A Course That Never Left: The Long Road Back for Acorn Ridge

Drive south from downtown Lucedale on Highway 63 and you pass a stretch of land that a lot of people in George County still call "the country club," even though the gates have been locked for years. The pines are still there. The old fairway corridors are still readable from the air. And if you grew up here, or if you raised kids here, you probably know somebody who played a Saturday round on those nine holes, stood in that snack line, or learned to chip under those trees.

That place was George County Country Club, later Lucedale Country Club. Today it is becoming Acorn Ridge Golf Club. The story of how it got from one name to the next is not a fairy tale. It is a local story, and the public record is thinner than we would like. What follows is what we could verify from golf directories, obituaries, the George County Times, and the club's own published history, without inventing a single founding speech or a single missing date.

What the directories agree on

Golf course databases are not newspapers, but they do preserve a consistent picture of what stood on Highway 63 South.

GolfPass, GolfNow, GolfThis, foreTee, Stymie, and several smaller directories describe the same course: a nine-hole, semi-private layout at Hwy 63 S, Lucedale, Mississippi 39452. They list it as open to limited public play alongside members. The championship tees measured about 3,060 yards at par 35. The middle tees ran about 2,805 yards at par 35. The forward tees ran about 2,510 yards at a listed par of 36. Bermuda grass covered the greens and fairways. Walking was allowed. Carts and rental clubs were available. A driving range, putting green, and pitching area were part of the facility in directory listings. The old club phone number that appears again and again is 601-947-2798.

foreTee's closed-course entry adds color that matches what locals remember from the ground. It describes mature pine trees that could alter a shot, water coming into play at least four times, undulating terrain, and elevated greens. GolfThis and related archives put the bunker count somewhere between one and ten and note that water was in play. None of the directories we checked named a course architect.

On the names, the directories are clear. The course was previously called George County Country Club and later Lucedale Country Club. That dual identity still shows up in listings under both titles.

The year it opened, and why the dates disagree

Ask around town and you will hear 1962. That is the year Acorn Ridge Golf Club uses on its own site, including the homepage line "Founded in 1962. Closed in 2009." and the Our Story page that begins, "Since 1962, the course in Lucedale, Mississippi has been more than a place to play golf."

One name does appear in the local paper as a founder. When Curtis Elmo Miller of Lucedale died in October 1996 at age 88, the George County Times obituary, preserved by Genealogy Trails, said he "helped establish the Lucedale Country Club and the first Little League in George County." Miller was a native of Collins, a longtime Lucedale resident, a First Baptist Church member, and a retiree of the Mississippi State Health Department after 38 years. He refereed baseball and football in the area for 22 years and was a member of the Mississippi College Sports Hall of Fame. Pallbearers at his service included Claude Passeau, the big-league pitcher from Lucedale, along with William Reid, Payton Dudley, Hubie Parker, Fred Gill, and Bill Martin.

The course also shows up the way small-town clubs always do, in the lives of the people who loved it. In August 2026, the George County Times published the obituary of Rayford Edsel Whatley, 91, of Lucedale. After a career at Scott Paper Company in Mobile, Whatley "developed a passion for golfing" in retirement. "He loved spending daily rounds with all of his usual golfing buddies at the Lucedale Country Club," the obituary said. "He developed valued friendships through the countless hours he spent with his friends at the club. He remained an avid golfer until the Lucedale course closed years ago."

That one paragraph is a whole era. Daily rounds. Usual buddies. Friendships built one hole at a time. Then the quiet that followed.

What the course meant while the gates were open

For decades, the club was simply part of the landscape south of town. Fathers took sons. Neighbors met on Saturday mornings. High school players grew up knowing there was a place to learn the game without leaving the county.

A September 20, 2023, George County Times story by Royce Armstrong about a new high school golf practice facility put that memory in plain words. Kathy Sellers, speaking about her son Devin, said he began going to the golf course with his father, Davy, when he was five and got his first set of clubs at seven. "From that time on it was an every Saturday thing. He and his father would go play golf. That was when Lucedale still had a country club. That gave them father-son time together." On those Saturdays, Devin struck up friendships with other boys who were also there with their dads, including Blane Henderson, Drew Goff, and Rory Nelson. Those young men later played on George County High School's back-to-back state championship golf teams in 2004 and 2005.

