Toccoa Re-names Golf Course; Sets Grand Opening

The city of Toccoa renames its city-owned golf course as it prepares to open the course in the coming months.

Monday, Toccoa City Commissioners unanimously approved re-naming the course “The Links at Lake Toccoa.”

Previously, the course had been known, among other things, as the Pines and Black Mountain Golf.

Toccoa City Manager Billy Morse said re-naming the course gives it the opportunity for a new start.

“We have had several folks tell us we needed to change the name,” said Morse. “We needed a new beginning, a new image. All along, we have been thinking we have much more up there. The city owns 500 acres up there around Lake Toccoa and why can’t the lake be a destination and have venues around the lake, so that the golf course is just one of these amenities up there. We want to have dining. There is already fishing. We want to enhance the fishing up there, put a walking trail around the lake, those sorts of things.”

Morse said that the goal is to name everything with the lake in mind.

Meanwhile, the city commission also set the grand opening date for the course as September 3.

According to Morse, work to get the course ready for re-opening continues on schedule and as planned.

“The course itself is right on track and I think, quite frankly, the course will be available and ready in mid-August, so we think we will probably have a soft opening for the golf course in mid-August with the grand opening to be held later,” said Morse. “The pro shop is a little more involved although I think it will be ready on September 3. We had a lot of subcontractors involved, a lot of bidding to do. It is coming along nicely, but I think we needed a couple of extra weeks to complete that project.”

The city-owned, nine-hole golf course off of Black Mountain Road in Toccoa has been closed to the public since last summer when the previous operator of the course, who leased it from the city, announced he was no longer able to operate it.