Free golf?! Yes, seriously. At this golf course, rounds cost nothing

The best things in life are free, except for golf.

Golf costs money.

Unless you find yourself within easy striking distance of Sharon, Penn., in the rolling, western reaches of the state where Tom Roskos and Adam Scott (no, not that Adam Scott) were raised.

Born seven years apart, Roskos, 47, and Scott, 40, weren’t friends as kids, but they had much in common. Both came from modest homes. Both excelled at sports. And both were introduced to golf at Buhl Park Golf Course, a leafy 9-hole layout that wasn’t bargain-priced. It was better than that. 

For anyone, at anytime, the price of a round was nada. Zilch. That remains the case today.

“When you’re a kid, you don’t know any better, so you don’t know how lucky you are to have a free course in your backyard,” Roskos says. “But now, looking back, we appreciate how fortunate we were, and we recognize the importance of keeping a place like this alive.”

How a course that charges nothing (one of a tiny handful of its kind in the country) came to be is a story of great wealth and generosity. It revolves around the turn-of-the-20th-century industrialist Frank H. Buhl, who was born in Detroit, but built his life and fortune in Sharon (70 miles north of Pittsburgh), where, in the late 1800s, he founded a steel company that bore his name.

Though Buhl and his wife, Julia, resided in a Romanesque castle, they weren’t oblivious one-percenters, out of touch with local concerns. They gave lavishly to the community, funding the construction of the area’s first hospital, as well as a cemetery, a library, and an Episcopal church. Among the Buhls’ other gifts to the public was a 300-acre parcel, which they purchased and transformed into a park, replete with hiking trails, an 11-acre lake, and a 9-hole course which opened in 1914.

Over time, locals took to calling it the “Dum Dum” course, though this wasn’t thought to be a denigrating name. More likely, it was a term of endearment for a track that was welcoming to all abilities. Elite skill was not required. Money wasn’t, either. That part had been handled by the Buhls, who endowed the park in perpetuity with the aim of keeping its amenities free.

Details of that kind, which were lost on Roskos and Scott when they were growing up, are top of mind for them these days.

In adulthood, as in childhood, they have much in common. From their early days on the Dum Dum course, both went on to careers as certified PGA professionals. In those roles, their paths intersected on multiple occasions. In recent years, they’ve grown more entwined than ever. Scott’s now the director of golf at Buhl Park, and Roskos is the executive director, which, technically, makes him Scott’s boss. But never mind the titles. The bigger point is this: Together, they’re stewards of the free 9-hole course that served as their springboard into the game.  

Roskos has been in his job longer, having signed on in 2015, by which point, the course had seen better days. For all the Buhls’ largesse, there were limits to the funding they left behind. Their endowment earmarked $650,000 a year for the entire park and all of its facilities, not just the course. That was enough money to keep the greens fees at zero, but not enough for proper upkeep of the grounds.

As conditions declined, the course slipped toward the kind of death spiral that dooms so many cash-strapped operations. The board of trustees overseeing the endowment came within one vote of shutting Dum Dum down.

Recognizing the need for revenue, Roskos spearheaded a series of fundraisers, scraping together the money to reopen a driving range that had been added to Buhl Park in the 1990s, only to shutter in 2010. That was something. Buckets of balls brought in some dough. But it hardly amounted to a long-term solution. The budget remained threadbare. There was no clubhouse and no pro shop, just a sign-in sheet at the range. Course maintenance was minimal. Fairways and greens got mown just once a week.

The Dum Dum course was still limping along in 2020, when Roskos and Scott had a chance encounter in an unlikely setting. Scott, who was between jobs in golf, was selling cars at a local dealership, and Roskos was looking for a vehicle. As they chatted in the lot, the two got to talking about Buhl Park.

“We both agreed that, just because a course is free, doesn’t mean it has to be crappy,” Scott says. “But if it was going to be sustainable, more parts of it would have to be run like a business.”

In June of that year, Scott came aboard to help with that. The timing was propitious, with golf being on the cusp of a pandemic boom. Seizing on that momentum, Roskos and Scott beat the bushes for financial support, rustling up money from private donations and grants, which they put toward building a small pro shop with two pay-to-play simulator bays.

More revenue trickled in, as did donations, giving way to a more ambitious project: a clubhouse, with three simulators and a free-to-use indoor putting green, equipped with high-tech training tools.

Every bit counts. A large bucket of range balls at Buhl Park costs $10. The simulators rent out for $20 to $40 an hour, depending on the day and time of year. Snacks and drinks can be purchased in the pro shop, but a round still fetches the same as ever: nothing. And a course that once ran at a $250,000 annual loss is now close to breaking even. By adding clinics and other offerings, Roskos and Scott envision a day when it might turn a profit, all of which would be poured back into the course.

In the meantime, they’ve beefed up staffing and ramped up maintenance. The fairways are well-groomed. Greens now get cut five times a week. On a recent autumn afternoon at Buhl Park, with foliage popping on the tree-lined layout, the impact of these efforts were plain to see. The range was packed. Two of the simulators were occupied. And the Dum Dum course was seeing lots of action.

A par-34 that’s just over 2,300 yards, it would never be mistaken for a championship routing. But it’s everything that a golfer like George Mesaros could ask for.

A 65-year-old military veteran who served two tours of duty in the Middle East, Mesaros was among those out in the fall air, enjoying a course that he plays four times a week. Standing on the tee box of the 4th hole, a short, straightaway par-4, he waggled, swung, split the middle and smiled.

“This place is invaluable to me,” he said. “And you can’t beat the price.”

For more information on Buhl Park, or to offer your support, visit buhlpark.org.