Lakeview And Red Oak Golf Courses Will Close This Fall

Both Lakeview Golf Course and Red Oak Golf Course will close this year after more than 50 years of birdies, chip ins and fairway memories. The Wenkstern family, which owns the courses, made the announcement last week.

“It’s horrible news,” an older woman says to Grant Wenkstern, Jr. from behind the wheel of a golf cart.

He replies with a practiced explanation that his mother works 60 hours a week doing books for the two courses and gets paid nothing. His father, he tells her, is constantly on a lawn mower and worn out from constantly fretting over deepening debt.

“My parents are 65 and 63,” Wenkstern, Jr. tells the woman in the golf cart. “They just can’t live like that anymore. We’re struggling just to make pay roll every two weeks.”

Wenkstern’s grandfather, a former Westonka teacher and Tonka Toys CEO, purchased Lakeview, Red Oak and Burl Oaks Golf Course in the late 1950s.

“The reason why all this is even here today is because Tonka Toys gave him his job, and the money he made there he used to buy this land,” Wenkstern, Jr. said. “This course is around because of Tonka Toys. My grandpa had a passion for golf—loved to golf—and saw the need for courses back then.”

The family sold Burl Oaks several years ago to concentrate on keeping Lakeview and Red Oak in the green, but Wenkstern, Jr. says the task has simply become impossible.

“A guy came up to us in May—there was still snow on the ground,” he said. “Trust me, there is no running to the bank here. We’ve emotionally held onto it for too long.”

Both Lakeview and Red Oak Golf Course are public rather than membership, and revenue directly correlates to the number of rounds played each season—which Wenkstern, Jr. says have been steadily declining over the last decade. An 18-hole round of golf with cart costs about $40 at regular price, with discounts for senior citizens and members of the course’s “Patron Club.”

In the end, stiff competition from other course’s, golf’s declining popularity among young athletes and a prolonged recession have all combined to put Lakeview and Red Oak in a hazard no wedge or iron can power through.

“I’d have cried by now, but I’m all teared out,” Wenkstern, Jr. said. “I feel like I’m not only losing my home but that I’m taking it away from all the people who love this place, too. It’s the most emotionally draining thing I’ve ever done in my life.”

As for the land, the prospective buyer has made clear the property will be developed, and the Mound City Council has been informed of the pending sale.

Wenkstern, Jr. said special events, customer appreciation days and contests are planned during the next few months as part of an effort to say goodbye and thank you to local golfers who have supported the courses through the decades. If plans continue on their current trajectory, the last round of golf will be played this fall.