Logan Hogge is unsure if he would have ever won the Clark’s Pump-N-Shop Kentucky Amateur or been a runner-up at the Kentucky Open if it wasn’t for Old Silo Golf Course in Mount Sterling. While he was in high school, he and his cousin would get dropped off at Old Silo once class was out of session. They would play golf for free and all that was asked in return was they return and clean carts during the evening hours.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that golf course made me a better player,” said Hogge. “The shots you were challenged with hitting there couldn’t be found at the other courses in the area. I grew up playing there and I’m glad I did. It was the best course in that part of Kentucky and one of the top-five places to play golf in the state, in my opinion.”

A decade and a half has passed since Hogge would play there after he finished school. Since then, Hogge has won the State Amateur (2015), been the low amateur in the State Open (2015) and was the runner-up and low professional at the Open (2017). The golf course Hogge and tons of Kentucky golfers fell in love with encountered a significantly sadder stretch during the 2010s.

Today, there are no rounds of golf to be played by Hogge, high school students or any Kentuckian looking for a tee time at the space just north of exit 110 on I-64. Old Silo Golf Course was once able to offer that, but the awe-inspiring layout has instead turned into a desolate space offering little more than residency to deer and coyotes.

With great fanfare, Old Silo Golf Course opened its doors in 2000. Graham Marsh, a winner of twenty Japan Tour events, ten European Tour titles, and the 1977 RBC Heritage, led the design of what was one of his first projects in the United States. In the previous dozen years, Marsh was the architect behind a bevy of golf courses in Australia and Asia; many of which have been lauded as top courses on their respective continent.

Not long after the 1^st tee at Old Silo began welcoming Kentuckians to the starting point of a golf course vastly different from others found in between Lexington and the state’s eastern border, players immediately began raving about their experience. The golf course was being tossed in the bucket of the Kentucky golf space usually reserved for facilities like Valhalla or Olde Stone. The key difference was that Old Silo was a daily-fee operation open to the general public. As a result, Mount Sterling had suddenly become a must-visit for golfers so that they could see Old Silo for themselves.

Major publications took note. In 2003, Golf Digest pegged it as the number one public course in Kentucky. A year earlier, Golf Digest put it in sixth place on their list of “New Affordable Public Courses in America.” USA Today and Golf Magazine each completed features about Old Silo during its infancy which spread word of mouth even more. A decade later, it was still looked at as “the” public golf course in Kentucky with PGA.com ranking it as such in their ranking of daily-fee facilities across the state in 2013. Golfweek replicated that praise the next year.

One of the facility’s first head professionals was Mike Beverly, PGA. A West Virginian who had been working at a golf course in Kansas prior to Old Silo’s opening, Beverly was offered the chance to lead Old Silo’s golf operations in 2001. It was an easy offer to accept as he got to move closer to his family while his wife, a Lexington native, got to return to her home state. Beverly accepted the job while he was still in the Midwest and came to Old Silo as an employee blind, not knowing what exactly he would be walking into. His expectations were blown away upon his first visit.

“Everything about it was perfect,” recalled Beverly. “Bentgrass from tee to green, smooth concrete cart paths… it was as good as you could ask for in a public golf course anywhere in the country when it first opened.”

From the everyday golfer’s perspective, David Hill, better known to some on the internet as One Bearded Golfer, was one of those who fell in love with the property and made it a point to continually come back. With each experience, his love for the facility continued to grow. In a 2014 blog post about Old Silo, Hill said “the endearing impression has been that the course conditioning has been as near to perfect as one can expect in Central Kentucky, regardless of season or weather.”

That’s before digging into some of the memorable shots or holes golfers would come across on the property. Holes 6 and 16 stood out to Hill as his personal favorites and many others would have agreed, but each of the other sixteen holes offered something that would resonate for one reason or another. Whether it was the uniquely reachable par-four 2^nd, the daunting par-three 7^th or the memorable par-five 18^th going up a hill straight towards the clubhouse, golfers couldn’t skip a hole without missing something that would demand their attention. 

Not long after Hill’s original blog about what had been the standard for public golf in Kentucky, the narrative around Old Silo began to change. The bunkers evolved from featuring shiny white sand to dry, unkept pits of dirt. Missing the fairway by a yard would lead to a lost ball because the grass was too thick and high to find a tee shot that wasn’t far from being perfect. The fairways themselves became so vulnerable that a golf cart traveling on the right spot would result in the cart spinning out and the turf coming straight out of the ground.

It got to the point that Hill had no other choice but to write a second blog early in 2016 cautioning readers that his original post two years earlier was no longer valid because of Old Silo’s disrepair. The strong bones of Marsh’s design remained visible, but the golf course was not getting the treatment necessary to fully function any longer. Negative word of mouth continued to spread with fewer and fewer golfers stepping onto the 1^st tee, and by the summer of 2017, the golf course had closed.

