A NEW DAY
AT LANDIS CREEK
Pandemic Turned Into A Game-Changer For Lutz’s Multi-Tiered Operation By Tom McNichol, Contributing Writer
I
t was the first week of May and Brian Lutz was remembering what things were like at Landis Creek Golf Club in Limerick a year earlier in May of 2020 with the reality of dealing with a global pandemic was really starting to sink in. “I guess it was May 1 when we got golf back, but we had more time between starting times and one person to a cart, so it was still tough,” said the 50-yearold Lutz, who took over the operation of the old Limerick Golf Club in 2014. “Our banquets and weddings (at The Loft at Landis Creek, a successful catering operation run by Lutz’s wife Jean) were all being cancelled. It wasn’t until June 5 that
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tri-state golfer | Summer 2021
we got outdoor dining back.” Since taking over at Landis Creek, a big focus for Lutz has been developing the Creekside Sports Bar & Grille into a thriving sports bar and entertainment spot. It is anything but a sleepy 19th hole for the golf course and that is by design. And the patio outside the bar became a huge part of salvaging what could have been a lost year for the entire operation. The patio still had a tent over it, erected for New Year’s Eve. So, the patio at the Creekside became something of an oasis in a 2020 desert of entertainment options in western Montgomery County. It was determined fairly quickly that
golf was one of the few things that could be done safely. And golfers old and new came out in droves to Landis Creek and its many competitors in the busy publicgolf scene in and around Limerick. So much so that Lutz believes that COVID-19 might very well have saved the game of golf in this country and it certainly gave his business at Landis Creek a huge boost. “I know this sounds strange, but COVID-19 might have saved the game of golf,” Lutz said. “People who had never played before started to take up the game of golf. Maybe they were scared off before by four-hour rounds, but when it was the only thing to do, they came out and they
