New owners take over Republic golf course

Island Green Golf Club Inc. is under new ownership, according to its Facebook page.

A Feb. 28 post indicates Kansas City-based GreatLife Golf & Fitness took over operations of the Republic golf course, located at 169 Country Club Drive.

Beverly Boatright, daughter of course founder Dale Boatright, said in a Facebook comment that GreatLife Golf is now the owner and sole operator of the course.

“The Boatright family is pleased with upcoming plans and the transition and would like to thank IG Investments, the management group that operated Island Green Golf Club for the past two seasons, for all of their hard work at IGGC,” Beverly Boatright wrote in the comment, noting the course “will be open without disruption to play, excluding required maintenance to prepare the upcoming 2020 season.”

IG Investments LLC — created by Jake Crutcher and Todd Reed — bought the 18-hole, 7,000-yard course in 2018, according to past Springfield Business Journal reporting. Jake Crutcher has not responded to multiple requests for comment after Island Green Golf Club on Feb. 22 posted on Facebook that a transition was in the works.

Reed recently told SBJ he exited ownership of the course in January 2019.

Boatright and officials with GreatLife Golf could not be reached for comment by deadline. An employee who answered the phone at Island Green Golf Club this morning confirmed the sale and deferred questions to GreatLife Golf.

GreatLife Golf also owns GreatLife Golf & Fitness at Deer Lake in Springfield and GreatLife Golf & Fitness at Greene Hills Country Club in Willard, according to SBJ’s list of the area’s golf courses published in the March 2 print edition.

Dale Boatright, who died in 2014, developed the roughly $6 million course designed by golf course architect Jerry Slack. He left it to his wife Jane and his daughter Beverly, who agreed to sell the property to Crutcher and Reed, according to SBJ archives. The course is known for its namesake No. 15 hole.