Has Your Municipal Golf Course Adapted?

Dear <<First Name>>,

Welcome to Reading the Green 2016, Vol.4; the four times a year, golf related brief that focuses on improving the viability of Municipally owned golf facilities through the latest trends, creative uses for golf courses, and recent developments in resource management. Staples Golf Resource Group is a golf design and development consultancy that has served communities like yours for the past 14 years.

In this volume, we’ll look at what many in the the golf industry today are saying about attracting more golfers to the game, as well as a community-focused redesign of a golf course under pressure to make significant cuts to its water. Lastly we'll quickly review an article in Golf Course Industry magazine which features an important project of ours that's sure to make headlines across the country. Please read on!

Demographic Revolution?

Steve Mona, CEO of WGF (World Golf Foundation), recently gave an interview on the Golf Channel that touched on the need to expand golf to demographics not traditionally associated with golf, in an effort to grow the game. The demos being emphasized broadly across the golf industry within the past year consist of women, minorities, and millennials. It was an interesting exchange on a topic the golf industry is trying to address; the bottom line here, is golf needs more golfers.

Click here to listen. (This topic begins at 3:58 mark. The Golf Channel may have you to sit through a 15 second advertisement initially… Just FYI!)

Course, Golfers Must Adapt

Staples Golf is proud to announce it's working with San Luis Obispo County on their master plan for the El Chorro Regional Park, which includes an 18 hole golf course. In short, the Dairy Creek Golf Course is facing some real challenges due to a recent and drastic reduction of water permitted at their facility. Dairy Creek however is embracing this development as an opportunity to look at their course differently, and incorporate more community based amenities like camping, pedestrian/ biking trails, and event space, which is very much inline with our Community Links Vision.

Dairy Creek with Staples Golf, in cooperation with the local community, is tasked with appeasing both the County and the local golfers with an appropriate and sustainable outcome; a challenge we're all looking forward to! We're sure to post updates on this project in future newsletters because of it's unique situation regarding water conservation and real time course adaptation in action.

MCC Inches Closer

Golf Course Industry magazine just published a piece on a major golf course renovation project of ours in Michigan, and we’d like to share it with you. The article is titled “Digging in Detroit,” and highlights the recent developments of the project, as well as what the new course will look and play like, thanks to emerging technologies and strict attention to detail with regards to turf management. Particularly of note is the significant reduction in maintained turf, and the newly implemented fairway bent grass, which will be using 50% less water than before.

With the course’s anticipated opening in early June, 2017, a new chapter for golf in Detroit will begin, as the golf course at Meadowbrook Country Club can boast to be the only major project in the area since the Great Recession began in 2007. Also worth mentioning is MCC's recent need to begin a waiting list for membership because they're full up; extraordinary for a Club that's had their course closed for over a year!

That about does it for us with this newsletter. Thanks for reading! Please remember, we present Community Links webinars at no charge to administrators of struggling municipal facilities. If that's of interest to you, please tell us about your golf course by clicking here. Great decisions start with open ended dialog amongst willing parties, so let’s start a positive, open dialog today.

Sincerely,

Andy Staples, ASGCA

PS- If you haven't gotten a chance to read our Community Links White Paper on Municipal Golf in America, you can download it here!