Zweifel completes deal for Alderbrook Golf Course, needs community buy-in

“My vision is creating a destination place for families and visitors to walk through beautiful gardens, golf and share social events together,” Zweifel said.

Now, Zweifel and a group of volunteers will begin working on the course with an opening planned for April 1, 2023. 

Although final terms have been reached, Zweifel is still counting on community members to step up to make the project a success.

After reaching initial terms with the LaViolettes in late October, Zweifel partnered with a group of local partners to finalize the deal. 

But his plans always included a healthy share of funding generated by membership sales and community donations and Zweifel needs to generate a further $1 million for the project to succeed.

“The community wanted a golf course, I bought a golf course,” Zweifel said. “Now, we need the community’s support.” 

Memberships are officially on sale, with both annual and lifetime memberships available for individuals and families. 

Purchases can be made on the Alderbrook Golf Course section of the Hydrangea Ranch website and discounts are being offered to those who purchase before March 31, 2023.

All who purchase memberships before March 31, 2023, will be considered “Founding Members,” with a brick on a wall or pathway at the facility at the facility, which will commemorate their support for keeping golf in Tillamook.

Zweifel has partnered with the Tillamook YMCA to give locals an opportunity to give tax deductible donations to the course and support a new youth golf program for Tillamook. 

The YMCA’s new program will offer hundreds of local kids the chance to experience golf and the course’s reopening means the high school’s golf team will no longer travel to Banks to practice.

“When we met with Pat and he shared his vision, we were eager to help,” Tillamook YMCA CEO and Executive Director Kaylan Sisco said. “The more opportunities the Y has to allow for impactful experiences the better.”

Alderbrook Golf Course opened in 1924 and is one of the oldest courses on the Oregon coast. It closed on October 31, 2021, and was listed for sale in June 2022, with an initial asking price of $4.9 million.

The listing advertised the property’s development potential, leading local golfers to worry about the course’s future and form an ad hoc committee to find a way to keep it devoted to golf.

Hopes that the county government might purchase the course were quickly dashed and Zweifel emerged as golf’s best shot in Tillamook County.

Zweifel doesn’t play much golf and is better known for his enthusiasm for cross-country running, but something about Alderbrook appealed to him.

“When I saw the golf course was for sale, something happened inside of me,” Zweifel said. “I knew that I was meant to make this property something special.”

He envisions a reinvigorated Alderbrook offering something for the whole family: walking paths winding through botanical gardens, a mini-golf course, reopened restaurant and a wedding venue and amphitheater on the hill overlooking the bay.

But first, Zweifel and the team must get the course ready to welcome the public.

Basic maintenance was performed on the course during its closure but even before that it had fallen into a state of neglect with bunkers devoid of sand and overgrown trees and rough.

Zweifel plans to remediate those shortcomings over the winter months and would welcome help from any interested community members. 

He hopes to have a grand reopening ceremony on April 1, 2023, weather permitting.

The reopening will feature free golf and food for members and supporters, celebrating what Zweifel hopes will be another century of golf at Alderbrook.

While 2023 will mark the official return of golf to Tillamook, Zweifel is focused on 2024 as the key year in determining the course’s continued success.

In addition to being the course’s centennial, Zweifel says that after a year plus of ownership the course should be in top condition and ready to welcome golfers from far and wide.

“We’ll challenge every golfer on this side of the Mississippi to golf it in 2024,” Zweifel said, “if their experience is special, they will come back.”

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