The Drummondville golf club is celebrating its 99th anniversary this year, but will officially cease its activities on October 15 for at least two years, while the course is completely reconfigured to make it one of the most beautiful golf courses in Quebec. At least that is the wish of the manufacturing company Soprema, which bought the club which was experiencing serious financial difficulties in 2019.
“We are going to cryogenically freeze the golf club for at least the next two years and we are going to celebrate the 100the anniversary as if nothing had happened in 2025 or 2026. But it will be a brand new course, designed by Jack Nicklaus, and which will be one of the five most beautiful golf courses in Quebec,” assures Richard Voyer, executive vice-president and CEO of Soprema.
Soprema is a French multinational, specializing in the manufacture of waterproofing, insulation, soundproofing and greening products for the construction sector and operates four factories in Drummondville where it has deep roots.
The company bought the Drummondville golf course from its members in 2019 with a view to completely redesigning it to make it a prestigious golf course and adding an academy for young golfers as well as a boutique hotel with 60 high-end rooms.
I already told you about this project two years ago, but it will be in the fall, once the season is over, that it will really begin to see the light of day.
Soprema’s objective is to provide Drummondville with high-level recreational tourism infrastructure so that the region stands out as it has managed to do economically over the last 30 years.
As my colleague André Dubuc recently reported, Drummondville has just achieved the rank of census metropolitan region, a status acquired due to the demographic surge which allowed it to cross the milestone of 100,000 inhabitants.
There are six other CMAs in Quebec: Montreal, Quebec City, Gatineau, Saguenay, Trois-Rivières and Sherbrooke. Drummondville and the surrounding region of Centre-du-Québec are a real economic engine with hundreds of dynamic SMEs which have made it a real force of attraction.
“We want people in the region to have access to prestigious facilities, but we also want the golf course and the hotel to become destinations for customers and suppliers of Drummondville businesses,” continues Richard Voyer.
The project is taking shape
The redevelopment of the golf course was supposed to begin last fall, but there were still certain details to be resolved and permits to be obtained, particularly from the Ministry of the Environment.
“We are redoing the entire course, we will have to decontaminate the soils of the old greens where we used a lot of pesticides at the time. We really want to do it correctly,” explains the VP and general manager of Soprema.
The course which ran along the Saint-François River and the golf course will take on another dimension while the paths will now be perpendicular to these two axes to open up the view of the river.
The architects of the Nicklaus Group will use the 3 million unused square feet of the site to extend the course and magnify the landscape, which should make it one of the five most beautiful golf clubs in Quebec.
The club chalet will be found in the new boutique hotel which will be located at the intersection of the Saint-Germain and Saint-François rivers, a natural site currently hidden by the golf course parking lot.
This will be the first Nicklaus course in Eastern Canada. The new route will comply with all current environmental standards, although waiting for permits to be delivered will cause some delay.
“We are going to do the project in stages. We start with the development of the course, the construction of the maintenance buildings and the golf academy where young players will be able to train virtually 12 months a year.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY SOPREMA
Richard Voyer, Executive Vice President and CEO of Soprema
“We will continue with the construction of the hotel which will house a restaurant with a French chef from Strasbourg who will organize exchanges with Quebec chefs who will be able to do internships in France and vice versa. We want to create a destination where people will want to come and spend a weekend in Drummondville,” explains Richard Voyer.
If the Drummondville golf course again this year displayed playing rates within the norm at $60 per round, we must expect a certain indexation of prices once the work is concluded to ensure the profitability of the site.
But we will not display overpriced prices as some clubs in tourist areas do not hesitate to do. We want the region to shine and we want one of the five most beautiful courses in Quebec to become an accessible destination.