A local golf course is seeing its final rounds during its 70-plus years of existence this week as Legacy Pines in Mauldin will close following play Sunday.
The course has been sold to a development company that will build more than 400 homes on the property.
Co-owner and operator Tommy Biershenk, Jr. says it was a tough decision but the offer to sell the land was too great to pass up. He adds that prior to receiving the ultimate offer, there was a plan to potentially build homes around the golf course but that never reached fruition.
The course opened in 1952 as Rams Gate.
In the late ’70s, local Shriners purchased the course out of bankruptcy and it was known as the Hejaz Shrine Club until Biershenk’s group took over in 2015.
Biershenk, whose playing career at Clemson was followed by his eventually competing on the PGA Tour at various points between 1998 and 2012, will turn his full focus to another area course with which he’s involved, The Rock, located on SR 11 in Pickens County. Plans are also in the works to open a driving range in the Greenville area.
Legacy Pines’ closing is the third course in that area of Greenville County to cease operations within the past decade. The course at Donaldson Center as well as Bonnie Brae Golf Course closed in 2016 and 2018, respectively.
Legacy Pines will allow veterans to play for free Sunday as a nod to Saturday’s Veterans Day.
