Old Baldy Golf Course
Community Driven, Community Loved
by Cade Shoemaker
When Laurie McCarthy passed away at age 77, she had no immediate family to inherit her wealth.
Choosing the charitable route, McCarthy gave away a large portion of her estate to local education, her hometown and a quaint, nine-hole golf course that a few years before didn’t have grass on its greens.
As a local of Townsend, Montana, the par-36 track was the only golf course in a 40-mile radius for McCarthy, and much like many other members of the small farming town, she ensured it was a suitable place to learn and play the game. Using her donation of $50,000 – more than $90,000 in today’s money – members of Old Baldy Golf Course and volunteers from the community were able to install irrigation lines along each hole.
Today, a stone bench a few paces behind the sixth tee box remembers McCarthy’s commitment with an inscription reading, “In memory of Laurie McCarthy for her generosity to Old Baldy recreation.” It's one of several memorial benches throughout the golf course that bear witness to the men and women who shaped the golf oasis into what it is today.
“Most of the early stuff was almost all donated labor, equipment and everything,” former course superintendent John Hilton said.
Sure, the course has changed since McCarthy played, and even more since its opening in 1973, but its communal feel persists. Though the trees planted 30 years ago have matured from their initial saplings, and the last sand greens in the state were replaced with bentgrass in 1988, Old Baldy has stayed true to its roots – a tee-time-less golf course with an honor-system payment method that relies on the integrity of its players.
“It’s that typical small-town mentality,” Old Baldy president Jesse Swenson said. “It runs pretty strong here.”
Much like the rest of the golf industry, Old Baldy saw an increase in golfers during the pandemic. And since the course was rarely patrolled due to the honor system, it was one of the rare places that remained open during lockdown.
As word spread, golfers flocked from over an hour away to play it for the first time. Though most dropped money in the cash box or paid online, the rare few saw the opportunity to play for “free” on a well-groomed course that was worth the drive.
But it was seldom the residents of Townsend who exploited the social contract. Only the outsiders viewed the roughly 2,000-resident railroad town as just a stop between Helena and Bozeman.
“Anytime we have somebody abusing it, it's always (people) from out of town,” Swenson said. “It’s very rare that any locals take advantage of us. We look out for each other.”
Although the busy-ness of the course has continued to increase with the recent golf boom, the honor system tradition lives on. Only during peak hours, like on weekends, will there be someone checking in on large groups to see if they’ve paid their dues for the round.
A change of pace that keeps Old Baldy the humble retreat that it is.
However, not everything about the course has remained the same since its opening round, and one change has been for the better.
Forget the hassle of raking footprints out of a bunker – for over 15 years, golfers at Old Baldy had to rake out a path for their ball on sand greens covering every hole. It was a mix of river sand and a small amount of oil that was packed down on top of a concrete foundation.
After players chipped onto the surface, they’d use the backside of the rake to smooth out the line in the sand for their putt all the way to the cup. Then, once the ball rolled, bounced, and even collected a little bit of sand along the way, players would re-rake the green for the following golfers to repeat the procedure.
“I don’t miss that,” Hilton said of the raking process. “They were domed greens, but there was very little breaking. The sand kind of takes all the break out of it.”
As a previous coach for the girls and boys golf teams at Townsend High School, Hilton taught many beginners how to putt on the unconventional greens. And for annual home matches hosted by the Bulldogs at Old Baldy, the sand was a competitive advantage. But when they traveled to every other course in the state, the adjustment to putting on grass became a real problem. Most of the time.
“We happened to go to a tournament 90 miles away after they had just plugged and top dressed the greens with sand just before,” Hilton remembered.
As other schools in the tournament struggled with the bumpy roll of putts running over the aerated grass and sand-filled holes, Hilton recalled the Bulldogs feeling right at home.
“The girls were excited. Like, ‘This is what we’re used to putting on!” he said with a chuckle.
Though the greens now have grass, it doesn’t mean they aren’t any less challenging. Play the course, and you’ll find how hard it is to land your ball on the postage-stamp greens that are only 30-40 feet in diameter and shaped like upside-down bowls.
More than that, the greens are protected by hundreds of trees that have grown into tricky obstacles across the course. Towering pines, thin birches, and fluffy cottonwoods are among the trees the community planted to make errant tee shots more punishing.
But with the greenery comes more work. Upkeep is still occasionally done by volunteers alongside the maintenance team, like earlier this spring, when a fierce thunderstorm swept through Townsend and snapped several large tree limbs, scattering branches all over the course.
The strenuous cleanup job required several hands to chainsaw and haul the debris away, so the course would be enjoyed by those who put their own sweat into it.
“Regardless of people’s positions in other parts of their lives, they recognize that they are part of a community that, when it comes together, great things can be done,” Vickie Rauser, the mayor of Townsend, said. “Our rodeo fairgrounds is another example that is community-driven, but our longtime residents are that way. And I think the community attracts other people who have similar mindsets.”
Old Baldy Golf Course remains a time capsule in the ever-changing environment of golf. A course, true to its roots, that has remained unique, but not at the sacrifice of excellent playing conditions or scenic views of the Big Belt Mountains.
Adjacent to cattle farms, the Missouri River and a railroad that built up the surrounding area, Old Baldy is an embodiment of a “diamond in the rough” that so many courses try to capture.
“It is a true hidden gem,” Swenson said. “It’s a very underutilized, very well-maintained course that our community is very lucky to have.”