Susan Huston, former owner of the Salem Golf Club, watched players on the course on a recent morning as she recalled her grandfather planting the club’s first trees almost 100 years ago. 

To Huston, who grew up running around the course barefoot and working at its restaurant, the course and its buildings are like “a big family house,” she said. 

In 2018, Huston became the club’s owner after her father Thomas Kay Sr. died, who had taken over the club from his father, Ercel Kay, who opened it in 1926. 

As owner, Huston has done everything from retiling the cafe’s roof and cleaning toilets to planting flowers and bringing turtles to the course’s pond. 

At the beginning of January, Huston stepped down as owner, ending her family’s almost 100-year ownership of the club, which is located at 2025 Golf Course Rd. S.

The new owner is one of her late father’s close friends, Richard Kreitzberg. He’s a Salem businessman, who also runs Meadowlawn Golf Course, which is in the Four Corners neighborhood. 

Huston said she’s known Kreitzberg her whole life and she believes her dad would have liked his friend overseeing the club.

“If my dad could have chosen what happened, he would’ve chosen to have these people come back here,” Huston said.

The ownership transition happened over the course of 2024 and the new management started at the beginning of January, according to Huston. 

Huston did not disclose when the sale was made during the year or how much the course sold for. The entire property, including the course, buildings and parking lots, is estimated to be worth around $7 million, according to records from the Marion County Assessor’s Office. 

The transition brought several of Huston’s family friends back to Salem Golf Club, including Danny Moore, Creekside Golf Club’s general manager, who will also be the club’s general manager. 

“My dad loved Danny like a son,” Huston said. She remembers Moore playing at the course when he was around 12 years old and working at Salem Golf Club for his first head golf professional job as an adult. 

Huston said the decisions she’s made for the club have been with her father in mind. 

“I think there’s still a real presence of my father here,” she said. “He was a wonderful man, and everybody loved him.”

His funeral in 2018 was meant to be family only, but Huston said over 600 people showed up. The service was held at the Thomas Kay Woolen Mill, which her father donated to the Willamette Heritage Center in the late 1960s. 

Huston’s family has a storied legacy around Salem. Her family built and owned two major landmarks, the woolen mill and Salem Golf Club. The club was also Salem’s first public course, she said. 

Around half of the games played at the club are from non-members, according to Huston. The club has around 300 members. 

Growing up, Huston and her three brothers all worked at the course, usually starting at age 12.

As a teenager, she and one of her brothers would spend nights riding horses around the course, picking apples and swimming in the Willamette River, she said.

To protect the course’s natural environment, Huston said she used organic maintenance and gardening practices so that any apple, huckleberry or fig would be safe for golfers to eat. For her, the landscape is one of the most important parts of the club.

“It’s never been a pride of ownership so much,” Huston said. “It’s the conservation and the great atmosphere for people to be in.”

Conservation was one of the biggest factors Huston considered when getting offers from potential buyers interested in the property. She said she wanted the next owner to continue conservation efforts at the course and use chemical-free practices to keep the plants in good condition. 

“It’s a big responsibility and Kreitzberg is going to continue that … so that made this decision possible,” Huston said. 

Kreitzberg had been on the club’s board of directors for around 10 years, which Huston said is around how long it’s taken to find a new owner for the club. 

Multiple developers over time have offered to buy the club, she said, but she didn’t want the land to become hundreds of houses and wanted an owner who would let everything stay the same, including keeping the course open to the public rather than restricting it to members.

The new management team includes three staff members of Creekside Golf Club, including Moore, the general manager; Shelly Elliot, the controller; and Ryan Woodward, head golf professional. The three of them will have the same roles at both Creekside and Salem Golf Club.

“We’re very confident we can do both without hurting either club,” Moore said. 

The new management plans to improve maintenance around the course, including adding sand to the course, which improves the turf’s health and playing conditions, according to Moore.

Other maintenance improvements will include upgrading golf carts, addressing plant overgrowth and fixing old sand traps. 

He said members and players will notice changes in the hours of operation, which he hopes to expand to maximize playing time. The course’s store will also be regularly stocked based on feedback from players on what they like, Moore said. 

Moore said he’s looking forward to working at Salem Golf Club again, with some of the same people he worked with 30 years ago, including the course superintendent Mike O’Neill. 

“To come back and rejuvenate old friendships … it’s really fun. It’s like coming home,” Moore said. 

Disclosure: Creekside Golf Club is owned by Mountain West Investment Corporation. Larry Tokarski, president of Mountain West, is a co-founder and owner of Salem Reporter. He is not involved in news coverage produced by Salem Reporter. Read more on that here.

Contact reporter Madeleine Moore: [email protected].

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Madeleine Moore is working as a reporter at Salem Reporter through the University of Oregon’s Charles Snowden internship program. She came to Salem after graduating from the University of Oregon in June 2024 with a bachelor’s degree in journalism.