FOXCLIFF — It was around the seventh or eighth hole when Doug Molin suddenly halted the golf cart and stepped out. He noticed two gentlemen he’d never seen before had parked their cart on the side of the course.
“Are you guys bringing the course to its knees?” Molin joked.
“Oh, god no,” one of the men said, and they all laughed.
Molin shook both of their hands, thanked them for their business, and after chatting with them for a few moments, climbed back into the golf cart and sped off. Molin always does this when he encounters new golfers at Foxcliff.
Greeting customers, especially when they’re from out of town — as they often are — is a simple and effective way of showing hospitality. It’s so easy, in fact, that you’d think everyone would do it. But ask yourself: how often does an owner stop to say hello?
Saying hello is one of about a billion things Molin has done to revive the Foxcliff Golf Club in Martinsville over the past four years. He and his wife, Paula, purchased the club back in 2021 when it was “knocking on the door of bankruptcy,” and since then, it seems like there isn’t anything they haven’t tried in order to get the place back on its feet.
And, well, the kitchen sink approach is working.
When the Molins purchased the 168-acre course, membership had dwindled to around 80. Now, just a few years later, membership has risen to more than 180 and climbing. During that same time period, Foxcliff has opened a restaurant and bourbon bar, hosted karaoke nights and virtual golf tournaments, and has returned the club to its former status as, in Molin’s words, “a community asset.”
“This may sound a little hokey,” Molin begins, “But I have a responsibility to Morgan County to make this a good place. Martinsville has not always had a good reputation. That doesn’t matter now — today’s a new day. When people come to us from out of town, we become part of the reputation of Martinsville.
“I know a lot of people from here say to strangers, you know, ‘I live in South Central Indiana,’ or, ‘I’m from a little north of Bloomington,’” Molin continued. “I’d love for people to proudly say, ‘I’m from Martinsville, Indiana.’ And I think we’re on our way.”
Revival
The walls of Foxcliff’s golf simulators are decorated with a growing collection of photos of staff members and customers, a trick Molin learned from seeing the corporate offices at Southwest Airlines back in Molin’s aviation days. They aren’t simply wall filler — Molin knows the names and stories behind each one, all representing the joy and memories that have been made at the course over the years.
Molin and his family have lived alongside the course for the past 40 years, and they saw it on its best and worst days. When asked about “what went wrong” with the course prior to his acquisition, Molin declined to comment — like the city’s reputation, whatever the reasons were for Foxcliff’s near bankruptcy were all things that happened yesterday. Today’s a new day.
It’s a philosophy that has driven Molin for many years now. After retiring as the director for the Center for Advanced Aviation System Development’s air traffic operations, the Molins joined with Craig Fenneman and his wife to form the Artesian Group, a partnership that helped spearhead rejuvenation efforts in downtown Martinsville after a long period of decline.
Molin’s work with the group resulted in dozens of building and apartment renovations, before stepping back into retirement. This didn’t last long, though — Foxcliff needed his help.
Molin initially stepped into Foxcliff as a board member, using some of his financial assets to keep the club on life support. When it became clear that this would not be enough to save the decades-old club, the Molins took complete control, preventing the land from being sold off.
“Our messaging at the time was not to look back,” Molin said. “We were totally focused on getting back in a more improved condition. We reinvested everything back into the course, something I fortunately had the means to do.”
When the COVID-19 pandemic brought with it an economic crisis, it would have been very easy for Foxcliff to go under like so many businesses did at the time. Morgan County could have lost another one of its staples, a place people from all around came to play.
Instead, the Molins poured everything they had to keep Foxcliff alive. And that’s hardly an exaggeration.
Cornhole and Karaoke
How to revive a struggling golf course in an era when people have a million different things to entertain them?
Offer them anything but golf.
Now that isn’t totally fair — upon Foxcliff’s changing of the guard, it rolled back membership prices, offered brand new deals for kids, people under 30, grandparents, and opened a small shop in the club house to sell people clubs and apparel. The Molins very much want to grow the sport of golf and keep people out on the course.
But Molin, in between sips of his Monster energy drink on one of the hottest days of the year, admitted he was looking for things other than golf to keep the community interested in coming back.
In fact, it would be fairly easy to visit Foxcliff throughout the year and never play a round of golf. In the spring, summer and fall the course hosts cornhole leagues, an immensely popular move that sees roughly 32 teams compete with each other every year.
Then on Friday nights, there’s karaoke — “They never had music at this golf course before,” Molin said — and children as young as 10 love to grab the mic and sing their hearts out. There’s still occasionally live music on Saturday nights, too, though Molin has rolled this back a little. It was one of the rare moves he’s tried that didn’t quite work — too many other businesses to compete with on that front.
When the Molins moved in back in 2021, so too did Brian Mayo, the owner of the Hoosier Que restaurant inside the club house. After getting a sandwich, adults can wander down the hall to another new addition at Foxcliff: the bourbon bar. The name tells you everything you need to know about it — you’ll never see so many bottles of bourbon in your life.
Ultimately, though, Molin wants to see people golfing in Martinsville, Indiana.
One of his first acts as owner was to reach out to IU students, particularly those in fraternities, to open up the course to them. Molin frequently invites golfers from other clubs to come try out Foxcliff, considered one of the most difficult courses in the region. And Foxcliff still allows the Metropolitan School District of Martinsville’s golf teams to use the course during competitions.
Molin has more ideas for the future — he wants to get more golf carts, and convert the existing one from gas to electric, for example — and the course will no doubt continue to improve.
“The staff and I are always unsatisfied,” Molin says, his golf cart whizzing past some trees he wants to cut down. “There’s always things we see that need to be better.”
It’s an extension of his philosophy. Forget about yesterday — look forward to tomorrow.
