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Cantonment’s Historic Champion Golf Course Closes
August 20, 2017
The historic Champion Golf Course in Cantonment has closed, but the owners hope for a reopening.
The 9-hole public course at Highway 29 and Muscogee Road is owned by International Paper and was leased to an independent operator that requested to end his lease, according to Whitney Fike, spokesperson for IP.
“The company intends to find another operator to reopen the golf course. Since this could take some time, we ask for your patience on this matter. International Paper is committed to being a great neighbor in the communities where we live and work,” Fike said.
The facility includes a practice range, putting green and practice bunker.
The course was listed in the Florida Department of State’s “Florida Heritage Trail” series. According to the Panhandle Historic Preservation Alliance, the Champion Golf Course opened in 1941, the same year the paper mill then known as the Pensacola Mill opened. The Pensacola Mill became a wholly owned subsidiary of the St. Regis Paper Company in 1946 and merged with St. Regis in 1949. Champion International Corporation and St. Regis merged in 1984, and International Paper acquired Champion in 2000.
NorthEscambia.com photos by Kristi Barbour, click to enlarge.
Comments
29 Responses to “Cantonment’s Historic Champion Golf Course Closes”
Any updates since 2017 on this golf course?
Just arrived w family from Atlanta to build a home in Cantonment. Thanks!
In regards to Cantonments historical golf course. I too am heart broken about the closing of the course. I enjoyed bringing wife to learn on this course due to its relaxed environment and believe me when I say she got hooked with wanting to play golf via her play there. Owner was great and very golf oriented with lots of desired plans and had a legit vision of the course. Unfortunately money is again the culprit to preventing ones dreams. I drive by daily and see the course and have flashbacks to mine and my wife’s good times and now they are just that as it is obviously not looking as if it is a top priority for property owners to give this course real support. I did visualize investing in this course myself recently yet it was not in a actual golf course but seeing if it were possible candidate to have a TopGolf driving range being its size and location. This is a perfect location as for traffic flow and with the entertainment value TopGolf could offer it would truly offer Cantonment a big boost in attraction. Yet apparently property/land owners in this area have no desire in growing Cantonment and allowing good sense business’s to expand her. Just drive through and see the existing environment and all the failed businesses structures which now seem to be left for peddlers and trash dumps. No pride in our owners of the leased land and or regulations to make it mandatory to keep clean and or appealing. There needs to be an HOA mandate in my humble opinion, especially in this short stretch between Harvesters bank and Porky’s Pizza . Just thinking out loud
The first time I played golf was at this course. This was a place I could go and not feel embarrassed or pressured to hurry up. The gentleman who ran the property was one of the nicest you could meet. He worked day and night to keep things up. Countless evenings I saw him mowing at dark. I didn’t personally know him, but I know he wanted the course to be a success. I would like to extend best wishes to the gentleman, and say shame on all the negative responders. Where is kindness anymore??? Thank you sir for the enjoyment I experienced. And just know that good things will come your way
It’s hard for the tenant to turn a profit due to all retires from the paper mill getting free greens fees. If the course is going to survive International Paper needs to take over and run it for at least a break even situations!
There is absolutely nothing wrong with this small golf course. It serves the local people and it is what it is. A one man tenant was not enough to take care of it. Not enough income to pay landscapers to take care of it. Hopefully in the future, more people that play golf would patronize this facility, and make it profitable. I moved to Cantonment in 1955 to be employed at Chemstrand at the time. I passed this golf course every day, but never learned to play golf. I wished I had, but too old now to learn. As for the housing in that area, it was a nice subdivision at one time. Every thing gets old if you don’t keep it up. Most people in that subdivision are old and unable to do anything to their houses. They are lucky to get a breath every day. So stop all the bashing and judging things by the way they look. The Paper Mill will find a new tenant and the locals will have a course to play again. Also the course owned by Monsanto/Ascend on Old Chemstrand Road is currently open too.
@ scool bus kid – bet it made a few angry, because my kids did the same thing.
Played there the last day it was open and for the past 7 or 8 years on a regular basis. Hope that it is open again soon. IT will be interesting to see just how community minded I.P. really is and how quickly or if they are actually are looking for a new management group to take over and re-open the course. I think when the mill village was set up in 1941that property cannot be used for anything else. I. P. needs to take responsibility for keeping the property looking good so as it dose not becone an eye sour in the community while they look for a new operator.
