Old Works course to celebrate its 20th anniversary
Old Works Golf Course in Anaconda, Montana is to celebrate its 20th anniversary on 28 September with a golf tournament and post-round reception featuring golf legend and course designer Jack Nicklaus.
The festivities will include a pre-tournament golf clinic with well-known instructor Tim Mahoney; a four-person scramble golf tournament, complete with Nicklaus-signed prizes; and an evening reception, highlighted by a Q&A session with Nicklaus.
“Old Works is such an amazing success story,” said Mark Savoy, general manager of Old Works. “We invite folks from all over to help us celebrate two amazing decades on 28 September by attending our 20th anniversary golf tournament and reception with Jack Nicklaus.”
Reborn on what was the site of Anaconda’s 100-year-old copper-smelting plant, Old Works is the first course ever designed and built on a Federal EPA Superfund site. The 18-hole, par-72 public course encompasses 220 acres and was designed by Nicklaus to incorporate historic relics.
Granite slabs from the old mill line the banks of Warm Springs Creek protect the 10th green, while stone furnaces border the third fairway and a 150-foot flue provides a backdrop to the fourth green. All bunkers are filled with black slag sand – the by-product of the copper-smelting process.
Managed by Troon and owned by Anaconda Deer Lodge County, the course has a three-hole ‘Little Bear’ with two par 4s and a par 3 tht is popular with families. The Old Works practice facility includes a driving range with multiple target greens, chipping and putting greens and two practice bunkers.
“The decision to build a golf course there was a terrific, money-saving use of the property, and it was a special opportunity to create a source of pride, employment and potential revenue to a town that was struggling due to unemployment from the loss of Anaconda mining,” said Nicklaus. “Old Works brought tourism to the town; it brought jobs to the town; and in some way, it brought new life. It was a very worthwhile project all around. And, we were able to construct the project for about half the cost that it would have taken to clean up the site, due to regulations.”