CLIFTON — Over the course of a couple of years in the late 1990s, it looked like a golf course was being built on Route 9, carved out of the woods on the opposite side of the road from Parks Pond.
Slowly, likely the movement of the glaciers that left their marks on the state’s landscape thousands of years ago.
But since its opening in 2004, Sawmill Woods Golf Course has picked up a reputation as one of the tightest golf courses, if not the tightest, in the state.
“I’ve never seen many more narrow than that one,” said Romeo Laberge, who rates courses, among his other duties, for the Maine State Golf Association. He has seen most of the golf courses in the state and many outside of it as well.
Sawmill Woods from the blue tees (5,748 yards for 18 holes) has a Slope (difficulty rating) of 124. From the white tees (5,358 yards), the Slope is 121.
By comparison, Bangor Municipal Golf Course is about average at 115 from the white tees (5,815 yards). One of the state’s toughest, Sugarloaf Golf Club in Carrabassett Valley, at 5,946 yards from the white tees, has a Slope of 141.
Laberge also noted some of Sawmill’s peculiarities, such as trees in the middle of a couple of fairways and a tee box with a tree in the middle of it.
Harearl “Buzzer” Moore, co-owner with his mother Barbara, relishes the reputation.
“[Regulars] have home-field advantage here,” he said. “Most holes, you don’t want to tee off with a driver.”
Slow for a reason
Moore admits that construction was slow going, mostly because it was he and the two men of nearby Airline Construction, Frankie Arisimeek and David Butterfield, who did the bulk of the work on the nine-hole course.
But appearances were deceiving, because the view of most of the work was blocked by trees and hills.
“We started in the fall of ’98,” said Moore. “In ’99, we did most of the work for the grounds, and in 2000 it [the groundwork and fairways] was finished,” said Moore.
Then it was on to the greens.
“It took as long to do the greens as it did to do all the fairways,” said Moore.
The major duty for Moore in building the greens was screening the sand that would be mixed in with the dirt to aid drainage.
Moore would use Airline Construction’s front-end loader to shake the sand gently onto the screen.
When he got up to speed, “I could do eight yards an hour,” said Moore. “We needed 2,500 yards. It was a long process.”
He didn’t go into it blindly, though.
“I worked on a golf course in Florida for the winter so I would know what I was doing,” he said.
He asked his boss, John Drossos from the Belleview Biltmore Club in Florida to check it out. And he knew how to entice Drossos, with lobster dinners.
“He came up twice to make sure the greens were right,” said Moore with a little laugh. “He was a tremendous help.”
The idea starts
Moore, who played baseball and soccer at Ellsworth High School, got his start in golf by hitting balls around in a field on family land across Route 9 from their business, Parks Pond Campground.
That play turned into the new family business when Sawmill Woods Golf Course, including that same field, opened in 2004.
It was a long process, Moore admits.
“I can’t remember a summer when I didn’t work on the campground [which opened in 1968],” said the now 44-year-old Moore, sitting in the former horse stalls that have been converted into the pro shop. “But we also had this. And this was my grandfather’s farm and part of his source for lumber [for a sawmill, hence the name].”
Moore, who played freshman golf at Ellsworth, eventually saw an opportunity for a summer break from campground duties.
“I’ve always enjoyed golf,” said Moore. “A couple of campers over there, we’d come across with our pitching wedges and throw a Frisbee, and the Frisbee then became the hole. Come closest to the Frisbee, within a club length, as many shots as it would take, wins the hole, and then we would throw the Frisbee again. And we did that for two or three years. It was fun and it was a way to get away from the crowd at the campground.”
The after-play talk often became a game of “what if?”
“And we were always talking, wouldn’t it be cool if there was a golf course here? That way you could just go across the road and play on it,” said Moore, “and the longer I thought about it, geez, there’s 300 acres out there plus another 160 close enough to do something with.”
Meanwhile, the 1984 graduate of Ellsworth High School collected a bachelor’s degree in English from Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., in ’88 and a master’s in liberal studies from Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., in ’90. Plus he took some classes at the University of Maine in Orono.
After returning home, he continued to help his parents, but the golf idea still crept into his thoughts.
Finally, he decided to take the plunge. Actually, it was more like dipping his toes into a lake.
“I started messing with it in ’93, ’94,” said Moore. “It took a very long time to get everything cleared because it was too big a job for a typical small contractor, but too small a job for a big contractor. So there was a span of time, 1.5-2 years, when I just couldn’t find anyone to work.”
He couldn’t afford to have a big company do it anyway.
“So I had to do it over a three- to four-year time span, and I was working as an assistant headmaster at Lee Academy, and that salary is basically what’s financed this,” said Moore.
That’s when he found Airline Construction.
“You wouldn’t think three guys could do so much, especially since two of them didn’t know anything about golf,” said Moore. “Now one of them is playing in the men’s league.”
Crossing over Route 9
The year before Moore started building in earnest, his father died, leaving Moore and his mother, Barbara, to handle the campground themselves.
After the golf course was finished, they had to pick one. They sold the campground.
“We talked about it before Dad died. We couldn’t do both,” said Barbara Moore, who was the golf coach at Bar Harbor High School in the’60s.
“It’s a 24/7 job from the time you open until the time you close in October,” said Buzzer Moore. “This [the golf course] is something we both enjoy.”
Play has been growing, although slowly because it’s mostly word-of-mouth.
“What’s gratifying for me is the word-of-mouth is positive,” he said.
He is continuing to add touches, such as flower boxes, small ponds and cleaning up some of the debris left over from the sawmill years ago.
“It’s going to look awesome when it’s done,” he said.
“There are some nice scenic holes,” said Laberge, adding, “it’s a fun course to play.”
Moore’s already looking forward to adding another, roomier nine.
“The next nine, bring every club because you’re going to need them,” he stated with a laugh.
Great grandfather’s feelings
He’s not sure how is great grandfather, Earl Campbell, who started the sawmill in 1927, would feel about the golf course.
“I’m sure he’s be happy we’re not selling it, it’s prettier and we’re working with it,” said Moore. “But for a game? I think he’s be conflicted.”
Barbara thinks they made
the right choice, but that it will succeed.
“It takes a lot of work, but it will work,” she said. “This is a great area.”