It took months of restoration and backbreaking work to get Alpine Bay ready for play in 2017. 'No words can describe the emotions of watching golfers tee off ... for the first time,' Tony Parton said. Today, Alpine Bay Golf Club has over 120 members.
The closing of Alpine Bay caused hardly a ripple in the golf world, even in Alabama. But the place had built a loyal following. Namely, Tony Parton. And Alpine Bay’s closure did not end Parton’s love affair with the layout. One summer evening in 2016, he and his wife, Jan, took a walk along the abandoned course.
During one of their first trips to the abandoned layout, Tony got a phone call from his friend Mark Calhoun, also a previous regular at the golf course. “Mark asked where I was,” Parton remembers. “I said, ‘You’ll never believe me, but I’m at Alpine.’ ” Buying Alpine Bay was one thing, but getting it ready for golfers was something else. The next step in the process was to get more people on board. With Calhoun’s help, Parton established Alpine Group LLC. A handful of investors boosted the value of the limited liability company to $520,000. Still not much to run a golf course.
Still, Alpine Bay is the Rodney Dangerfield of Alabama golf – it gets no respect. Rarely does anyone from Birmingham, Montgomery or Huntsville make the drive to play. Most golfers in the state still have never heard of Alpine Bay, and those who have heard of it dismiss Alpine Bay as no longer in business or not worth playing.
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