FLETCHER, N.C. (WLOS) — Broadmoor Golf Links was demolished after Helene hit western North Carolina, and their recovery was nothing short of a group effort.
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The owner of Dreamcatcher Broadmoor Zeke Cooper, the company that leases Broadmoor Links from the Asheville Airport Authority, said it was unbelievable and kind of surreal.
“The golf course was still under water at that point. There was probably 10 to 12 feet of water still on the golf course. You could see areas where the water had started receding; all you saw was mud, a foot of mud at least. And so when we got in the building, we knew how bad it was because we had lost everything. There wasn’t anything left,” Cooper said. “The only thing that we had that worked here at that point were probably shovels and rakes. And it was just; you’re sitting there thinking, ‘Well, what do you do now?’ You can’t really put your brain around, like, where do you start, for one? Is this place ever going to reopen again?”
He also added that like a lot of people, he was trapped and didn’t see other parts of the mountains and what they were going through.
“We still didn’t know how bad it was throughout western North Carolina at that point. As everybody knows, we didn’t have cell phone service or have communication. We had no idea. We didn’t know if it was just the Mills River/Fletcher area or how bad it was,” Cooper said. “You sit around and you’re sad, and you feel sorry for yourself, and you hope, but eventually it’s like, ‘Alright, what can we accomplish today? Today, we’re just going to get the mud out in front of the doors so we can walk in the building without having to walk through the mud. Tomorrow, we’re going to clean the parking spots so we can pull our car in the parking lot and not have mud everywhere. The next day, all right, let’s pull some carpet out of the pro shop. And it was just kind of like that for weeks, just every day, one of the small little things that we can do today that hopefully are going to catch up and help out later.”
They have big plans for the new year, including new bunkering, new Fairways, and a new golf workshop in the pro shop. The damage was so severe that they had to relocate three golf holes, 10, 11, and 12, with the opportunity to expand the driving range. There will be 40 covered bays, half of which are enclosed with heaters. Cooper said all 40 bays have top tracer technology. Every target green on the driving range will be lit up and long enough that a big net is not necessary. There will also be a 20,000-square-foot putting green with 18 holes.
Cooper wants these new additions to bring fun to the whole family, even when the sun goes down.
“I want that thing full of kids and families and guys and gals out there having a good time, just putting around. The same thing with inside, with the new Bevy Barn Grill,” he said.
Trey Wyatt, who is the head golf pro at Broadmoor Links, was pleased to see the unification of people who helped make these plans a reality.
“It was a lot of staff getting together and almost like a group hug because we knew we had a lot of stuff that we were going to get,” Wyatt said. “I was fortunate enough to be here through the whole renovation that we’ve done to the course and also the range. Those are things are going to really bring the community together. And I think it’s sometimes this is what, tragedy has brought, something really good to Asheville, North Carolina.”
Wyatt said if you played this course in the past, it will have a different type of play by spring 2026.
“It’s more of a style tour and links facility, so there’s going to be a lot of tight mowed areas,” he said. “But the greatest thing that we’re going have here is—it’s going be hard to miss—a fairway because we’ll have more fairway than we do rough.”
Broadmoor Links is set to open to the public around May or June of 2026.
