Greystone Country Club prepares for new fitness center, restaurant

As Greystone Golf & Country Club prepares to host the 2016 Regions Tradition tournament, it’s checking off the list of renovations. The new Founders Course, golf operations center and golf performance center are all complete. Up next, the club will be remaking the lower level of the clubhouse to create a new fitness facility, childcare center and restaurant.

The country club made the $4 million renovation plans public in May 2014, two months after the Professional Golf Association announced that the Regions Tradition, a part of the Champions Tour, will be held at Greystone from 2016 to 2018. However, Brad Rosenwald, the building and grounds committee co-chair, said he has been working on developing this project for about four years and the focus has always been on member experience, not the tournament.

The Founders Course reopened on March 2 after a joint improvement project by the club and the PGA. Club President Roy Sewell said he and many other club members have played the course, and he’s heard a lot of praise for the new bunker system and redesigned greens. As an avid golfer, this is also one of his favorite parts of the renovations.

“We have a golf course with a half-million PGA investment, new greens and bunkers,” Sewell said. “Our members and tournament players will experience a whole different golf course.”

On March 6, the country club hosted a grand opening of its 9,000-square-foot golf operations center and plaza. The center holds the golf carts that were formerly stored in the lower level of the clubhouse. The new plaza will provide a day-to-day place for golfers to pick up and drop off their carts, as well as a space for wedding receptions and other events.

“That now becomes the place where all members begin their golf experience,” Sewell said. “I think the plaza is going to be a focal point.”

Following the operations center, the golf performance center had its grand opening on March 21. The performance center is now the home of the country club’s instructional facilities, including award-winning teacher Mark Blackburn. The next stage of the renovations will benefit members even if they never pick up a golf club. With the golf carts moved to their own building, the club can begin creating a new fitness facility in their former location. Rosenwald said the new fitness center will be around 8,000 square feet, four times bigger than its current space, and include free weights, cardio and weight machines, classrooms, individual training and massage therapy.

“What we’re trying to do is create more member-enhancing experience,” Rosenwald said.

Mallory Bobba, the club’s communications director, said the fitness center will be open 24 hours a day and is planned for completion by the end of 2015. 

The club will hire an outside service to staff the childcare facility. Rosenwald said Greystone will not be providing all-day care, just short-term service while parents are playing tennis, golf or other activities.

The current fitness center will remain operational until the new one is complete. After that, it will be replaced by a restaurant and bar that will be open five to seven days a week. 

Bobba envisions the restaurant as the “neighborhood hub,” with a modern style and plenty of windows looking out onto the golf courses and patio. Greystone plans to complete the restaurant by March 2016, so it will be fully operational in time for the Regions Tradition. Rosenwald hopes the club’s additions will entice more people to join through full or social memberships, which include access to every amenity except the golf course. Currently, around one-third of Greystone residents are members of the country club.

“We would like to double that,” Rosenwald said.

Follow Greystone Golf & Country Club’s renovation progress at greystonecc.com.