Nick Glicos signed paperwork this week to become the primary owner of Martindale Country Club in Auburn. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal Buy this Photo

After almost 11 years of being a co-owner of Martindale Country Club, Nick Glicos is set to become the club’s sole owner.

Glicos, who is also the club’s director of golf, has come to an agreement to buy Jim Day’s stake in the ownership in the Auburn course. The sale should be finalized by Aug. 1.

“Over the last six months, starting really in January, Jim and I would sit down and discuss the season, our plans for the future and we would meet regularly,” Glicos said. “It had been 10 years of ownership and we decided to take a strong look of the operation, which prompted some questions of the future and what our future plans were as a business, individually and personally. It became evident Jim was looking down the road, maybe early, semi-retirement. I am still a little ways off of that. So, I was looking more at the future development of the club and the future of Martindale as the whole.”

Day and Glicos purchased the club from the membership back in 2009. The sale comes months before the club celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2021.

Glicos said he and Day have shared a similar vision for Martindale.

“Jim and I wanted for the same things for the club, but I also felt it’s a challenging situation on how you want to move forward,” Glicos said. “I thought we were on the same page for the majority of our time of owners. It was clear to me, maybe it was time for both of us to sit down and take a strong look at where we were and where we are going.”

Glicos said he’s happy for Day, who will be able to do some traveling, spend more time with his family and some of his business interests. According to Day’s LinkedIn profile, he is the President of LRI, Inc. in Lewiston. Day wasn’t able to be reached for comment.

Moving forward, Glicos looks to make the club’s services that the club provides the best they can be. Glicos said Martindale has four services: retail, with the pro shop; the golf course; the Grille 19 restaurant; and the catering and banquet facility.

“I think, basically, to try to upgrade the level and quality of the product and the services that we provide here at the club, investing the future of the club, upgrading the facilities as much as we possibly can,” Glicos said. “Given the current situation (the coronavirus pandemic), we have to be a little careful and try not to do too much at once, but we have a lot of plans for the club to make it an even better place.”

Glicos has brought back a former employee to run the kitchen for the restaurant.

“We wanted to promote our restaurant and we wanted to get a great chef at the club,” Glicos said. “So, we reached back out to one of our former employees who has comeback on board in chef Tony Scherrer,” Glicos said. “Tony was with us for five years, and he has spent the last three years at Fish Bones, which is just a great restaurant. I think Tony was looking for an opportunity for himself and his family, so Tony has teamed up with us at Martindale and we couldn’t be any more excited.”

The pandemic reassured Glicos that he will have a solid foundation around him: Scherrer, along with superintendent Scott Cybulski and operations director Jami Glicos, Nick’s wife.

Glicos has alredy started to make improvements to the property, including seal-coating the parking lot, starting to work on the cart paths, planting more flowers and working on the clubhouse. This fall and winter, Glicos will install state-of-the-art golf simulators in the banquet room.

Glicos has gotten positive feedback from the membership about him taking over as owner.

“They are very excited about it and I think they trust that we will do the best for the club,” Glicos said. “We have an unbelievably supportive membership here and we couldn’t do it without them. We are very fortunate to have them and we want to make them proud of their club. We want to do everything we can to make it a fun place to play and a nice place to play.”