With no more competitive mountains to climb in amateur golf, Pat Tallent decided last year to scale a peak of a different sort. That was taking over the operation of a municipal golf course routed on top of an old strip mine in eastern Kentucky not far from where he grew up. The goal was simple: help the facility not only stay in business but also prosper as he upgraded aspects of it on his own dime.
Called StoneCrest Golf Course and owned by the city of Prestonsburg (pop. 3,791), the layout is located on some 200 acres in the Appalachians Mountains and close to the border with Virginia and West Virginia. The area is best known for the coal that miners have extracted from the ground there since the mid-1700s. But over the past several decades, it also has become a mecca for music lovers. Butcher Holler, where Loretta Lynn and her younger sister Crystal Gayle were raised, is a short drive away. And U.S. 23, aka the Country Music Highway and so named because other notables from that realm such as Ricky Skaggs, Dwight Yoakam, Patty Loveless and Billy Ray Cyrus grew up along that road, runs right past Prestonsburg. The town also happens to be the site of the Mountain Arts Center, which hosts concerts and is home to the Kentucky Opry.
Hiking, mountain biking and kayaking are big in this region as well. And Tallent believes that StoneCrest makes golf another viable and attractive recreational option.
“It’s good for me to come back to Floyd County and give something back to the community,” said the 70-year-old Tallent, who recently bought a home with his wife, Cindy, on the golf course and now spends a few months of the year there. “This area did well with coal for many decades, but not anymore. And though the recreational opportunities are awesome, that industry has yet to really develop.”
The hope is that StoneCrest will help in that regard.
Tallent grew up in Maytown, which lies about 15 miles west of Prestonsburg and these days has a population of 227.
CLICK HERE TO READ THIS STORY AT GGP+ AND TO GET FREE GGP SUBSCRIPTIONS