Happening Now

This project is in the Design Phase. Asheville City Council approved a contract with Biohabitats of North Carolina to design the restoration of the Municipal Golf Course front 9 holes on July 29, 2025.

In the meantime, the back 9 holes reopened on October 28, 2024. The front 9 holes have been transformed into a temporary disc golf course until golf restoration begins.

As a unique and historic public asset, the Municipal Golf Course will largely be restored to its pre-storm state. However, this project will go a step further, integrating the City's commitment to a coordinated and resilient rebuilding strategy.

In keeping with the historic significance of the course, Biohabitats will partner with golf design specialists Forse Golf Design and Cutlip Golf Design. Forse Golf Design, headed by Ron Forse, is a nationally recognized leader in the restoration of Donald Ross courses. To support this effort and provide local insight, Cutlip Golf Design, based in Boone, NC, will collaborate closely with Forse and other team members on design implementation, and coordination throughout the life of the project. The project will honor the course's historic architecture and enhance its resilience by integrating ecological and engineering strategies.

Background

On September 27, 2024, Hurricane Helene caused catastrophic damage to the region. Areas closest to the waterways were hardest hit with flooding. The front 9 holes of the Municipal Golf Course are in the flood plain along the Swannanoa River and were completely submerged during the flooding after the storm. The torrent of water eroded away much of the course including significant damage to the irrigation system, portions of the stormwater piping, all 18 tee box complexes, all but 3 bunkers, 8 greens and 8 fairways.  The bathroom house was completely washed away as well as a majority of golf cart paths and trees on property.   

Visual aerial footage of the damage can be found at the following video links as cataloged by course volunteers.  

September 27, 2024 & October 7, 2024 footage  

February 4, 2025 footage

The Asheville Municipal Golf Course, affectionately known locally as ‘Muni’, is a public course owned by the City of Asheville. The Donald Ross designed course was opened in 1927, and is one of the oldest golf courses in western North Carolina. The course is steeped in history; Muni was the first public golf course in North Carolina and became the first integrated public golf course in the Southeast. Muni is home to the Skyview Golf Tournament, and both the clubhouse and course were listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2005.  A documentary narrated by Darius Rucker focused on the history of the course and more specifically this history of Skyview Golf Tournament was completed and released in 2020.  

Donald Ross designed the course to highlight the highly variable terrain - the front 9 and the focus of this Request for Qualifications is within the floodplain and floodway and is flat, open and airy. The back nine by comparison is nestled in the steep terrain with tight, tree-lined fairways, requiring a high degree of accuracy on every shot. The course is heavily played, with over 44,000 starts per year. Of those starts, one fifth are by annual passholders. This stark difference in the front and back 9 holes provides players with a wide variety of shot opportunities during a full 18 holes of play, and is part of the uniqueness of Ross' design for the course. 

The course is within the Beverly Hills community in east Asheville. It is bounded by the neighborhood on 3 sides, and the Swannanoa River on one, with Swannanoa River Road in between the course and the river. Several other City assets are adjacent to or in close proximity to Muni including Recreation Park, the Western North Carolina Nature Center and JBL Soccer Complex to the east, and the future Swannanoa River Greenway and Riverbend Park to the west.