The Armstrong article also makes clear what happened after the club closed. By 2023, coach John Glass told the Times that before the new fairgrounds practice range opened, the high school team had been driving to Whispering Pines in Hurley just to practice. Golf never left George County hearts. The nearest full course did.

2009: the fairways go quiet

foreTee's closed-course listing states flatly that Lucedale Country Club closed in 2009. GolfPass marks the course closed for business. Acorn Ridge's own published history uses the same year. We did not find a contemporary news story spelling out the business reasons for the shutdown, so we will not invent one. What we can say, because locals have said it for years and because the club's own Our Story page says it too, is that the gates closed, the fairways went quiet, and the question that followed was always the same: when is our course coming back?

For roughly seventeen years, the answer was not yet. The pines kept growing. The clubhouse weathered. The land waited. People kept driving past and remembering.

Acorn Ridge, and a community that would not let go

Acorn Ridge Golf Club is the name on the gates now, and the project is already public at acornridgegolfclub.com. The site's Our Story page puts the heart of the matter in a few sentences: the course was where neighbors met, where fathers taught kids to swing, and where friendships were made beneath the tall Southern pines. In 2009 the gates closed, but the memories did not. "For years, the people of Lucedale kept asking the same question: when is our course coming back? Acorn Ridge Golf Club is the answer."

The club's published FAQ, as of November 2026, lays out the plan in practical terms. Opening is targeted for 2027. The course is an active, gated construction site and is not open for casual visits. The layout will be nine holes called The Old Nine, with a second tee box on each hole so a player can go around twice from different tees for a full eighteen-hole round. A future back nine will depend on demand. The old clubhouse is being restored for check-in, offices, a pro shop, and a counter-style snack bar, with alcohol planned under proper licensing. A driving range and parking are part of the plan. Events, local tournaments, junior golf, and support for the George County High School golf team are all on the table. Hiring will cover groundskeeping, maintenance, clubhouse, kitchen, and cart work.

None of that is nostalgia for its own sake. It is a restoration of a classic nine that already belongs to this place. The Old Nine is not a rebrand slapped on empty dirt. It is the same Highway 63 South land that directories mapped, that Miller helped establish, that Whatley played until the end, and that Devin Sellers and his friends grew up on with their dads.

Contribute to the history

If you have an old Lucedale Country Club shirt, hat, tee, golf ball, scorecard, photo, or other piece of memorabilia sitting in a closet, the club is asking for it. Acorn Ridge's Contribute to the History effort is collecting those pieces to help decorate the restored clubhouse. You can reach them through acornridgegolfclub.com. That is also the place to join the founding list for opening updates, look at the FAQ, or apply for a job when the staffing push begins.

This is one of those rare local projects where the community literally owns the memory. The more of those artifacts that come home, the more the clubhouse will feel like Lucedale when the doors open again.

What we still hope someone will bring forward

Local history is always unfinished. We would love to see a 1958, 1960, or 1962 George County Times clipping about the opening, a list of the original organizers beyond Miller's "helped establish" credit, the name of any course architect, and a clear contemporary account of why the club closed in 2009. If you have a scrapbook, a scorecard with a date stamp, a membership letter, or a Facebook memory with a verifiable photo, send it. The dates in the directories and the date on the Acorn Ridge site can live side by side until the primary source settles the difference.

A short word about the people doing the work

Mike and Katri Welford, Lucedale natives, are the ones putting the work into bringing the old course back. They have said the project is not about them. It is about the community that never let the place go, and about helping provide the best golf experience they can for Lucedale. That is the right note to end on, because it matches what the record already shows. The course was never really theirs alone to begin with. It was George County's. It still is.

Acorn Ridge belongs to Lucedale. Welcome back.

Sources: GolfPass, GolfNow, GolfThis, and foreTee course listings; George County Times obituaries of Curtis Elmo Miller (Oct. 1996, via Genealogy Trails) and Rayford Edsel Whatley (Aug. 2026); Royce Armstrong, George County Times, Sept. 20, 2023; acornridgegolfclub.com.

Photos: Epoch Film & Photo