MORRISON – Two longtime local golf courses will not be open this summer.

Prairie Ridge Golf Course, 903 West Morris St., Morrison, and Oakville Country Club, 8044 Oakville Road, Mount Carroll, have been sold.

Prairie Ridge Golf Course had been owned by Lowell Beggs, who purchased the course in 2007.

He couldn’t be reached for comment, but City Administrator Barry Dykhuizen said the course was open last year, “but from what I understand, he made the decision over the winter to not reopen.”

The 18-hole course, which originally opened in 1911, had a driving range, practice bunker and putting green.

The course also included the Oak Room Restaurant, which is also closed. Dykhuizen said Beggs decided to close the restaurant last fall.

“I have not heard that it is for sale, and I don’t know what Mr. Beggs’ intentions are with his business,” Dykhuizen said.

About 20 miles north of Morrison is the former home of Oakville Country Club. For the first time in a half-century, the nine-hole course, just a few miles southeast of Mount Carroll, will not open this spring.

The course opened in 1963 by Bob and Bobbie Hartman of Mount Carroll. In 1986, Nancy Woodside and her husband, Al, purchased it.

Today, the land is owned by two different parties.

John and Betty Tautz, owners of Tautz Trenching Excavating in Mount Carroll, bought 46 acres in February for $315,000. The purchase includes holes one through six and hole nine, the clubhouse and equipment shed. Jeff Lessman, president of Eastland Motor Sports in Lanark, and his wife Patty, bought the 13 acres that make up holes seven and eight. He declined to say how much they paid for the land, which they closed on in early February.

“We bought property from Nancy,” Betty Tautz said. “She is 78 and she didn’t want to do it anymore. Her husband passed away in 2007 and it was just her and her son, Jeff, running it.”

Woodside, of Mount Carroll, could not be reached for comment and messages left to her son went unreturned. ​

John Tautz said they spent about a month clearing the land of brush and trees, and even added a few holes – of a different kind. Fifty cases of dynamite were used to remove 670 tree stumps.

For now, the course is sitting idle, but the Tautzes, hope something can be done with the land going forward, whether it’s as a golf course or cornfield.

“It’s getting to be late in the season to plant beans and corn,” the Tautzes’ son, Karl, said. “If someone comes along with the right figures, we’d still like to see it turned into a golf course. I don’t want to put figures out there, but if we get something competitive with farmland prices, we will take a look at it.”

Lessman said he has no immediate plans for his portion of the land, but he, too, would like to see a golf course on the property. If that plan doesn’t pan out, he said they’d “use the 13 acres for recreational purposes or land management.”

Lessman and his wife have lived right off the course for the past 5 years.

“We wanted to be in a rural setting,” he said. “We bought the land because the surrounding area is beautiful. This property also protects our backyard.”

“We are holding out hope that we will lease the property and turn it back into a golf course,” he said. “But there doesn’t appear to be anyone who is interested.”

MORE INFO

For more information on the sale of Oakville Country Club or to learn more about the land, contact John and Betty Tautz at 815-244-9435.