From military golfers to Tiger Woods: A look back at Stryker Golf Course
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Golfers at Stryker Golf Course in Fort Liberty, Thursday, Jan. 25, 2024. (Andrew Craft, The Fayetteville Observer)
FORT BRAGG — Military families and veterans are urging top military officials to reconsider the 80-year-old Stryker Golf Course on Fort Bragg.
The decision to close Stryker was first reported by The Fayetteville Observer in May 2025, after Cumberland County Commissioners rejected a proposal to move E.E. Smith High School to the golf course site in October 2024.
The 18-hole course opened in 1946 and was designed by Donald Ross, the renowned golf course architect best known for Pinehurst No. 2. It sits just outside Fort Bragg’s gates at the end of Bragg Boulevard across from the Fort Bragg Fairgrounds.
The golf course is set to close Sept. 30 because of “sustained financial losses, aging infrastructure and changing recreational preferences,” Jennifer Hodges, director of Fort Bragg Family and Morale, Welfare and Recreation programs, said in a Sept. 9 statement to The Fayetteville Observer.
“As much as we’d like to keep it open, in a resource-constrained environment, it’s no longer feasible to maintain two golf courses in the Fort Bragg footprint,” Hodges said. “By consolidating golf operations at Ryder Golf Course, we can focus resources on upgrading high-demand community facilities while transitioning the Stryker property into a modern community hub.”
Officials have not made a decision on how the land will be used once the golf course closes, and MWR and the Directorate of Public Works are collaborating on a land-use suitability analysis and environmental assessment “to determine options moving forward,” Hodges said
Golfers at Stryker Golf Course on Fort Liberty, Thursday, Jan. 25, 2024.
Families rally around Stryker
Elle Rio of Fayetteville, who says her father was the first Black medic for Special Forces, disagrees that Stryker Golf Course is struggling.
Rio has started a Change.org petition, which has garnered 842 signatures as of Sept. 11. She said she started it on behalf of Fort Bragg soldiers and families who may fear speaking out, older Special Forces veterans who served with her father and other military families.
Now 65 and having grown up around Fort Bragg since she was 9, Rio said Stryker is not the first recreational place she’s seen eliminated on post, which is another reason driving the petition.
“MWR — they were great when I was young, and in my early 20s, 30s, 40s; and then in my 50s, I started to see heavy changes,” Rio told The Fayetteville Observer on Sept. 11.
She said the post used to have an officers’ club where they’d have a New Year’s Eve dinner with an orchestra.
“The old guys, from Korea, World War II and other conflicts, would come in and do a head count to see who was still alive and share stories,” Rio said. “We’d go downstairs to talk, and then upstairs for a champagne toast and breakfast. My parents took me to that, and I later took my husband. Those were some great times because it offered camaraderie for families, soldiers and retirees. Then they closed it.”
The former Noncommissioned Officer’s Club has been demolished, and parachute clubs where soldiers could grab a drink no longer exist, she said.
“It’d be a typical Saturday for mom to drop you off at the theater. You’d watch a movie, run to the stadium across the street, go ice skating, and further down there was a horse stable. I was a regular fixture. Then they moved the stables out toward Smith Lake, where no one could find them, and therefore attendance went down and killed the program,” Rio said.
PGA golfer Tiger Woods mans a 50 caliber machine gun as he is transported to a golf demonstration in a military Humvee while visiting Fort Bragg Friday afternoon. Woods did a golf demonstration at Stryker Golf Course there on Post. Over 4,000 people got the opportunity to see Tiger give a golf exhibition on the 13th hole at the course. Eight lucky youngsters got personal instruction on their golf swings from Tiger also. The 4,000 people at the exhibition were made up of soldiers and their families. Tiger spent Monday through Friday at Fort Bragg. He trained with some of the soldiers, shot weapons and did two tandem parachute jumps while spending time with the soldiers there. Tiger’s dad, Earl Woods, a former Special Forces officer, was in attendance for the week’s festivities.
There was a field house named in honor of Medal of Honor recipient Master Sgt. Charles “Snake” Hosking Jr., who served with her father, she said.
“They turned around and demolished that and renamed another fieldhouse after someone else. When you have someone who earned the Medal of Honor, you can’t just blow them off and forget what was originally named after them,” Rio said.
Hosking Physical Fitness Center now bears Hosking’s name.
More than a golf course
The golf course is named after Medal of Honor recipient Pfc. Stuart Stryker. Stryker, 20, was assigned to the 513th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 17th Airborne Division, when he was killed March 24, 1945, in Germany.
Stryker voluntarily left a place of safety and ran ahead of the unit in full view of the enemy and under fire, before being killed.
Fort Bragg’s Stryker Golf Course is named after Medal of Honor recipient Pfc. Stuart Stryker.
Rio said the final straw was when annual Independence Day celebrations shifted to late June instead of July 4.
The list goes on, she said. Fort Bragg used to have a theater playhouse, and another golf course at then Pope Air Force Base, Willow Lakes Golf Course, also closed.
“Now they’re talking about Stryker. Stryker makes money, because it’s where civilians can play and not behind gates,” Rio said. “Tiger Woods has been out there. His father served here. It has historic relevance to Fort Bragg. Our fathers, grandfathers, great-grandfathers and in some cases, great-great-grandfathers played on that course, and they brought their kids.”
She said closing another golf course is unacceptable for a military installation the size of Fort Bragg, which has nearly 50,000 soldiers and 80,000 family members.
Rio said she hopes the decision to close the course can be overturned by someone like President Donald Trump, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, Vice President J.D. Vance, Congress or top Army leaders.
Previous reporting: What’s next for Fort Bragg’s Stryker Golf Course? Here’s what could happen
“The older guys like the Triple Nickles and all the Special Forces guys, they need something like this to decompress,” Rio said.
She said she suspects money generated from the Stryker and Ryder golf courses is being used for other purposes, which is why she is asking for an audit.
“It’s measurable, and I and others are not willing to just let it go away because of its importance historically and emotionally to a lot of people,” Rio said.
Hodges, Fort Bragg’s MWR director, said officials understand the importance to the community and are using feedback from soldiers, families, retirees and civilians “to better understand what recreation and entertainment options would provide the greatest value to our community.”
“We recognize the historical significance of Stryker Golf Course and will ensure its next chapter honors that legacy while serving a broad cross-section of our community,” Hodge said.
Golfer Karl Merritt tees off during one of his regular rounds with three friends at Stryker Golf Course on Thursday, Jan. 14, 2016.
She said the driving range and concessionaire in the clubhouse at Stryker Golf Course will remain open, and patrols are encouraged to use Ryder Golf Course, which was named the No. 1 course in the Department of War by Golf Pass.
For Rio, however, the focus remains on saving the course before any future plans move forward.
“We only have until the 30th,” she said. “Hopefully between now and then someone can turn things around and stop it.”
Staff writer Rachael Riley can be reached at rriley@fayobserver.com or 910-486-3528.
This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Can Stryker still be saved? Fort Bragg supporters push to stop closure