Artificial intelligence has reshaped the economy and the job market. It might remake civilization itself.
What it stands to do to a small-town public golf course is a less pressing matter. But in Saline, Mich., a farming community 10 miles south of Ann Arbor, it’s been on Scott Schimmoeller’s mind.
Schimmoeller is the head professional and general manager of Rustic Glen Golf Club, a modest 18-hole facility that was recently purchased by a developer building a controversial data center next door.
Like a lot of people, Schimmoeller has heard the horror stories about data centers — the noise they produce, their gluttonous appetite for power and water. He also knows they’ve been spreading like crabgrass around the country, gobbling up green spaces, including golf courses.
He understands why the data center and the company behind it have aroused local concerns. But when it comes to the fate of the course he oversees, he says his fears have been largely allayed.
“Obviously, like anybody, I can see how a data center could be a concern,” Schimmoeller told GOLF by phone. “But I’ve gotten good impressions about their intentions. From what I’ve heard, they are going to keep [Rustic Glen] as a golf course.”
His understanding stems from word around town as well as from a letter from Related Digital, the New York-based developer that purchased the course. In the correspondence, dated Aug. 18 and addressed to “the amazing Rustic Glen Golf Course team,” Related Digital said its ambitions for the property were “quite simple: to keep it as a great golf course and community amenity for members and the public to enjoy for years to come.”
There would be no layoffs as a result of the acquisition, the letter continued. “The goal is continuity. Our aim is for the golf course to feel the same to you, the members, and to the community for many seasons to come.”
Related Digital is well known, if not well loved, in Saline and neighboring Bridgewater Township. The company, which bills itself as a data-center development and investment platform, has been making local headlines since late last year, when reports first surfaced of its plans for a multibillion dollar, mega-scale data center called The Barn, to be built on behalf of ChatGPT creator OpenAI and cloud service giant Oracle.
Community opposition was fierce, and Saline town officials initially voted to deny rezoning farmland for the project. But that decision was reversed after Related Digital and local landowners sued the town over what they claimed was “exclusionary zoning.” Other legal entanglements and community outcry followed, some of it over Oracle’s request for a 50 percent tax reduction for a project that it said would still generate $147 million annually in tax revenue for the township, county and public schools. By the time the dust settled, Oracle had received the tax break and Related Digital had agreed to donate $14 million to the township and local fire departments.
The Barn is now under construction and slated for completion in 2027, but pockets of resistance to the $16 billion project simmer on, and signs decrying the data center remain on view around town.
Rustic Glen’s history predates the data center fight by decades. The course opened in the 1960s as a nine-hole layout and stayed that way until the 1990s, when father-and-son course builders Harley and Greg Hodges bought it and expanded it to 18 parkland-style holes.
In 2024, Rustic Glen was purchased by Corey Byron and Keith Giffin, Michigan natives with deep roots in the game. Byron is a co-founder of the First Tee chapter in greater Detroit and a director of the Western Golf Association. In the mid aughts, he and Giffin launched Hole Out Golf Shop, an early golf retailer that is still in existence. Together, they also own three other Michigan courses as well as the Coal Club, a private destination club-in-the-making in Alabama anchored by a Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner design that is scheduled to open in late 2027 or early 2028.
The time-consuming demands of that Alabama project, Byron said, prompted him and Giffin to put Rustic Glen on the market, despite the fact that it was their best-performing course. To test the waters, they listed it for sale in March for $3.8 million, before the data center received final approval.
By summer, rumors began spreading that Related Digital was poised to buy the course. The deal was finalized this past Tuesday.
(Another rumor that swirled prior to the sale that Rustic Glen was at risk of being shut down or redeveloped. Those rumors were untrue, Byron said. In its letter to Rustic Glen employees, though, Related Digital cited those rumors as one of its justifications for buying the course, saying that the company had “stepped in specifically to preserve it.”)
Though the sale price was not disclosed, data-center developers have a well-earned reputation for paying extravagantly for land, golf courses included. Last August, for instance, Dauphin Highlands in Harrisburg, Pa., sold to a Dallas-based data-center developer for nearly $50 million, roughly 10 times its assessed market value. The specter of data centers, meanwhile, has become a source of golf-industry concern, with debates raging in at least five other states over proposals to transform courses into facilities that fuel generative AI.
For the time being, Rustic Glen will remain in familiar hands. In its letter to course employees, Related Digital said that prior ownership will stay onboard through the end of the year to help “ensure a smooth transition.” Byron confirmed that arrangement.
Courtesy Rustic Glen GC
What might happen beyond that is impossible to say. But in an email to GOLF, a Related Digital spokesperson reiterated the company’s “long-term” commitment to the course and pointed to its history of operating other recreational properties, including Wollman Rink, a popular skating rink in New York’s Central Park.
Byron, for his part, said that his conversations with Related Digital have assured him that the new ownership “will be a very positive thing for the golfers of Rustic Glen.”
For now, another unanswered question is how the presence of a data center next door might affect the experience of playing Rustic Glen. The Barn’s campus abuts the course at the far end of the driving range and along the 2nd and 3rd holes. Data centers are notoriously loud, producing a persistent industrial hum, and they’re not exactly easy on the eyes. Byron told GOLF that the campus itself was large enough that he did not expect noise to be an issue. But he also acknowledged that it’s hard not to notice a construction site that he said calls to mind “one of those military bases from a Bruce Willis movie.”
Late this past Friday afternoon, as work on the data center continued, the course itself was quiet and the clubhouse and restaurant were empty, according to a man who answered the phone in the pro shop but asked not to be identified.
“There are a lot of people around here who don’t like the data center,” he said. “But I haven’t heard golfers talking about it much. They mostly just seem happy that the course is still open.”
As for the long-term future of Rustic Glen, local golfers, he said, have assumed the same posture that much of the country has adopted toward AI as a whole.
“We’re taking a wait-and-see approach,” he said.
