Golf, parks planning, and too many courses

As part of general parks and open space planning, I am critical about communities with "too many" golf courses.  

Participation in the sport, measured by the number of rounds and participants, is down significantly.  (Golf courses can still be an attraction for resorts, and residential development, although sometimes, the residents have to pitch in and buy the course.  See "Golf-Home Owners Find Themselves in a Hole," Wall Street Journal.)

The land could be used for other purposes, but of course, nearby residents would prefer conversion to a park rather than development, such as in Seminole County (Orlando) Florida ("Seminole County moves forward with buying 2 golf course properties," Orlando Sentinel), "Dead Courses are the new NIMBY battlefield," Bloomberg, "When suburban golf courses close, residents and cities often clash over what to do with the land. Some manage to avoid the drama," Chicago Tribune).

In DC, the Growth Machine affiliate of the Federal City Council got the lease for the three National Park Service courses in the city.  But there was never a master planning process where maybe closing down one of the courses was considered--better to have two strong courses than three weak ones ("DC, parks planning and golf").

Salt Lake City has six public courses for a city of 200,000 people, plus at least one private course.  While I am impressed that the concurrent parks planning processes mentions alternative parks uses for golf courses, it does not make the obvious point that usage is down and six courses is far too many for a city this size.

Golf course industry stoked by the New Deal.  One of the things I've learned while reading books about the New Deal is that its public works construction program included the creation of hundreds of public golf courses, which helped to stoke the interest in the sport, and was focused, like a lot of ND programming, on the middle class. According to an article, "The Bizarre History of American Sport," from Sports Illustrated (1962), there were thousands of athletics-related Works Progress Administration public works projects.

The Depression and the New Deal turned the trend toward participant sport. Although in the Depression millions were out of work, the average employed worker gained added leisure time because of increased industrial efficiency, legislation and union agitation. By the end of 1939 he had one day more of leisure than he had had in 1929 and two days more than his counterpart had had in 1890. In its public works programs, the Federal Government put heavy stress on recreation facilities, spending almost $1.5 billion by 1938. State, county and local governments added another $500 million. The WPA built 10,000 tennis courts, 3,026 athletic fields, 2,261 horseshoe courts, 1,817 handball courts, 805 swimming pools, 318 ski trails and 254 golf courses. Federal purchase of forest lands rose from half a million acres annually to two million, and in 1934 Congress authorized the establishment of fish and game sanctuaries in the national forests for the first time. In 1934 visitors to national parks totaled six million; in 1940 the total was 20 million.

Graphic in the Guardian showing the distribution of golf courses across London.  Few community parks master plans are this direct about golf courses.

Opportunity costs: open space versus housing.  An article in the Guardian states that London's golf courses could accommodate 300,000 people if converted to housing.  

Seattle has been studying golf courses as a specific element of parks planning--the city has four public courses ("Seattle considering what to do with 4 public golf courses and 528 acres of green space they cover," Seattle Times, "Unlike Seattle, Golf is Really Dying," Urbanist, Golf Master Planning, City of Seattle).  

Seattle's Golf Plan was direct about the drop in participation, rather than ignoring it or glossing it over.

I read somewhere that Seattle is now looking to shut down a public course, and while the prime use will still be parkland, they are proposing the construction of social housing on the perimeter, which is a step ahead of most other places.

An analysis of the Jefferson Park golf course found that 35,000 people could be accommodated if multiunit housing were to be built on the fairways, while still preserving 100 acres of forest ("Let's tee off for housing," Urbanist).

But this change is stymied by a different Seattle law, passed by referendum, that says there should be no net loss of parkland from various government actions--not taking into account of underutilization and/or use type of existing land.

Improvements in operation are possible.  But, in fairness, Golfweek Magazine has an article ("An Ohio golf course went from red to black in four years by cutting an $80K pro, adding sponsors and more") about the usage improvements at Brookside Golf Course, a public course in Ashland, Ohio.  So it's not just an issue of participation being down, but also a matter of management and marketing.  From the article:

The course is up $100,000 over expenses so far this season, a stark contrast to its deficit just four years ago. The city had to subsidize Brookside a total of $232,362 in 2017 to help offset annual operations. In 2019, the city contributed $65,000 to the golf course, Mayor Matt Miller said. 

By the following year, the course officially climbed into the black. How? By cutting costs, realigning staff and improving fundraising and community support. And more people are playing these days, which helps maintain a higher revenue stream.

Photo by Tom Puskar, Ashland Times-Gazette.

Although like with transit and other areas of customer focused services, public agencies tend to be not at the forefront of "user experience" planning and marketing, and it shouldn't surprise me this is an issue for golf.  So Ashland, Ohio deserves commendation ("Friends of Brookside group raises $35,000 for golf course," Ashland Times-Gazette).

But while the course is no longer losing money requiring subsidy and it is making money, it's not like it's wildly profitable.  Certainly, it wouldn't be if the city had 2-5 other courses, all competing for golfers.

For more about running municipal golf courses and the difficulty to be responsive, see "What about up there?," Golf Course Industry Magazine. and "City considers beer, wine sales for golf course," Everett Herald. (Food and drink should be a basic offering.)

Rightsizing the number of golf courses in a community makes sense, but like everything, it's hard, especially because of the nimby issue.  

Ashland is in a better place than DC or Salt Lake City or Seattle, because it doesn't need to close courses, and their steps of getting sponsorship, donations, adding new facilities, cutting costs and increasing greens and cart fees all contributed to the positive results.

But Seattle's provision of data on course revenue shows that one course generates the bulk of revenue (although it's not stellar), making the point that rightsizing the offering makes sense.