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All In The Family  |  Trull Mill Was Many In Area  |  New 18-Hole Public Golf Course Taking Shape On Trull Farm

COMMONWEALTH GOLF • SUMMER/FALL 2006

All in the Family
by James Y. Bartlett

At a number of venues around the state, running a golf course has become a family legacy Massachusetts can boast quite a number of family-owned and operated golf courses, but Bailey Trull, the founder and former owner of Trull Brook Golf Course in Tewksbury has them all beat.

"I’m 13th generation that has lived on this same land," Trull says proudly. "My kids, who are now running the business, are the 14th." For those keeping score at home, that’s more than 200 years of Trulls working in the same place.

Of course, for more of that time, the land was farmed, not golfed. Still, it’s quite an impressive record. And one that almost was broken in the early 1960s.

Trull, who attended Cornell University, had settled in Syracuse. He came home for a visit one year and his father told him he was planning to sell the family farm, located on several hundred rolling acres alongside the Merrimack River. Trull, who had seen several golf courses built in and around both Ithaca and Syracuse, went home, told his wife they were moving back to Massachusetts, and decided to transform the family business from farming to golf.

"The banks thought I was crazy," he recalls, "But Arnold Palmer was changing the game, from its former image as a country-club sport to one that appealed to a more blue-collar clientele. He made it possible for a business like ours to succeed."

Bailey Trull was later one of the founding members of the National Golf Course Owners Association. "I remember I used to send our professional to the PGA Show and our course superintendent to their national meeting, and I never got to go anywhere!" he laughs. "There was no one to represent us, the public golf course owners. So, with the help of the National Golf Foundation, a few of the fellows and I got together and formed an organization. Today, there are more than 6,500 members all over the world."

Three years ago, Trull passed on the baton to his two sons. Roy Trull is the course superintendent and his brother William serves as a general manager. In addition to the 18-hole golf course, Trull Brook operates an indoor tennis center, bringing in some winter season income.

Like many family businesses, the two Trull brothers started out as teenagers, sweeping the parking lot, just as Bailey himself started out working on the family farm. "I think the boys get along," Bailey says. "I mean, there are always things that come up between brothers, but they’re doing a great job."

All In The Family  |  Trull Mill Was Many In Area  |  New 18-Hole Public Golf Course Taking Shape On Trull Farm