DOWAGIAC — With warm days ahead, many Dowagiac residents are dusting off their golfing gear to prepare for another season of game play. To help those residents get out onto the green, a Marcellus couple is reopening a golf course just outside of downtown Dowagiac.

Spruce Ridge Golf Course, 26831 Dutch Settlement Road, with soon reopen under new owners, Jaime and Stacey Sumners, of Marcellus. Since purchasing the property in September 2017, the Sumners have been making renovations on the property.

Now, the couple feels they are almost ready to open, with a planned opening date in late May. To tide interested parties over until then, they will host an open house from 2 to 5 p.m. Sunday, May 6, in order to allow the public to view the golf course and get to know the new owners.

“We want to let the public in to get to know us and see the changes that we have made,” Jaime said. “We hope that it will be really fun.”

Jaime said he and his wife were inspired to purchase Spruce Ridge Golf Course and reopen it as a retirement plan for the couple, as Jaime is planning on retiring in a few years. While many people choose to send their retirement relaxing away from work, Jamie said that he would rather spend his retirement building a family business.

“I see this not only as an opportunity for us, but also our sons, who are teenagers at Marcellus High School,” Jaime said. “We really wanted to have something for them. We thought this would be a great family experience. We thought this was something for all of us.”

With the whole family behind the operation, Jaime said he hopes the golf course will be a family friendly place, where people can enjoy an affordable day of golfing. As the grounds of Spruce Ridge were well maintained prior to purchase, the family has been able to put more effort into planning customer experience and working on upgrades to the interior of the buildings on the course, Jaime said, adding that he believes this will add to the customer experience.

“One thing we are really focused on is customer service,” he said. “From the outside to the inside, when people come here, we want them to enjoy the facilities. We just care about them coming back and taking care of them. We want to create a really friendly atmosphere.”

Once the golf course opens later this month, Jaime said that he hopes the public will turn out to play golf and support the new business owners.

“We are all very excited to be here,” he said. “We can’t wait to get everybody in here.”