Prom Management Group has been selected to manage Phalen and Como golf courses, with a five-year agreement under which Prom would assume responsibility for all financial losses and gains, and introduce its own staffing model. The company is better known for food service at sporting events than golf course management, and currently manages concessions at three local golf courses.

The St. Paul (Minn.) City Council voted to let the parks department move forward with drafting a request for proposals to find a private operator for the in-the-red golf courses. A spokesman for the parks department referred to the move as “kind of a last resort,” after a three-year-long effort to fix the golf courses’ financial woes under the “Compete St. Paul” ordinance.

The city can “no longer subsidize golf,” says its Council President, and a request for proposals seeking applications from the private sector to take over management of at least two of its four publicly owned courses is likely to appear on the council’s next agenda. Rounds have decreased 27 percent since 2005, even with “performance plans” implemented at the start of the current decade.