By early 2025, the nine holes off South 16th Street looked like a course nobody wanted anymore. Fairways that used to hold solid Bermuda turf had gone patchy and brown in places, the kind of decline that happens after years of ownership changing hands and maintenance budgets shrinking with each sale. The people who owned it at the time weren't just letting the grass go. They were quietly weighing whether the roughly 70 acres would be worth more as a housing development than as a golf course nobody was fixing.
By October, that same acreage had a new name, a bookable tee-time system, a public pool, pickleball courts, and a nonprofit board raising money for a kids' practice facility. Nobody voted on a bond to make that happen. A group of residents formed a nonprofit, wrote checks, and the city signed a lease instead of a demolition permit. If you live in Chickasha and haven't been out there yet, the story of how that flip happened is worth knowing, because it says something about what this town does when a piece of shared land is on the line.
A Course That Kept Changing Names, Not Fortunes
The ground has been a golf course since 1915, long enough that it hosted the Washita Valley tournament for 97 years running, which makes it the oldest continuously played golf tournament in Oklahoma. Over the decades the club itself went through a string of names and owners: Chickasha Golf & Country Club for years, then Cottonwood Hills, then Bushwood. Each ownership change came with promises to fix it up, and each time the course slid a little further. By 2025 it had lost most of its turf grass and sat closed for the better part of the year, which is a rough way for a 110-year-old course to head into its next chapter.
The Year the City Bought It Instead of Watching It Get Paved Over
In July 2025, the City of Chickasha purchased the property outright, a move that kept nearly 70 acres of green space inside city limits instead of handing it to a developer. The city had no interest in running a golf operation day to day, so it needed a partner. That partner showed up fast. Close to 120 local residents formed the Chickasha Golf Foundation, a 501(c)3 nonprofit, and raised $450,000 to get the course back into playable shape. In September, the City Council approved a three-year lease to the foundation, and by October the course reopened under a new name: Drover Hills, a nod to the mascot of the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma, which sits a few blocks away.
That's a different funding path than the water treatment plant or the East Grand Avenue retail project you might have read about elsewhere in town. This one ran on private donations and a lease, not a rate increase or a tax increment district.
More Than Nine Holes
Golf was the headline, but it wasn't the only thing the foundation's money bought. A hundred thousand of that $450,000 went specifically toward a new youth practice facility, built with artificial putting greens installed by Josh Wilson of Living Water Irrigation, the Oklahoma dealer for Celebrity Greens, who cut his usual rate to make the project pencil out.
Walk the property now and golf is just one lane of activity. Drover Hills has a public pool, open to anyone willing to pay a small entry fee that mostly goes toward paying the local high schoolers hired as lifeguards. It also has tennis, pickleball, and basketball courts on-site, which puts four different activities on one piece of land that a year ago was closed entirely. If you're looking for a separate free option, the Thunder Court at Washita Valley Park across town got a fresh coat of paint last summer and stays open to the public year-round, no fee attached. Two different pieces of city recreation infrastructure, both worth knowing about, neither one canceling out the other.
Two U.S. Open Champions Tied to One Nine-Hole Course
Here's the detail that separates this course from a routine small-town rebuild. Orville Moody, who won the 1969 U.S. Open golf championship, grew up on this exact ground. His father was the greenskeeper here, which means the kid who became a U.S. Open champion learned the game while his dad was mowing these fairways. The new youth facility carries his name for that reason.
Chickasha's connection to national championship tennis runs through the same property. Don McNeill, another hometown name, won the 1940 U.S. Open tennis singles championship and the 1944 doubles title. The site already had tennis courts in place before the rebuild, which is exactly why the foundation talks about honoring both champions through one recreation complex instead of just one. It's an unusual thing for a town this size to claim: two different U.S. Open champions, in two different sports, both tied to one small piece of ground on South 16th Street. Locals now say the course is in "the best shape anyone can remember," which is a high bar for ground that's been through three name changes and a near-death experience.
What It Actually Costs to Use
For a course with this kind of history, the price to play is set up to stay accessible rather than exclusive.
| Days | Green Fee | Half-Cart Fee |
|---|---|---|
| Tuesday–Thursday | $28 | $7.50 |
| Friday–Sunday | $35 | $10 |
Monthly memberships start at $250, and the course is open to the public Tuesday through Sunday at 2900 S. 16th Street. Tee times can now be booked online, a small thing but a real upgrade from the call-the-clubhouse system most small-town courses still run on.
Why This Is Worth Knowing If You Already Live Here
Drover Hills isn't built around visitors or newcomers. Chickasha High School's golf teams now practice and compete there, and the foundation's whole mission centers on youth golf development alongside general community health and recreation. That's a different goal than a private country club chasing membership dues. It's a public course that happens to be run by people who live in Chickasha and wanted to keep a piece of the town's history from turning into another cul-de-sac.
The next time someone in town says there's nothing to do here, you now have a specific answer: a pool with a small fee that pays local teenagers, four court sports on one property, and a nine-hole course with more national championship history behind it than most 18-hole clubs three times its size.
If you're weighing what a town's recreation options say about the kind of place it is to put down roots, or you just want to talk through what's changing in Chickasha this year, the team at Prestige Realty of Oklahoma lives and works in these same neighborhoods. Debbie Todd, Whitney Krebbs, Brandon Prince, and Bayle Shepherd all cover this part of the state day to day, and they're glad to talk through what's actually happening on the ground here. Contact Us anytime.
