Photo courtesy of NEW HAMPSHIRE GOLF HALL OF FAME The late Phil Friel, who was inducted into the N.H. Golf Hall of Fame in 2018, built Green Meadow Golf Club some 60 years ago on the old Steele Farm in Hudson.

HUDSON – A deal is in the works between members of the Friel family and representatives of a Dallas-based industrial real estate developer regarding the future of the nearly 400 acres of land in southern Hudson known for generations as the Green Meadow Golf Club.

“It’s been 60 years. That’s a long time. We’ve been doing this our whole lives,” Dave Friel, who owns Green Meadow with his brothers, Tom Friel and Philip Friel III, said Sunday.

But Green Meadow loyalists, who for decades have come from all over south-central New Hampshire and northeastern Massachusetts to tee it up on one of the two 18-hole courses, can take solace in having one more season to look forward to.

As it stands now, Green Meadow will open next week, either on or just after Monday, May 11, the date on which Gov. Chris Sununu’s latest order allows all New Hampshire golf courses to open.

Assuming the pandemic doesn’t force opening day to be postponed, Green Meadow golfers will have roughly 5 1/2 months to play the courses before they close for good at the start of November.

Telegraph photo by DEAN SHALHOUP Very few people have ever seen the gates on Steele Road leading to Green Meadow Golf Club closed and locked on a 75-degree Sunday in May, but the courses are expected to be open next week for Green Meadow's final season.

Meanwhile, the World Cup Golf Center, the all-grass driving range and golf and ski retail store adjacent to Green Meadow, will not be affected by the sale, Dave Friel said.

Operated by golf pro Seth Dichard, World Cup features heated winterized tee boxes, and offers private and group golf lessons for youth and adults, along with golf clinics and summer camps.

Friel said Sunday that he and his brothers have been approached “hundreds of times” over the years by people, groups of investors and developers interested in purchasing the property.

According to Hudson property records, the two parcels that make up the courses and associated buildings total just under 400 acres, and are together assessed at roughly $4.4 million.

Friel said the firm purchasing the property, Hillwood Investment Properties, a Dallas-based developer of industrial warehouse and distribution centers, “felt like a good fit” for the town and the area surrounding the property.

Telegraph photo by DEAN SHALHOUP The World Cup Golf Center and golf and ski store, operated by Seth Dichard, are not part of the sale of its neighbor, Green Meadow Golf Club.

“We did quite a bit of research, and this group seems like a good company that would be a good fit,” Friel said of Hillwood. “It seems they’ll be invested in the community.”

The closest Green Meadow has come to changing hands was about a dozen years ago, when developers interested in building a large retail and residential complex that would have included a hotel and been anchored by a casino.

Elaborate preliminary designs included proposals like a “moving walkway,” a pedestrian bridge resembling a level escalator that would transport people over the Merrimack River between Hudson and Nashua, based on speculation of development – including a train station – on the Nashua side.

The idea was scrapped, Friel said, when the 2008 recession hit, causing interested parties to withdraw from the project.

Telegraph photo by DEAN SHALHOUP A groundskeeper mowing near Steele Road was the only activity at Green Meadow Golf Club on Sunday, but that is expected to change next week when the courses open for the club's final season.