During his time at Severna Park High School, Don Harrison cut grass and delivered newspapers to earn spending money. But when he graduated in 1976, he needed a real job.

He doesn’t remember how he landed a gig at the Severna Park Golf Center on Ritchie Highway in Arnold, but he remembers then-owner George Reich asking him on his first day whether he owned a car with a clutch. He didn’t, and that answer proved fateful: Another young man got to drive a jeep with a basket on the back to pick up balls from the driving range.

“He handed me a big metal bucket and a tube and said ‘Hey, you run around and grab them by hand,’” Harrison recalled Reich saying, adding that he would get to work at 7 a.m. “I swear I would do two-thirds of the driving range.”

Menial work at a golf facility can prove harrowing.

“They don’t know what they’re doing and they’re slicing it and hooking it and it’s coming around me,” Harrison said. “I thought ‘I should get a helmet on,’ but I never did.”

He left after that summer to study journalism at the University of Maryland, spawning a 40-year career at WMAR 2 News in Baltimore, but he fondly recalls those three months working at the golf center. Like many in the Severna Park area, he found himself reminiscing recently on the longtime community staple that now appears poised for sale and development.

A developer, D.R. Horton, is proposing to build 130 to 135 townhomes on the site. Though the project is still in the preliminary stages, neighbors are up in arms, citing concerns about added traffic and school crowding.

“Driving by, I would always take a look at it and say ‘That’s where I worked in the mid-‘70s. It’s still there.’ But not for long,” Harrison said. “When you get older you see a lot of things change, but it’s nice to see a lot of things you remember from your childhood.”

Through multiple owners and half a century in existence, the golf center’s putt-putt course has played host to countless dates and children’s birthday parties. Working people have long snuck out during lunch breaks to hit generous buckets of balls at the driving range. And novice and avid golfers alike have honed their short game on its nine-hole par 3 course.

Current ownership acquired the almost 18-acre facility for $2.4 million in 2004, according to Maryland property records.

Owner Rob Brilliant declined to comment.

During his tenure, the facility has transformed into a modern golf center. Over time, it has incorporated heaters in the driving bays, remote ball distribution and camera systems that provide golfers real-time feedback on their swings.

“We are always looking to market to new audiences and when we purchased the center we realized it needed a new set of eyes,” Brilliant told the Severna Park Voice in 2011.

Severna Park resident Alena Chovanec has been taking her family to the golf center since 2009, watching her oldest daughter develop into a top golf prospect while the facility blossomed from worn-down to high-tech.

Chovanec herself developed an affinity for the game, starting with the facility’s “9 and wine” night for women.

“For us, because we are passionate golfers and it’s important for us to improve our game, we mostly go hit balls,” Chovanec said. “We did have one birthday with the younger one two years ago to play mini golf with her friends.”

The par 3 course, which features holes between 75 and 125 yards long, was a perfect training ground for her daughters early in their golf careers.

“We used to play the Par 3 when the kids were younger, when they didn’t really have the distance,” Chovanec said. “We used to play that a lot. It was like a perfect step” before a full-length golf course.

It’s something of a full circle moment to see her oldest daughter Nicol working in the pro shop at the golf center.

This year, Nicol placed second in the state high school golf tournament, representing Severna Park High, varsity coach Joshua Dean said. On the second day of the event at the University of Maryland Golf Course in College Park, Chovanec shot even par, Dean said.

Dean led the golf team to a county championship this year. While the team sometimes practices at Chartwell Country Club, they do range sessions at the golf center.

“We can hit all of our clubs and there’s so many bays that we’re able to reserve five or six of them and really work on the swing paths, on their ball striking, on all those things,” Dean said. “Those Severna Park Golf Center days are really important for them.”

Dean called the golf center as a “community staple” that’s a good place for families with young children all the way up to seniors.

“It’s a good social aspect to our community that I think a lot of people utilize,” Dean said.

He doesn’t know where his team, or Broadneck High, will do range sessions if the townhouse project goes ahead.

Neither does Cape St. Claire resident Ernest Freeland know where he’ll hit balls when he’s not busy running his store, the Bike Doctor in Crofton.

“I’ve used that driving range since the early ’90s. I took my first golf lesson there,” Freeland said. “I think it’s an important part of the community to get to spend time outside.

“It’s rare,” he added, “that if someone’s hitting in the stall next to me I don’t say ‘Hi’ and strike up a conversation and meet someone else in your community.”