In Fort Worth, Texas, the future of municipal golf is being debated.
The city’s golf operations have been losing money since 2001, reports the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and today the system is $8 million in the hole. What’s more, in 2012 the city’s golf properties – now down to four, after the closing of Z Boaz Golf Course – attracted just 142,000 rounds, down by nearly 50 percent from the 274,000 recorded in 1998.
So city officials are asking themselves a question familiar to their counterparts from coast to coast: Should we invest in necessary improvements that might generate more play, or should we cut our losses by closing courses or finding private-sector operators for them?
We could learn the answer to that question by the end of the year.