‘This is just huge’: Quincy man creating three-acre lake on farm to provide free water for Cedar Crest golf course

QUINCY — A gift from a Quincy man is expected to eventually allow Cedar Crest Country Club to fully irrigate its golf course for the first time since it moved to its current location in February 1979.

Crews with County Contractors, Inc., began excavation work Monday on property owned by Paul Mast of Quincy just north of the No. 7 fairway at Cedar Crest. Mast bought the 72.46-acre property from the Weisenborn Irrevocable Trust of Quincy and The Mary Ann Weisenborn Trust of Quincy for $1.24 million on Sept. 18.

A pond on Mast’s property once helped provide water for the lake that stretches across the No. 4 fairway, the course’s main water source. However, it dried up during the summer’s dry conditions. Cedar Crest was forced to pay for city water to allow for the watering of greens and tee boxes.

Mast is paying for the excavation work that will create an approximately three-acre lake, which will provide free water to be used throughout Cedar Crest’s nine holes on its 5,789-yard course.

“Paul called me after he bought it and met with me out here at the club. He wanted to know if he could do something with this pond to give us more water because it was drying out,” said Jay Schaefer, board president at Cedar Crest. “We only had a couple of feet of water this year because (the pond) has filled in. We’d run it dry.

“Paul wanted to know if he could help us out, and I said, ‘We can use more water.’ He said, ‘I can’t promise you anything, but I’ll check and see what this will cost to do this project for you.’ Then he decided just to go ahead and pay for it himself and dig it down.

“This is just huge for us.”

Mast, 90, said he bought to property to use for farmland. 

“(The Cedar Crest) people seem awful nice, and they needed (the water),” he said. “What I’m doing costs a substantial amount. I’m paying for the bulldozer, I’m paying for the trucks, and I’m paying for the loaders to put it on the truck. I’m making the lake there for them to keep their greens green and fairways green. It is not a 10-cent operation.”

He said he expects to pay more than $100,000 for the excavation work.

“My decision, in my mind, was because of the hard work of the people (at Cedar Crest),” Mast said. “Anybody who works hard is my buddy, so I decided that if I can help them, good.”

Schaefer said the pond was built by Jim Weisenborn, a member of the Cedar Crest board when the course opened at its current location. Mast’s donation to pay for the excavation will allow Cedar Crest to eventually expand its irrigation system. Schaefer said that likely will cost approximately $300,000.

“We were told we couldn’t (irrigate the course) because we don’t have water,” he said. “This will help us look at watering everything because we will have a better water source.”

Schaefer said he believes the lake will be “six or seven feet deep.” He believes excavation work should be complete by the end of the week.

Drains from the pond on Mast’s property can be adjusted to fill the lake on the Cedar Crest property when needed. A large black tube in the levee between Mast’s property and the golf course will handle extra water, preventing the new lake from topping the levee and spilling into the No. 7 fairway.

Schaefer also says plans eventually call for water to run through the fairways on holes No. 1 and No. 9. Underground drainage pipes from the No. 6 fairway south through the No. 1 fairway were installed this fall. Trees and brush were removed from the waste area between the Nos. 1 and 9 fairways, and a water collection area was dug out.

“No. 9 is going to be a true par 5 … or even a 6 or 7,” he said with a laugh.

Schaefer said Cedar Crest doesn’t yet own the 68-acre property on North 36th Street, about a mile and a half north of 36th and Katherine Road. He believes it will be paid for within the next 10 years.

“And then we can look at actually watering everything,” he said.

Membership at Cedar Crest had dipped to about 60 members in 2018. Schaefer says the club now has more than 180 members.

“We had a bad reputation of a lousy golf course,” he said. “(Course superintendent) Scott Gilliland came in and changed the whole thing around. It’s a good golf course. Now we just need water. If we can get the property paid down and borrow more money to put the irrigation system in, membership is just going to take off.”

Before his retirement, Mast and his wife, Joan, owned and operated Master Pattern at 36^th and Wismann Lane for more than 40 years. They have been married for 70 years. They agreed in August to pay for a drug dog, as well as its training, for the Adams County Sheriff’s Department.

“I don’t give a damn about what the Russians are doing. I love the people of Quincy,” Mast said.