A ribbon cutting ceremony was held introducing Georgia Southern University students and Bulloch County residents to their brand new, 18-hole, championship caliber golf course this afternoon.

The Executive Director for Campus Recreation and Intramurals Gene Sherry began the ceremony.

“This project, the Georgia Southern golf course, is an opportunity for us to provide an experience to many students and community members that have not been exposed to the game of golf,” Sherry said.

The  difficulty of the course varies depending on one’s experience, given that there are five different tee-boxes at every hole.

“The great thing is we stayed in budget, we had four million dollars to construct the golf course and we had another one million dollars to do the support facilities,” Sherry said. “It came from student recreation fees and the increase in enrollment, so that all raised the amount of fees we could to spend.”

With the growth of the surrounding community as a whole, it seemed only right to expand some of the amenities that are provided here.

“Since we have 7,000 additional students here at Georgia Southern we thought we should continue to expand offerings and broaden our horizons which was really the main impetus,” Sherry said.

Georgia Southern University President Dr. Brooks Keel also addressed the crowd during the ceremony. Keel explained that he is tremendously proud of what this new improvement to our community represents.

“We are a university on the move, we’ve said that many, many times and I think this is just an example of how we’re doing that,” Keel said.

Keel said, “If Statesboro and Bulloch County are going to be moving forward then Georgia Southern will be right there with them.”