Brett Thoms
Bristol May 21 2022
Norway Bay’s golf course officially reopened on Saturday morning. Now owned by Astra Estates, the owners say it was a long time coming.
“The first tee off was by our family at 7 a.m.,” said Jodi Armstrong, co-owner of Astra Estates, on Saturday. “We didn’t actually . . .
play through, but we did hold that spot because it has been such a journey for us over the past year.”
Astra Estates has five lines of business; a depanneur, an event centre, a café, a driving range and the golf course.
“We opened the store in November, then we opened the restaurant in February, we started taking bookings at the event centre eight to ten months ago, we’ve held a couple of events since, the driving range was opened a couple weeks ago and today was the opening of the golf course,” said Armstrong.
“It still has a ways to go, we’re on temporary greens right now, but we’ve been working with Mountainview Turf and some other experts to get it back into a playable position,’’ said John Edelman, Armstrong’s partner and co-owner of Astra Estates.
The current green used by the course is temporary because the original was overgrown with feral plant life over the course of the location’s three-year-closure, according to Edelman.
Both Armstrong and Edelman said they wouldn’t have been able to get the business where it is today without help from the broader community and their family.
“The community really encouraged this, because we really never intended to reopen the golf course,” said Armstrong, who opened the course due to popular demand.
They’re also proud of their contribution to the local economy.
“We’ve hired 16 summer students, which makes us one of the biggest employers in Bristol,” said Armstrong.
“It’s not all summer students, we’re hiring adults from the area as well and training them in skilled labour, so greenkeeping, working on the equipment and we also got kitchen staff,” added Edelman.
“This was our passion, it was our goal to create a business, we didn’t know what that would be, but it found us,” said Armstrong about her sense of accomplishment over starting the business.
“Now it’s time to get into a groove and hone our skills in all these businesses we’re doing,’’ concluded Edelman.
