By Staff
Take golf course? How about football field?
Over the last two years we have heard how the city Board of Education has plans to buy all or part of Dogwood Hills as a site for its new middle school. I, along with hundreds of other residents of Brewton and the surrounding area, oppose their efforts and have signed the Dogwood Hills Men's Association petition stating so. Let me make this perfectly clear: I do not oppose our children or want to limit their education. I do, however, want to preserve Dogwood Hills as it is. Dogwood Hills was originally built as the Country Club of Brewton in 1937 as a WPA project. This historical landmark is very easily walked with approximately 30 feet of elevation change. As a senior citizen, I find that is very important to me, along with the modest fee structure. If the city sells some or all of the land and the course is redesigned using the land between it and Appleton Road, the elevation changes will go to approximately 95 feet over shorter distances. This will make walking the course very difficult for me and other seniors who play there regularly.
I have been asked by some of my non-golfing buddies why I am opposed to the BOE obtaining part of the land and redesigning the course. The ability to walk it is one. The destruction of a historical landmark is a second. However, probably the best explanation I have heard so far was offered by one of my fellow golfers who lives out of town but plays at Dogwood Hills. He says that the only way for non-golfers to gain a perspective on why this is such a divisive issue for Dogwood Hills golfers and their supporters is to present it as an analogy they might understand. The analogy goes like this:
Taking 30 acres of the golf course makes about as much sense as taking 35 yards of the TRM football field to be used as a school site and telling the football players and coaches to just shorten the field and use the &#8220excess” land in the end zone to make up for the shortage. Or how about narrowing the baseball foul lines, cutting the field in half and using only two bases rather than four to gain land?
Improbable, stupid, ridiculous, unreasonable and crazy would probably be use to describe these two ideas. The Brewton BOE wouldn't consider either. We, the golfers of Dogwood Hills and their supporters, feel the same way and cannot and will not accept the loss of any of the golf course. If you feel the same way, let your elected officials know and, if you have not yet signed the Men's Association petition, swing by the Dogwood Hills Pro Shop and sign it today.
Ed Turner
Brewton resident