On a normal day, Linville, North Carolina, looks like something out of a vintage travel advertisement from the 1920s. Set in the Blue Ridge Mountains near the Tennessee border, the town has as its centerpiece the Donald Ross-designed Linville Golf Club and its related collection of cottages clad in chestnut bark shingles that have been recognized on the National Register of Historic Places.
The night of Sept. 27, 2024 was historic in ways Linville will never forget. After days of heavy rain soaked the area, Hurricane Helene swept up from the south and smashed Northern Florida and Georgia on its way to Western North Carolina.
Linville — and most of the area around it, including Asheville — saw unprecedented destruction. Wind flattened old-growth forests and record floods from more than 30 inches of rain wiped out bridges, roads and entire communities.
General Manager Tom Dale, PGA, knows Linville as well as anyone. He grew up there, took over for his father Burl Dale as Linville Golf Club’s Head Professional in 1992 and became GM in 2021.
What Tom Dale saw the morning of Sept. 28 was almost beyond comprehension after Helene hit the town like a giant liquid fist.
Linville was cut off from regular cell service and the mountain roads leading in and out had mostly been destroyed by floodwaters that crested almost 30 feet above normal levels.
“The way the roads are built up here, they cut the side of the mountain out alongside the riverbed,” says Dale. “When the river comes through and undercuts those roads, they fall in and the river gets bigger. The roads have to be built all over again.”
For the first three days after the storm, Dale and his staff went house to house doing wellness checks and delivering cases of water, clearing the way with chain saws and muscle power, and using a pair of satellite phones to communicate.
The club’s infrastructure made it through mostly intact, so Dale went to his club chairman with a proposal to keep Linville Golf Club closed for the remainder of the year and convert its functions into a kind of storm relief nerve center.
“I felt like we had the facilities, the staff and the determination needed,” says Dale, who was honored by the PGA of America for his relief efforts during the 2025 PGA Show’s opening ceremony on Jan. 22. “Within hours, our membership responded with more than $600,000 committed to the plan.”
The 24-room lodge on the property became free housing for first responders and utility repair techs. The banquet center transformed into a 4,500-square foot storehouse for everything from medical supplies to batteries to diapers. The club’s chef turned a gourmet kitchen into a military commissary and prepared nearly 25,000 meals for residents and aid workers in the three weeks after the storm.
“Our membership director and real estate sales agent became volunteer coordinators. Our food & beverage director became a stock clerk. The catering director was the community organizer,” says Dale. “The folks we have on staff turned out to be the exact people I would want in an emergency.”
Months after the storm, the wounds it created are still very much a day-to-day reality. Hundreds of heavy dump trucks relay thousands of tons of debris to central disposal sites every day.
Beyond the physical damage to homes, businesses and schools, the region’s economic infrastructure was hit just as hard. The closest interstate, I-40, remained closed into 2025, and it will be years before many of the secondary roads are replaced. Lost tourism dollars and meager insurance payouts have translated into immense financial hardship for many in Western North Carolina.
Linville Golf Club’s initial fundraising round mushroomed to include more than $1.4 million to neighboring communities for infrastructure repair, and the club quietly covered past-due electric and propane bills for its neighbors. All told, more than $5 million in food, water, clothing, medical supplies and direct support has been distributed, providing a crucial local lifeline during a time when a third of the state was paralyzed by the destruction.
“You go to people’s homes in the area today and many still don’t have power or water, but they’re desperately trying to stay because it’s home,” explains Dale.
“Sometimes the enormity of it hits you and it seems almost insurmountable, but something as simple as a thank-you card comes in and you see how this work has impacted their lives, and it re-energizes you.” —Matthew Rudy
