought new owners to keep the club solvent. Three members who enjoyed and appreciated golf purchased the course. “It was a continuation of good times,” Smith says.

The dynamic changed following the death of two owners. Shortly before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, ownership invested fewer resources into golf and actively explored selling land parcels for housing to satisfy the growing demand around Columbus.

Five community leaders — Leonard Gorsuch, Norman “Pip” Ogilvie, Kent Swinehart, Chris Smith and David Smith — mobilized to save the course. The quintet of managing members sought a select group of like-minded investors to save the course. “As it turns out,” David Smith says, “27 brave souls won the battle to get the golf course.”

The conglomerate officially purchased the club for $1.7 million in late November 2021. The group formed Lancaster Golf Club, LLC. Their business plan included transitioning the course to a public facility.

The previous owners shuttered and stopped maintaining the course in September 2021. The property and local golf morale suffered amid the uncertainty and rumors of desirable golf land becoming housing.

“It was just kind of sad,” says White, a Lancaster native who was playing professionally on the Epson Tour. “We all heard it was sold (for housing) and it was a done deal. I remember playing it with my buddy. I got a bogey on 18, and it was like, ‘Well, that sucks. This is the last time I’m ever going to play that golf course. That’s going to be my memory of it after all these years.’

“Everything then happened so fast. It went from developers signing papers one week, the next week that fell apart, and then a couple of weeks later it was, ‘Boom,’ they had 27 people to keep it going.”

The new owners aimed to reopen the course in April 2022. Resuming regular play required calculated work, unyielding support, golf industry cooperation — and operating equipment.

As Lancaster’s former private club experienced its post-World War II heyday, families started converting farmland into public golf courses catering to central Ohio’s growing middle class. A pair of nearby family-owned courses supplied the turf lineage to position Lancaster Golf Club for its 2022 reopening.

Ron Kilbarger opened Pleasant Valley Golf Course in 1970 on Lancaster’s north side less than 10 miles from Lancaster Golf Club. Pleasant Valley remained in the Kilbarger family for 51 years until it was sold in late 2021 for the purpose of being developed into high-end housing. Coincidentally, the developer who purchased Pleasant Valley was also interested in the Lancaster Golf Club land. The sale altered the career trajectory of Kyle Kilbarger, who had followed his father, Mike Kilbarger, into the hands-on, small-town golf business.

Two years after Ron unveiled Pleasant Valley, Bud Rainier opened Homestead Springs in Groveport, a small Franklin County community 13 miles southeast of downtown Columbus and 23 miles northwest of downtown Lancaster. Homestead Springs remains an affordable golf course, and Seth hasn’t drifted too far from the property. He built a home across the street from the family business last year.

In addition to equipment, Seth needed qualified people to help him handle the rigors of rejuvenating a shuttered course. Kyle needed a steady job after his family sold Pleasant Valley.

Slim degrees of separation exist in Fairfield County, where Lancaster doubles as the largest city and county seat. Gorsuch was friends with the Kilbargers and connected Kyle with Seth. Kyle also held a relationship with David Smith stemming from a youth side hustle at the Fairfield County Fair. “Kyle would have a couple of steer and his sister would have a couple steer,” Smith says. “I would buy their steer because they are good people.”

Kyle’s talents extended beyond raising livestock. He’s a professional welder, understood every aspect of the family golf business and played high school golf. He also brought local knowledge as a lifelong Fairfield County resident whose Fisher Catholic high school team used Lancaster Golf Club as its home course.

He lacked a relationship with Seth, but the pair quickly meshed upon meeting in mid-January 2022. They drove around the property and started discussing a plan for making greens that Kyle describes as being “pretty hairy and pretty soft” playable by April. Seth was looking for an assistant superintendent and equipment manager. Kyle was capable of filling both roles. “He’s meant the world to me,” Seth says.

The number of multigenerational turf managers on the Lancaster Golf Club staff in early 2022 matched the number of operating pieces of equipment. Fortunately, the tiny crew — a former Lancaster Golf Club turf employee rejoined the staff following the sale — had connections.

Even before Seth accepted the job, Lancaster Golf Club received fall 2021 assistance from Homestead Springs, as Bruce offered his equipment and time to mow short-cut areas. His efforts supplemented mowing executed by a local lawn-care company. Seth believes regular mowing didn’t resume until November, meaning a blanket of leaves covered scratchy turf throughout October.

“Imagine no cleanup on trees,” he says. “We lost a lot of turf because of that when I got here. We had areas with leaves on top of them and it killed the grass underneath.”

Seth accepted the job in late November, a few weeks after losing out on a desirable superintendent position at a respected Columbus-area private club. He was initially apprehensive about pursuing the Lancaster Golf Club opportunity, but the passion and commitment exuded by the new owners alleviated trepidation surrounding the job.

