SEBAGO LAKE – On Saturday, July 27, 100 people will have the good fortune of enjoying an afternoon of golf and good food at one of Sebago Lake’s classic lakeside estates.

David and Pam Donohue, owners of a circa 1919 hunting camp located at the end of Oak Drive on the eastern side of Sebago Lake in the town of Sebago, are opening their sprawling 17-acre property for a golf tourney and silent auction to benefit the Spaulding Memorial Library in Sebago.

The Donohues are longtime supporters of the library and offered the use of their newly constructed four-hole private golf course as the venue for the putting contest, which is a new take on the library’s annual fundraising event. In past years, the library has sold artistically painted Adirondack chairs, said library trustee Claudia Lowe, who’s organizing Saturday’s event. The Donohues’ offer was too good to refuse, she said, because it offers a chance to raise money and have fun at the same time.

It also gives a chance for the inquisitive passerby to see up close the Donohue family’s new golf course, which, Lowe said, has become the talk of the town.

According to David Donohue, who is in the oil and gas industry and has summered with his family at the Sebago property since 1976, the four-hole course featuring three greens was built last summer. Perceptive Route 114 motorists can see the course, if only briefly, from the road.

The professional-looking course features three sets of tee boxes and three large greens. (One of the greens serves two holes.) The Donohue family can vary their playing experience by which tee box they use and which green they shoot at. There are many different ways to enjoy the hole layout, Donohue said.

A Sebago family opens their lakeside golf course for a library fundraiser.

By John Balentine

jbalentine@keepmecurrent.com

On Saturday, July 27, 100 people will have the good fortune of enjoying an afternoon of golf and good food at one of Sebago Lake’s classic lakeside estates.

David and Pam Donohue, owners of a circa 1919 hunting camp located at the end of Oak Drive on the eastern side of Sebago Lake in the town of Sebago, are opening their sprawling 17-acre property for a golf tourney and silent auction to benefit the Spaulding Memorial Library in Sebago.

The Donohues are longtime supporters of the library and offered the use of their newly constructed four-hole private golf course as the venue for the putting contest, which is a new take on the library’s annual fundraising event. In past years, the library has sold artistically painted Adirondack chairs, said library trustee Claudia Lowe, who’s organizing Saturday’s event. The Donohues’ offer was too good to refuse, she said, because it offers a chance to raise money and have fun at the same time.

It also gives a chance for the inquisitive passerby to see up close the Donohue family’s new golf course, which, Lowe said, has become the talk of the town.

According to David Donohue, who is in the oil and gas industry and has summered with his family at the Sebago property since 1976, the four-hole course featuring three greens was built last summer. Perceptive Route 114 motorists can see the course, if only briefly, from the road.

The professional-looking course features three sets of tee boxes and three large greens. (One of the greens serves two holes.) The Donohue family can vary their playing experience by which tee box they use and which green they shoot at. There are many different ways to enjoy the hole layout, Donohue said.

The course was designed by Massachusetts-based professional golf course designer Mark Mungeam and is kept up by Mike Piper, head greenskeeper for Point Sebago Resort, located across the lake in South Casco. It was built in a matter of weeks last summer and incorporates an underground irrigation system, elevated tees, sand bunkers, strategically placed trees, undulating landscape, a bridge over a stream styled after the bridges used at Point Sebago, and even a ball washer at the first tee. The entire course is circled by a hiking trail in the woods.

Mungeam said there are “very few” privately owned courses in New England, and none others in Maine that he knows of. The Donohue course has bent-grass fairways and greens, and the rough is a mix of fescue, blue and rye grasses.

“It was a lot of fun designing the course,” Mungeam said. “The Donohues were great to work with. They just wanted to have a couple of practice holes at their residence to be able to practice playing and have the grandkids come up and play the course. So it was a nice project.”

In all, the course, which the family first played in October, covers about 10 acres between the road and the Donohue home near the lake. David Donohue bought the 10 acres in 2009 from a neighbor to prevent any housing development nearby.

A longtime golfer, Donohue thought a golf course would preserve the natural surroundings while making the land useful for his family’s recreational pursuits. Pam and David Donohue, who live most of the year in Wellesley, Mass., said their goal with the property is to create a summer camp-like retreat featuring tennis, boating and swimming for their children and grandchildren.

Having a vision of a full-sized golf course in the back yard was one thing. Making it happen was another. Donohue solicited Portland-based engineering firm Sebago Technics to comply with state regulations mandating development near a water body. Since no part of the course comes within 100 feet of the lake, shoreland-zoning mandates weren’t a factor, but he had to account for drainage.

The entire Donohue family are golf buffs and in the first few weeks of their 2013 summer vacation have used the course daily.

“All the children and grandchildren love it. Four children and nine grandchildren, and a lot of them play golf. So they get up in the morning, go play golf, then go swimming, then play tennis, it’s like a camp,” David Donohue said.

Daughter Kimberly Cavanaugh, who played tennis at Bates College, visited two weeks ago and nearly made a hole-in-one on a downhill 140-yard shot. Her ball landed a foot from the hole. She’s passing her love of the game to her young children, Brian and Katie, who have their own sets of clubs and enjoy a round nearly every day they’re at their grandparents’ summer home.

“Oh, they love it out here. It’s great,” Cavanaugh said.

While there won’t be family members playing the course on Saturday, many locals will. In total, 100 tickets are up for sale, with 75 already sold, Donohue said. The tickets, $25 for individual and $40 for two, allow entrants to enter the putting contest being held from 4-6 p.m. Around 5:30 p.m. light dinner fare and drinks will be served at the outdoor fireplace and tennis court area overlooking the lake. A silent auction featuring goods and services will be ongoing.

Lowe said the rare chance to visit the estate, have fun golfing, and enjoy dinner overlooking the lake is an opportunity not to miss.

“Pam [Donohue] has been a longtime supporter of the library, and when her family is up here they’re always in the library back and forth getting things. They’re very much members of the community,” Lowe said. “And I think it’s very generous of them to open their property. We’re very grateful for their support.”

Brian Cavanaugh hits a tee shot from an elevated tee box to a bunker-protected green. Sebago Lake can be seen through the trees in the distance.The Donohue clan of Sebago is opening their private golf course to the public for a Spaulding Memorial Library fundraiser on Saturday, July 27. The event will feature a putting contest, food and silent auction at the lakeside estate in Sebago. On one of the course’s greens above, from left, are David Donohue, his daughter Kimberly Cavanaugh, wife Pam Donohue, and grandchildren Katie and Brian Cavanaugh.Kimberly Cavanaugh, daughter of Pam and David Donohue, watches her son Brian tee off while his sister Katie watches.