Following its shutdown, the golf course still looked like, well, a golf course. It would just need some TLC before reopening, based on this 2017 aerial video from YouTube user Brent Reeves.

But it has not reopened. And a recent visit to Mount Sterling in February 2023 demonstrated that almost six years of inactivity have not been kind to what used to be a premier golf course. Now, the strong bones of Marsh’s design have eroded into dust. A golfer not from Kentucky could be forgiven if they were on an airplane, saw the property from above during a flight into Lexington, and failed to recognize there was once a golf course occupying that land.

So, what happened? It’s a more loaded question than one would think, as search results on Google would indicate. Typing something in like “Old Silo Golf Course closure” will generate many reviews or listings about the facility that are more than a decade old along with a 2018 article from the Mount Sterling Advocate regarding a lawsuit that was filed after Old Silo closed its doors. Few other details exist on the internet about what has happened with the property in the last five years.

Hill believes that from the perspective of the facility’s operators during its final days, his 2016 blog detailing the then-troubled grounds were used as a scapegoat to deflect from the facility’s problems.

“I caught a lot of grief for writing that (2016 blog),” said Hill in a Twitter conversation about Old Silo’s closure. “Which was fine, because it was all true.”

In a follow-up conversation with Hill expanding on that tweet for this story, he clarified the facility’s operators at the time accused him of “killing it.”

“They said my negative long-form review hastened the downfall. I told the truth about how bad it was before it was dead.”

Of course, one negative blog did not stick the dagger in the metaphorical heart of Old Silo. Some of the factors that were beyond the facility’s control which ultimately led to the facility shutting down include the 2008 recession and the 2010s oil glut. The difficulty of paying enough employees to properly maintain a golf course that encompassed over 200 acres when Americans were limiting the amount of trips they would take with their cars surely crushed the amount of revenue Old Silo was bringing in during its latter years of existence. Even before those global catastrophes began, Beverly recounted the difficulty of regularly bringing in visitors during the early 2000s.

“Fixed costs don’t stop for a golf course regardless of what day of the week it is,” explained the facility’s former head pro. “Convincing people to drive at least 30 minutes to visit the golf course was tough on weekends, let alone on weekdays. Golfers in Lexington for instance, they had plenty of options to play at facilities much closer to their homes. Obviously with Louisville being another hour away, it was even harder to get visitors from there.”

There is no shortage of ideas on what could have saved the golf course, or perhaps even save it from needing saving in the first place. Many people have pointed towards the original design from Marsh and believe with Old Silo being one of his first American designs, he simply did too much right away and wanted to swing for the fences immediately in order to land more projects in the US down the road. Jeff West, an amateur golfer who lives within ten miles of Old Silo, is one of those who feels that way.

“It was certainly an ambitious design for a town like Mount Sterling,” explained West. “To build a golf course with 100 bunkers and have those properly maintained is a tall task when your greens fees weren’t super high and your membership packages were inexpensive as well. I also don’t think enough respect was given to Somerset Creek during the design process either.”

The creek in question meandered its way through the golf course but was a particularly signature feature on the popular 6^th and 16^th holes. Oftentimes after heavy rains, both holes would be saturated and subject to damage from golf carts or even foot traffic if enough people traversed vulnerable areas. Frequent flooding made those holes especially tough to keep up in pristine condition.

As for the bunkers, Beverly made a pitch during his employment to scrap one-third of the bunkers Marsh had constructed.

“There were about 35 bunkers I recommended to be removed sometime around 2003. Those could have been filled and I highly doubt most players would have noticed any difference in how the hole would play or think anything less about the golf course if those bunkers were done away with.”

Ultimately, that suggestion never got implemented. A 2007 article from Golf Course Industry estimated at the time it costs a facility between $300,000 to $350,000 to maintain bunkers at “championship conditions” every year. And that’s with the caveat that most golf courses typically have a bunker count that doesn’t go much beyond 60. Old Silo was trying to maintain nearly two times as many.

This of course took place during a time when golf’s stock was trending downwards. The market was oversupplied with golf courses in the early 2000s and Old Silo, despite its beauty, was competing for a limited number of customers compared to what has been seen during the post-COVID boom in participation. Getting customers in the door at a consistent rate to collect the proper funding became more of a challenge each year for Old Silo.

“People don’t understand how quickly bunkers, cart paths, irrigation, roofing and so many other elements can go downhill if money isn’t coming in,” Beverly cautioned. “When the money that is coming in doesn’t go to the right places, it becomes impossible to properly maintain a facility.”

Although the golf course closed and has been in a holding pattern of inactivity for six years now, the clubhouse had seen activity for a period of time from a separate operator. In 2020, a restaurant began business as a stand-alone operation in what had been Old Silo’s food and beverage operation before 2017. Silver Creek Restaurant & Bar, which bears the name of the neighborhood bordering the property, served customers through the autumn of 2021 before also permanently closing. Exact reasons why it shut down are unknown as of this story’s publishing.

