Local golf course featured in national magazine for the second time

Birmingham Golf Club in Rusk has garnered national attention… again.

The nine-hole public golf course was featured on the cover of the April 1999 issue of Golf Business, five years after Mark and Angela Raiborn took over ownership of the course.

The feature, written by Ted Johnson with photos by Jay Staub, focused on the Raiborn family’s dedication to making the course successful.

Two decades years later, the magazine revisited the course for another feature in April 2019’s issue.

“It’s really cool to see how 20 years has changed things,” Mark Raiborn said. “It’s nice, too, to have caught the attention of a national magazine again.”

The most recent feature on Birmingham, written by Sally J. Sportsman, reintroduces the Raiborns to readers and illustrates the trials and triumphs the couple has faced over the last two decades.

“All our members and daily golfers are like a whole extended family to us,” Angela Raiborn was quoted in the magazine’s piece.

Golf Business is the official publication of the National Golf Course Owners Association (NGCOA). The magazine, based out of Charleston, S.C., is published 10 times a year.

According it the Association’s website, the NGCOA is the “leading authority on the business of golf course ownership and management. The Association represents the industry’s key decision makers with ultimate responsibility for golf courses throughout the world. The not-for-profit organization is the only trade association dedicated exclusively to golf course owners and operators.”