A plan to transform the municipal Cedar Rapids, Iowa golf course’s layout into a nine-hole track with a driving range and four holes for instruction has been tabled after the public narrowly chose to keep the course as is. The course’s back nine is flood-prone due to nearby Prairie Creek, and floodwater has closed a portion of the course 19 times since it was converted to 18 holes in 2001.

The municipal Jones Park Golf Course will remain an 18-hole course with its flood-prone back nine intact, the Cedar Rapids (Iowa) Gazette reported.

Sven Leff, the city’s parks and recreation director, said the city has set aside its proposal to transform the course into a nine-hole track with a driving range and four holes for instruction, the Gazette reported.

In the end, Leff said the public divided about 60 percent to 40 percent to keep the course as is during input at city open houses and through emails to the city and participation in the city’s web site, the Gazette reported.

“Many who prefer 18 holes conceded that nine holes is still better than no holes, but they’d like to see 18 if it’s possible,” Leff said.

The flood-prone back nine on the course is out of commission and has been much of this golf season after three rounds of flooding this year on Prairie Creek, which runs next to the course before the creek flows into the Cedar River, the Gazette reported.

C&RB reported on the city’s plans in July (“Cedar Rapids May Take Jones Park GC Back to its Roots“).

Leff and Lisa Miller, the city’s golf superintendent, reported that flood water had closed a part of the course 19 times since it was converted from a nine-hole course to an 18-hole one in 2001. The entire course had to be closed seven times, and each time, the city has paid to fix damage, the Gazette reported.

Leff and Miller proposed keeping the course’s front nine and then converting the other nine holes into a driving range, a three-hole par-three course for golf students and others and a fourth instructional hole, the Gazette reported.

However, the public input raised a number of questions and concerns, among them the question of the domino effect that changes at Jones Golf Course could have on the city’s three other 18-hole courses, the Gazette reported.

Golfers also want the city to again ask the Iowa Department of Natural Resources and the Army Corps of Engineers if there is any way to build additional berms at the course that might reduce the times when the course takes on water, Leff said.

The city will ask, Leff said, but in the past it has not gotten approval for such construction. Additional berms on the course could exacerbate flooding on the other side of the creek or downstream and, in any event, additional berms might not keep the water table that is tied to the course’s ponds from flooding the ponds, he said.

Golfers at Jones Golf Course will be seeing maintenance crews clearing debris and aerating or tilling soil in preparation to seed the flood-damaged parts of the course the week of August 26, the Gazette reported.

The plan is to open all 18 holes in the spring of 2014 if there is no more flooding and if there is no change in the city’s golf operation plan, the Gazette reported.

“We hope to have a great recovery by next year,” Leff said.

The input from the public about the city’s proposal for the Jones Golf Course worked as he had hoped, Leff said.

“It was really good dialogue, really good ideas came up,” Leff said. “People were thoughtful. For good reason, we’re taking our time to do more analysis and think through our options because of their input.”

Golfers who use Cedar Rapids’ four city courses haven’t been afraid to weigh in on the city’s plans for change in the past, the Gazette reported.

Back in 2007, the city floated the idea of selling 20 acres of the Twin Pines Golf Course for commercial development. That idea prompted protest, and was set aside, the Gazette reported.