National Links Trust Signs 50-Year Lease for Rock Creek and Langston, Restarting New Clubhouse at Rock Creek Park Golf
National Links Trust signed a 50-year lease to operate and rehabilitate Rock Creek Park Golf and Langston in Washington, D.C. The nonprofit will resume its paused Rock Creek project, beginning with a new clubhouse targeted for spring 2028 pending permitting.
National Links Trust (NLT) signed a new 50-year lease to operate and rehabilitate Rock Creek Park Golf and Langston Golf Course in Washington, D.C., and will resume work on a new clubhouse at Rock Creek, according to WUSA9. The lease with the Interior Department and the National Park Service was signed Oct. 28, and the nonprofit announced it Thursday, Oct. 29, Golfweek reported, citing NLT's news release.
Both courses will "remain affordable and accessible, now and into the future," NLT said, and the group will "turn its full resources" to them, according to WUSA9. NLT confirmed that its role at East Potomac Golf Links will end "on or before Nov. 15, 2026."
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Work on the Rock Creek project, described as temporarily paused as of May 2026 on NLT's project page, will proceed in two overlapping phases, one for vertical construction and practice facilities and one for course renovation and restoration, according to the release. Phase 1 on the page includes a clubhouse with community gathering space and a restaurant, a permanent headquarters for First Tee Greater Washington, DC, a 50-bay driving range with Toptracer technology, and a putting course modeled after the Himalayas at St Andrews. Phase 2 calls for a 9-hole regulation course and a 9-hole par 3 course. Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner remain the course architects, and both have agreed to perform their work pro bono, according to the release. NLT says the project will be funded entirely by its operations and private philanthropy.
NLT's page notes that conditions at Rock Creek deteriorated over several decades, with hole corridors narrowing and turf becoming sparse, and that the rundown clubhouse "lacks modern amenities and is not handicap accessible." Elsewhere, Five Ponds Golf Club in Warminster, Pennsylvania, a township-owned public course, was set to break ground on a new $25 million clubhouse in October.
Langston is a site "at the intersection of civil rights and sports in our country," NLT says. The group plans to expand the Jack Vardaman Workforce Development Program, which has placed local high school students in paid internships and junior caddie positions since 2021. NLT has invested more than $450,000 in the program, the group says, and students have earned more than $750,000 in college scholarships, including three Evans Scholars. A full-scale rehabilitation of Langston is planned in the near future, according to the release.
WUSA9 reported that NLT once held the lease on all three of the city's public courses, but the Park Service terminated its East Potomac lease in late 2025, saying NLT had failed to make required initial improvements. East Potomac, the largest of the three with 36 holes, is the subject of an ongoing court case, FOX 5 DC reported, and a federal judge's order has barred further tree cutting there. When the course closes Nov. 15, Rock Creek and Langston become the city's only public courses.
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Built by William Flynn in the early 1920s, Rock Creek Park Golf is one of the oldest public courses in the United States and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places, according to NLT. Under the new lease, the rundown clubhouse is set to be replaced, with work projected to finish in the spring of 2028, pending permitting.
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