ETSU’s men’s and women’s golf teams received a $750,000 anonymous donation to build a golf practice facility on campus.
The new facility, to be finished next spring, will be located near ETSU’s observatory on College Heights Road.
“We’re in the process of building a golf practice facility for both our men’s and women’s programs,” ETSU Athletics Director Todd Stansbury said.
The golf teams will be able to work on nearly every aspect of their game except their long game.
“It’s basically going to be, for the most part, a short-game practice facility that will allow our men’s and women’s golfers a place where they can practice,” Stansbury said. “They’ll have a series of target greens at different distances, as well as a putting green and an area where they can work on their wedges and short irons.”
The addition of the Center for Physical Activity took away the only viable practice area on campus for golfing, so the teams have been using local courses like the Johnson City Country Club and the Ridges Country Club.
“They used to just use the intramural fields where the new physical activities building is,” Stansbury said. “Once those fields disappeared, so did their ability to practice that sort of thing on campus, so for the last couple of years they haven’t had a place to do that.”
The new area will be more convenient and practical since a private course is needed to practice every aspect of the game.
“Obviously from a convenience standpoint they’ll be two minutes away from campus,” Stansbury said. “The other thing is that they’ll be able to work on parts of their game that, right now, they can’t because no course is going to allow you to really practice your short game because of the amount of divots and how much wear and tear that actually has on a course.”
The anonymous donation came in September as a way to raise money for the project was being discussed.
“We were in the process of putting together a capital campaign to try and raise the money, and to have it come from one donor so quickly was definitely a pleasant surprise for the program,” Stansbury said.
Stansbury said that right now crews are working on grading the land, and then grass will be placed, hopefully early enough to take root so that the facility can be in use by late next spring.
The new golf practice facility will be exclusively for the two golfing programs.

Author