Picture this….’Cantonment Motocross Park’ – just kidding.
Geez, did some of you commenters even read the article? The Mill has plans to re-lease it, and hopefully it’ll be back open very soon. There is no telling why the current tenant had to close up shop…how about calling him and asking him? On beautiful days, I have to wait in line to play at the CCC (The Cantonment Country Club as us long-time fans call it). I grew up playing those links with my dad and Grandfather. I intend to teach my kids out there as well. Have a little faith. I’m an old millennial or young Gen Xer, depending on who you ask, and I LOVE Golf!
Here is land for the industrial park Escambia County is trying to push onto us. Leave OLF8 alone!
>>>How is this golf course “historic”?
Because it is old enough to be listed on the state’s Heritage Trail, as the story says
How is this golf course “historic”? It’s not like Tiger Woods’ childhood home is located on the 7th green.
anyone know who I can contact about reopening the course
As a child passenger in my parents car, or the school bus, I would pass by the golf course and think “why is such a nice golf course sitting in the middle of such an unseemly, ugly place”?
If Cantonment were to be cleaned up and trees planted to conceal the industrial eyesores, then perhaps more people would frequent the course.
It will be sad to lose the golf course. I don’t golf but seeing trees of beauty and well kept greenery is so nice.
The problem is a simple one really…..the economy. Escambia County used to have a great middle class economy, but that is now gone. So, money that used to be spent on leisure activities are now spent on rent.
Garret: great to hear some young people still interested in drowning golf balls!
I beg to differ Chris. As a 22 year old golfing is one of my favorite things to do. My drive needs some work but I make up for it on my short game. Sad to see a local place shut down even if it only temporary.
Hope it reopens soon.Please do not build more no rent or low rent apartments, the people than work for a living are taxed enough.
Nice place for a walmart and movie theater. Bring something to cantonment.
Golf requires skill, practice, and the ability to envision your goal. America is obsessed with instant results. Youth of today are not as likely to walk/ride 18 holes in the heat or the sun.
I worked there about a month in the summer of 1974. Good times.
on the school bus as as a kid we would yell at the golfers right before they took a swing. they only place you will see a grown man flip off a bus full of middle school kids is cantonment. good times, good times
@ Carolyn- The man had been unable to mow by the road because of all of the flags placed by the utilities contractors who are working there. I also know he was out there from daylight until after dark mowing with headlights trying to keep the place up. Then the insane amount of rain that we’ve had would flood the course and keep him from operating. The course is 128 acres so I know he had been giving it his all to keep it up and going but one man can only do so much and help has to be paid and you can’t do that with no money coming in. I hate he had to stop but I know you have to “stop the bleeding” at some point. He loved the course and was trying so hard to upgrade it. Hopefully someone can come in with more money to invest in the course- equipment,groundskeepers and whatever else is needed and make it a nice course that people will want to come and play at. I wish him the best of luck.
When the Moors closed in Milton you knew that golf was in trouble. A generation of kids playing video games, has now turned into a generation of young people who are not taking the game up as the Babyboomers who made it very popular begin to fade away. It is very expensive to fertilize, apply herbicides and pesticides, and mow a course when there was a time not long ago that it cost 60 bucks for 18 holes. There are places where it is now 20 bucks.
leave it close, sell and build apartment complete
like the rest of Escambia county has done……………..
JLSeale
@Carolyn Golf courses are money losers, there are virtually no golf courses in the country that make money, they are very expensive to maintain. If they are lucky they will just break even.
It’s meet & eat these days, golfing used to be for business talks but not anymore. Look at the Moors, Tiger Point, Marcus Point and even Osceola. This is no news surprise.May as well take the land and finish the subdivisions.
Call the paper mill and have them mow it. They said they are committed to being a good neighbor. Maybe the PR guy who is reading this will just take care of it. My question is does the mill own all of the dilapidated building in between the mill and golf course. If they do… a good neighbor would clean it up.
That golf course used to look so nice. The property was mowed all the way to the road when I moved here in 1989. And those crepe myrtle trees were well kept. While stopped at the Muscogee Rd. and Hwy 29 light the other day how neglected the corner looked. How hard is it to tidy up?