“Revenue almost always equals expenses,” says a city commissioner about the property. The city has hired the National Golf Foundation for recommendations on how to upgrade the facility, but no action has been taken to move forward with a comprehensive master plan.
Paul Caragiulo, a City Commissioner in Sarasota, Fla., told golf writer Tom Balog of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune that Bobby Jones Golf Club has brought in more than $25 million in revenue to the city of Sarasota over the last 10 years, with Caragiulo estimating there may have been one million rounds of golf played at the course during that period.
“You’re talking about a place, with $25 million going through there, it’s a busy facility,” Caragiulo said. “But revenue almost always equals expenses.”
Bobby Jones Golf Club is a 45-hole municipal that was named for the legendary golfer who personally dedicated the facility in 1927. The club’s original 18 holes were designed in 1925 by Donald Ross. Nine additional holes were constructed in 1952 and another nine were added in 1967. An Executive Course was completed in 1977.
The club’s maintenance contract costs $1.4 million a year, Caragiulo told the Herald-Tribune, which means that $1.1 million per year from Bobby Jones is funneled to the city coffers, after expenses, each year. Except, he noted, when emergencies arise.
“We had a fund balance, but administrative costs [at Bobby Jones GC] deplete funds out of there,” Caragiulo said, explaining that the course’s infrastructure is antiquated and needed repairs have cut into that profit figure.
“The facility is in desperate need of some type of master, long-term plan,” Caragiulo said. “We have to figure out what the whole big picture is, what we need to do, what should we do, and how can we do it?
“The bigger question is whether the city should be in the golf business and in what capacity?” he added. With the city budget for the coming fiscal year starts October 1, Caragiulo said, “This timing is perfect to make this assessment.”
Caragiulo’s comments came during the same week, the Herald-Tribune reported, when professional golfer and television commentator Paul Azinger addressed the City of Sarasota Commission meeting in support of the Friends of Bobby Jones Golf Club, a non-profit organization that backs initiativesit hopes the city will ultimately adopt to address the future of the historic municipal course.
Azinger, who grew up playing at Bobby Jones GC, where he once won the City Men’s championship, has taken an active role in the push for improvements there since being approached by Shawn Pierson, the president of the Friends of Bobby Jones Golf Club, a year and a half ago, the Herald-Tribune reported. The street leading into the Bobby Jones facility has been renamed Azinger Way, in honor of the golfer who won the PGA Championship in 1993 and had top-five finishes in each of golf’s three other Grand Slam tournaments during his career.
“[Azinger’s] is one of those stories of a kid who wasn’t introduced to golf through membership in a country club, but through public high school education and a municipal course,” Pierson told the Herald-Tribune. “He has a pretty clear idea of what he thinks [Bobby Jones GC] is to him, its place in his development and his career. [But] the course he played is not the course it is today.”
The city was forced to spend nearly $100,000 last winter to construct temporary outdoor restrooms while repairs were being made to plumbing in the clubhouse at Bobby Jones Golf Club, Pierson noted.
“That’s one example of money spent on a way you wish you didn’t have to,” he said. “We’re being forced into a corner of management by crisis, and it’s time to turn that around and manage in accordance with a plan. We ‘re spending money on a [clubhouse] we’ve already determined we want to demolish.”
Bridges on the property also need to be replaced, Pierson noted.
“We have bridges that are starting to fall apart that cross waterways on the course,” he said.
The city of Sarasota first hired the National Golf Foundation in 2008, and again in 2014, to make recommendations to upgrade Bobby Jones Golf Club, but no action has been taken by the city to develop a comprehensive master plan to move forward, Pierson told the Herald-Tribune. And a Bobby Jones Advisory Board has been disbanded due to budget constraints.
“There hasn’t been very much opportunity for the City Commission to have a discussion among themselves about the future of Bobby Jones Golf Club and about what all their experts and consultants agree is a requirement for reinvestment in the infrastructure,” Pierson said. “They are all in agreement it needs attention and that kind of attention can only come at the commission level.”
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