By LEO DERRICK

Golfers at Bryan Park’s two courses north of Greensboro are luxuriating in a plush new 9,000-square-foot clubhouse after 26 years of "temporary" quarters.

The staff completed the long-awaited move the last week in March.

The sparkling contemporary building contains the pro shop, men’s and ladies’ locker rooms and showers, full-service restaurant and bar seating 60, a canopied terrace accommodating 40, as well as storage and offices.

"The quality of the building and amenities will enable us to handle a large variety of social, golf-related and corporate activities," said Randy Padavick, director of golf. "It is a showplace and sure to make the people of Greensboro proud of Bryan Park."

The park is an 1100-acre complex featuring the Players Course, which opened in 1974, and the Champions Course, which was added in 1990. It also features an expansive golf practice and learning facility, soccer fields, other assorted recreational areas and the handsome Bryan Enrichment Center.

The Enrichment Center is a 22,000-square-foot building near the entrance, which can be rented year round for business and social functions. It has complete kitchen facilities and can seat 450. For smaller meetings, it can be subdivided to meet any size need. A patio overlooking the golf course has been popular.

The new clubhouse replicates in exterior appearance and styles the Enrichment Center building. Architect J. Hyatt Hammond of Greensboro is the designer and "has done a beautiful job in matching the existing structure, making the two perfectly compatible," said Padavick.

Hammond is a recent winner of the Golf Award from the North Carolina chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), which is the highest honor the AIA can bestow.

Landscape architect Chip Callaway of Greensboro handled that phase of the work and has been featured in Southern Accents, Southern Living, House & Garden and publications with national circulation.

The late philanthropists Joseph and Kathleen Bryan, for whom the park takes its name, and was a gift to the city and people of Greensboro, made Bryan Park and its expanding facilities possible.

The new clubhouse cost in excess of $1.6 million, including landscaping, according to Jim Melvin, president of the Joseph M. Bryan Foundation, whose express purpose is to evaluate and administer charitable giving.

Much of the land and seven holes abut 1,500-acre Lake Townsend. George Cobb designed the Players Course and later modified by Rees Jones, who also designed the Champions Course.

The park is managed and administered by the Parks and Recreation Department of the City of Greensboro and is situated just off U.S. 29 north between Greensboro and Reidsville.

More than 70,000 rounds of golf a year are played at the two courses.

Prior to his eight-year association with Bryan Park, Padavick served as pro at Sedgefield Country Club for 11 years. A native of Cleveland, Ohio, he left Sedgefield in 1989 for a head pro position in his native state "then spent the next three years trying to get back to North Carolina," he mused.

The courses are totally public and offer no golf or social memberships, although Greensboro residents pay reduced green fees.

"Golfers in this area are the luckiest in the country," Padavick enthused, "because they get to play some of the finest courses in the country for $30 to $40. I know of no other section that can offer the choice of splendid courses for public play in that price range."

The park and courses are open seven days a week and PGA instructors are available every day for individual or group needs.