ALGONA (AP) – The new owner of the Whittemore Golf Club in northern Iowa is breaking up the ground for a probable crop of corn or soybeans.

The course is just west of Algona.

Kelly Tilges said he hopes to plant a crop this spring, but declined to talk further about his plans.

The nine-hole course in 1969 was built by Ed Elbert. His son, Mick Elbert said there are some hard feelings about the loss.

It’s “something special for a town to have its own course,” Mick Elbert said.

A doubling of the price of corn and a 55 percent rise in soybean prices since the middle of last year has encouraged Iowa farmers to convert idled conservation acres and bottom lands into fields for crops.