JARED SOARES The Roanoke Times

No trespassing signs are posted at the closed Countryside Golf Club, in part to protect the city of Roanoke from liability.

Photos by JARED SOARES The Roanoke Times

As Countryside Golf Club slowly succumbs to overgrowth, Rod Dunker has been squeezing in some final rounds.

A stick is used as a pin on one of the holes at Roanoke's Countryside Golf Club, which closed March 1.

Countryside Golf Club shut down March 1, and concrete slabs now block its entrances, but to Rod Dunker, the play there is as good as it's ever been.

Wednesday found the Roanoke Valley doctor teeing off under a clear sky, with no wait and no fees to play.

"Since they closed, you can't beat the price," said Dunker, who added he's played about six times so far this month.

But with no company to manage the Roanoke course or maintain the greens, Dunker said he knows it's only a matter of time before play is impossible.

"After today, if the course had not closed, they'd probably be mowing them [the greens] tomorrow," Dunker said. "By the early part of next week, the greens will not be puttable."

That didn't stop him from fixing divots on the greens as he played Wednesday. The course may be closed and soon will be unplayable, but Dunker said that doesn't mean golfers should abandon courtesy to those playing behind them.

As Dunker worked his way through the front nine, Casey Wright of Salem practiced on a putting green by the clubhouse. He'd taken the day off of work for St. Patrick's Day and wanted to squeeze in one more round on the course where he said he learned to play golf. But he got "sketched out" when he saw people on the course and stayed on the putting green.

As he thought more about it, though, Wright changed his mind and headed back to his car to grab his clubs.

"It's something you can tell your grandkids," he said. "Countryside golf course will come up, and you can tell them, 'I was the last person to play on it.' "

Roanoke bought the course in 2005 for $4.1 million with the intention of developing it into upscale housing, but that plan never worked out. The city council then toyed with the idea of keeping it a golf course, but with a crushing budget on the horizon, the council decided in February to cease operation of the course.

Now the land is in transition: City officials have been boarding up buildings and posting no trespassing signs at entrance points around the property. The long-term plan is to evaluate the property in smaller pieces, which will probably be devoted to different purposes.

Sections near Frontage Road may go to commercial uses, for example, and pieces near existing neighborhoods may be sold for housing. Others may be left in a natural state or turned into parkland. Last year the council approved a plan that routes a future extension of Lick Run Greenway near or through the property.

Assistant City Manager Brian Townsend said that in the short term, the city's intention is not to keep neighbors or even rogue golfers off the land, but to protect the city from liability and prevent late-night joyriders from turning the course into an impromptu dirt track.

"We want to make sure we're not inviting people on the course. It is closed," Townsend said. "And we are making sure we're not taking on any risk from a liability point of view by not taking some prudent steps to clearly indicate: It's not a park. It's not open to the public. It's not a golf course. It is not open."

At the same time, he said, the city isn't aggressively enforcing that policy during the day. Neighbors can still walk their dogs without fear of harassment by city officials. Dunker said that last week he saw some city workers while playing the course. He waved, and they waved back.

However, Townsend said he thinks that golf at Countryside will be short-lived, since the city plans to adhere to only minimum legal standards for property upkeep. That means it will maintain a 50-foot buffer around the edge of the land, while areas further in -- including fairways and greens -- will be allowed to grow out.

"We are going to be cutting those edges and boundaries, but the great middle of it, that's just going to become meadow," Townsend said. "So I think once the grass starts growing ... the uses for golfing will go away."

Because of that, there's a push by some in the golfing community to work an eleventh-hour deal to keep the course open, either by leasing or purchasing the property. On Wednesday, two men wandered the course with hand-drawn plans, talking informally about potential ideas.

Townsend said city officials have fielded a series of phone and e-mailed inquiries about buying or leasing the land to keep it a golf course. While that option hasn't been ruled out, there are two factors that complicate it:

n The airport owns about 50 acres smack in the middle of the golf course, and the city's lease on that land has expired. That means any new golf course manager will need to negotiate a new lease with the airport commission.

"Anybody who wants to buy the other 140 acres, that's going to be a major 'uh-oh,' " Townsend said.

n All of the golf carts and other equipment once used at Countryside Golf Club were taken by the course's former manager, Meadowbrook Golf. Any new operator faces a significant investment in new equipment, unless they already own it. And Townsend said that none of the inquiries has come from parties who already own courses elsewhere.

However, some of the equipment is still in town. Meadowbrook sold several of its tractors, green mowers and other pieces to Roanoke Golf Cars, located on Melrose Avenue Northwest.

Jake Foster, who owns Roanoke Golf Cars, said he's already received inquiries from one group interested in trying to salvage golf at Countryside.

"It's something we're interested in helping them with," Foster said.

Any potential deal would have to move quickly if a prospective operator wants to salvage the existing course before it goes completely to seed.

But at least that potential operator is receiving short-term help from golfers such as Dunker, still fixing divots on a course not expected to outlast the spring.

"Well, somebody's going to come behind me," Dunker said.