Wholesale Golf Clubs News for you

The board of directors of the Hooper Golf Club has been in negotiations with Walpole’s selectmen to extend the club’s lease on the historic, nine-hole course. But instead of the five- or 10-year extension the club’s leadership hoped to secure, the lease will continue only to the end of 2012. “We’re in a good position right now, but it’s wait-and-see on the future of the golf course and that property,” golf club secretary Fred Hughes said. The selectmen — who oversee the Hooper Trust, which owns the land — say they may be forced to sell the land to shore up the trust’s finances. Trustee of Trust Funds Jerome S. Galloway agrees that selling the land is the best way to honor the will of George L. Hooper, who bequeathed the land to the town almost 100 years. “From my perspective it would be better off for everybody if it were sold. We need to fulfill the fiduciary responsibility to the trust,” he said. Trustees of trust funds manage a town’s various savings accounts, including trusts such as this one. But some Walpole residents say the golf course has more than fiduciary value. It’s not only golfers who would have one fewer place to play if the links were sold, according to Marcia Galloway, co-chairman of the Walpole Conservation Commission and president of the Hooper Hill Hoppers, the town’s snowmobile club.