Golf consultant JJ Keegan was engaged to prepare an assessment that will be delivered to the Louisville Metro Council in September. The study was commissioned out of concern over national trends that show declines in traditional trips to golf courses while driving ranges, indoor simulators and golf entertainment complexes are showing growth.
With public golf courses in Louisville, Ky. under review, local lawmakers and links lovers want to make sure the city’s west side courses don’t end up on the chopping block, reported the Louisville Courier Journal.
The Courier Journal reported that the city parks department is expected to deliver its assessment of the courses in September to the Louisville Metro Council, according to Dana Kasler, Assistant Director of Revenue Facilities for Louisville Parks and Recreation.
The study, being conducted by golf consultant JJ Keegan, will help the parks department identify its niche, said Kasler, who added that in an age of youth travel sports and other time-intensive extracurriculars, “families don’t have a 5-to-6-hour window on Saturdays to play golf,” reported the Courier Journal.
The study was prompted, the Courier Journal reported, by the city’s recognition of, and concern over, nationwide trends that show traditional trips to the links have been declining in popularity for over a decade. The number of Americans age 6 and older who visited golf courses peaked at 30 million in 2005, according to the NGF, and that number has since dropped 21 percent to 23.8 million last year.
Meanwhile, over the past four years, visits to driving ranges, indoor simulators and golf entertainment complexes like Topgolf have risen 54 percent to 8.3 million, the NGF found.
“We need to start looking at these national trends,” Kasler told the Courier Journal. “Are there other options?” `
Some of those other options were included in an e-mail survey that local golfers received this month, the Courier Journal reported, that asked them to consider alternatives in the event Louisville Parks and Recreation decided a golf course was an “unsustainable financial burden.”
Golfers were asked to choose among converting nine or more holes into park space, leasing golf courses to a private enterprise, retaining a management firm to operate golf courses, or selling nine or more holes. A subsequent question asked them to pick which courses they thought should go, the Courier Journal reported.
Seneca Golf Course was the city’s top performer in July, when it pulled in nearly $80,000 in green fees, according to the parks department’s latest tallies. Recently acquired Quail Chase Golf Club was second with nearly $62,000 in green fees, reported the Courier Journal.
The worst performer was the nine-hole Bobby Nichols Golf Course, which collected about $15,000 in green fees last month, the Courier Journal reported. And the Cherokee Golf and Sun Valley courses, both on the west side of town, weren’t far behind.
Tasso Harris, who says he plays at Bobby Nichols three times a week because of its proximity to his home, says the survey scared him at first, the Courier Journal reported.
“It seemed they were trying to gauge which they want to keep open and which they want to close,” said Harris, blaming recent poor upkeep at Bobby Nichols for turning off golfers.
The Journal reported that Tommy Betz, the golf pro at Bobby Nichols, has tried to reassure his golfers that the survey doesn’t imply the course could close. He told the Courier Journal that the course may, however, need some “subsidization.”
Parks and Sustainability Committee head Cindi Fowler, a Democrat whose 14th council district includes Bobby Nichols and Sun Valley, said she agrees, the Journal reported.
“Public golf is a service to the community and it should be funded by the general fund,” said Fowler, who recently introduced a change to a city ordinance that would give the Metro Council final say over course closings. That could “head things off at the pass,” she said, if the amendment passes next month.
Fowler said she wanted to avoid a situation in which golf courses are available only to the public in Louisville’s more affluent eastern districts, reported the Courier Journal.
Republican caucus spokesman Stephen Haag echoed Fowler. “We need to deliver services to all parts of the community,” Fowler told the Courier Journal. “We don’t want one area served and another not.”
Tell Us What You Think!
You must be logged in to post a comment.