“I started meeting all the people here and learned how much they love this club,” he says. “That sold it for me. It’s a group of people who love golf and love their community.”

Seth officially started on Jan. 9, 2022. Unofficially, he was already preparing the course for its reopening. On a December weekend, he collaborated with Bruce on a slow-release granular greens fertilization application. Seth also used the final month of 2021 to submit his first budget, a process he concedes was a “little nerve-wracking,” despite the financial acumen he acquired at Scioto.

He kept the 2022 agronomic program simple, ordering plant protectants from one distributor for a greens-focused approach. Lancaster Golf Club’s greens are a Poa annua/bentgrass; fairways are a Kentucky bluegrass/ryegrass blend. The fairways resemble those at Homestead Springs, and Seth figured he could begin managing the surfaces with fewer inputs while allocating resources elsewhere in 2022.

Without his own equipment, Seth relied on Bruce’s sprayer to make a mid-winter snow mold application on fairways. Lancaster Golf Club didn’t receive its sprayer — a local distributor made a GPS-guided unit available following a snafu and Seth convinced ownership to invest in the technology — until late spring.

Seth estimates that during the first half of 2022, he made around two dozen trips from Homestead Springs to Lancaster Golf Club transporting a sprayer. The hassle of loading, transporting and unloading heavy equipment limited the number of topdressing applications Seth executed. He continued using his father’s topdresser until Lancaster Golf Club purchased one last year.

Seth, Kyle and their small crew hit the targeted April reopening. Members and the public putted on greens mowed at .225 inches, a height Seth says mirrors the current approach and collar heights of cut. By the 2022 member-guest tournament, which was contested in July, mowing heights dropped to .140 and Stimpmeter readings reached 10.

The crew next directed its attention to bunkers. They edged faces, removed plant material covering bottoms and filled every bunker with new sand under the premise that drainage, placement and design could be addressed down the road.

“I know as well as you know the most complaints on any golf course are about bunkers,” Seth says. “I didn’t want to give them any excuses that they made the wrong decision. I just wanted to get them playable.”

The 16th hole is a short, Ross-designed par 5. The back tees extend to the white picket fence on Country Club Drive. The hole plays slightly downhill and bends gently right. Tee shots must navigate a bunker on each side of the fairway and bunkers also hug where lay-up shots land. More bunkers guard both sides of the green. Another bunker lurks behind the putting surface.

Seth waits to the right of the green on a sweltering afternoon last August, as a husband and wife play a trendy Shaboozey song while driving down the fairway. He’s standing among a quintet of hummocks, Ross-inspired features his team constructed using topsoil from one of Lancaster Golf Club’s practice ranges. Inspiration for reintroducing Golden Age intricacies stems from Seth’s time at Scioto, where he played a key part in architect Andrew Green’s restoration of a heralded Ross design. “We can’t make everything like he drew it,” Seth says of Ross, “but you can bring his character back.”

Three years after operating without equipment, Seth and Kyle have a full fleet, a reliable crew that swells to double digits in the summer, supportive owners and new job titles. Seth is now director of greens and grounds; Kyle is his superintendent. “It’s pretty remarkable that local golf course guys met in the middle at this former country club in Lancaster,” Kyle says.

Lancaster Golf Club presents a 150-acre palette to demonstrate their immense ingenuity. And the par 5 between fewer trees — yes, a methodical arbor reduction is part of their work — demonstrates the potential waiting to be revealed. The hole can be played in multiple ways, and greenside shot options abound, because Seth and Kyle introduced a wider approach flowing into a squared green front. The hummocks must be fly-mowed biweekly, but they yield pleasing aesthetics and interesting pitch shots. The back nine is beginning to feel like it did in 1926 when a local construction crew brought Ross’s vision to Lancaster.

“About three days after I took the job, my grandma said, ‘Oh by the way, your great-great-grandfather helped rebuild and redesign that course with Ross in 1926,’” Kyle says.

Grit displayed by Henry Kilbarger and Lancaster denizens created nine Ross-designed holes for loyal members such as Frank E. Smith, who joined the club shortly after moving to Lancaster in 1916. Love for the course persuaded two of his grandsons, David and Chris, to leverage decades of Lancaster connections and memories into saving the club. The Smiths and 25 other community-minded individuals prove how generational ties matter in golf.

“I check the tee sheet for our daily play,” Seth says. “When I see such and such is playing, I make it a point to make my face seen. What they did for this community by saving this place is just amazing. Twenty-seven people. I can’t imagine how they did that.”

Guy Cipriano is Golf Course Industry’s publisher + editor-in-chief.