Signage and equipment have been mostly untouched since the restaurant ceased operations. In the year-plus since, human activity on Old Silo has been sparse. As the lawsuit referenced above ordered, the property is to maintain the “look” of a golf course for the indefinite future. Certain parts of the land provide that impression, most of which are by the clubhouse. The driving range and 1^st hole, for instance, bear some resemblance to the glory days. The further west you head, the more the golf course appearance tapers off as evidenced in the area by Somerset Creek. As West illuminated, the strength of that water when added onto by rain has made that area difficult to maintain. That has also caused at least one bridge to become impassable.

The scenery is sobering and especially difficult to behold for the many who loved Old Silo. Positive memories that so many players created on its premises are increasingly more difficult to picture as the years go by and the land remains golf-less.

“I drive by there every so often just to reminisce and I can’t help but get sad,” said West. “It’s difficult to stomach and with how the area by Somerset Creek has changed, I can’t even begin to imagine the amount of engineering that would be required to bring those holes back to a playable level.”

“It tears my heart out to see it like this,” said Beverly. “I visited Kentucky a year and a half ago and when I went through Mount Sterling to see Old Silo, it was gut-wrenching. In the back of your mind, you just wish you could become a millionaire if for no other reason than to bring it back yourself. The community loved this course and it’s a significant loss not just for Mount Sterling, but the whole state.”

“I live two minutes from Old Silo and I hate seeing it the way it is today,” said Hogge. “It’s tough to look at knowing what it used to be. Rumors have popped up every now and then like ‘the driving range is going to open’ or ‘nine holes are going to open.’ Nothing ever materializes though and it’s pretty much stuck at ground zero.”

Old Silo’s fate is all the more fascinating, and important to consider given the immediate praise Park Mammoth Golf Course in Park City has received since its rebirth in 2022. The two properties share a lot in common in that they are both about half an hour away from one of the state’s most populated cities (Park Mammoth is 30 minutes north of Bowling Green), they occupy land that is close to an interstate (Park Mammoth is five minutes removed from multiple exits on I-65), and they are/were open to the general public.

Much like Old Silo, Park Mammoth has also become an award-winner in a matter of months since opening. Golf Digest ranked it the 3^rd best new public golf course. GOLF.com listed it in the top 5 of all courses in Kentucky. As the facility continues to add new features and grow in, it seems destined to attract further recognition.

What Park Mammoth has that Old Silo did not include a minimalist design from Brian Ross and Colton Craig. A fraction of the land is utilized in their Park City routing compared to Marsh’s in Mount Sterling. Consequently, walking 18 holes at Park Mammoth is doable for those that don’t want to ride in a cart. Anyone who would attempt to trek Old Silo by foot during a round of golf may as well have booked a reservation to a local hospital once they put the flagstick back in the hole on the 18^th green. Was it impossible? No, but certainly not recommended.

Along the same lines, Park Mammoth was laid out to be very accommodating to players of all skill levels. Few forced carries are required and while a fair amount of bunkering exists, it pales in comparison to the amount Old Silo featured. A slope/course rating for men from the tips of 127/70.1 exemplify Park Mammoth’s friendly nature.

Old Silo was a more daunting task to high-handicappers with men looking at 139/74.6 from its deepest tees. Of the few negative reviews the golf course got before conditioning took a turn for the worst, one citation given was the high difficulty it presented that could make it less fun for beginners.

While those elements may not have helped the facility during its struggles, it goes without saying the golf course would not have had the “wow” factor it did during its peak years if the property was tamer or more condensed. Old Silo was highly regarded for a reason and as Beverly wondered, “perhaps it was ahead of its time.”

And it’s difficult to not hypothesize how things could have played out differently for Old Silo if a way had been found to keep it open through March 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic began. Would the influx of new golfers and returning players have generated enough business and interest to usher in a return to glory? In a section of Kentucky without too many golf courses when people were desperate to get outside and travel, it very well might have.

We’ll never know the answer to that question, but as difficult as it may be to believe given its current state, there is some optimism good news could be on the horizon for Old Silo. Sources who requested anonymity for this story indicated later in the year the lawsuit which has lingered over the golf course since its closing will be dismissed, allowing action to be taken on the grounds. What exactly that looks like and could lead to is unknown, but any form of Old Silo Golf Course being resurrected would be nothing short of a major victory for Mount Sterling and golfers across Kentucky.

For the time being, Old Silo remains a sad if not fascinating tale for Kentucky golf. Those who got to experience it in its heyday can hang on to the memories they created there, but for everyone, it’s a case study worth examining when it comes to how thin the line can be from a golf course going from stardom to out of business.