Bent Tree Golf Club in Sunbury will close permanently on Monday, November 16, ending the run of an 18-hole course that central Ohio golfers have played since it opened in 1988. The club announced the closure in an email to customers on Monday, November 2, according to Step Out Columbus, which first reported the news.
The course, at 350 Bent Tree Road in Delaware County, was designed by golf course architect Denis Griffiths and built around the terrain and the winding banks of Little Walnut Creek. Step Out Columbus noted that holes No. 3, No. 9 and No. 18 were among its most memorable, with a layout golfers described as looking easy but playing hard.
The closure did not come entirely without warning. Step Out Columbus reported that conditions at the course had declined in recent seasons, pointing to the severe drought of 2024, which turned fairways from green to cracked and yellow, and to heavy rainfall this year, which left fairways and tee boxes overgrown and difficult to maintain.
Recent online reviews cited by Step Out Columbus echoed those frustrations, with golfers who once called the course top notch describing fairways in poor condition this season. For longtime regulars, the announcement still landed as a surprise, coming in the middle of the fall golf season with only two weeks of play remaining.
Bent Tree is not the first central Ohio course to disappear. Step Out Columbus compared its closing to that of Cooks Creek in South Bloomfield, another area course whose loss narrowed the options for public golfers in the fast-growing suburbs north and south of Columbus.
Golfers who want a final round at Bent Tree have until November 16 to play it. As Step Out Columbus reported, the course will be gone from central Ohio’s lineup come 2027 unless a new owner steps forward to buy and reopen it — and no such purchase has been announced.
Photo: Famartin, CC BY-SA 4.0