Municipal golf courses face a unique set of challenges compared with daily-fee and private courses. Chief among them is justifying their existence to the municipality that governs them. Even more than a private company, a city has a budget within which all its moving parts need to fit. If a golf course isn’t bringing in enough money to cover its own costs, it can be in danger of getting cut loose.
In those situations, it can be beneficial to look outside the local government hiring process and turn to a third-party management company.
“When municipalities typically struggle is because they put somebody in charge of the golf courses that doesn’t necessarily have that background or expertise,” said Scott Rethlake, director of golf for the city of Denver, Colorado. “And so then when it struggles and it fails, then they go look for somebody that has that expertise. And they typically do that in the form of a management company.”
Jeremy Goldblatt, COO of KemperSports, said that the biggest advantage a third-party management company brings to a municipality is that they keep their public ownership and sustenance of a public asset while having someone who can run the business and hospitality side of things.
“Golf courses have become very specialized operations, whether it’s agronomy, golf, food and beverage, marketing, technology and revenue management, and of course, staffing hasn’t gotten easier,” Goldblatt said. “A third-party operator can really bring all those capabilities together. There’s also just a ton of experience, mistakes we’ve made, things we’ve learned over the past 50 years that we can bring to bear.
“It’s really finding a partner that balances that,” he said. “It’s not about maximizing revenue. It’s about finding the balance of kind of what is the community, what is this asset for and how do we make sure we can run it properly, but also sustainably.”
The National Golf Foundation reports that of the approximately 2,700 municipal golf courses in the United States, 18% are under third-party management in some fashion. Ten years ago, that figure was 16%, suggesting gradual rather than dramatic growth. Richard Singer, senior director of consulting services at NGF, said he believes there is room for that share to increase.
“There’s a lot of really good golf management companies who have fine-tuned and ironed their sales approach,” he said. “They’re starting to put some data behind them that they can really come to the table and say, ‘Here’s what we did at such and such location and we can do the same for you.’ They’re being more aggressive and there’s an opportunity there for them.”
Being a good steward
A third-party management company, however, is not the answer for every municipality. Due diligence is critical when vetting a company to ensure it will be a good steward of the property. Without the right structure and oversight, there is a risk that a municipal course could become an afterthought.
“Nobody is going to take as good a care of your property and your assets as you will,” Rethlake said. “So when you have a management company and they’re running a golf course that’s not theirs, that can sometimes lead to deferred maintenance or insufficient capital investments and declining course conditions because they’re just not taking care of it like you would.”
Singer noted that another potential disadvantage is a lack of control.
“If you hire somebody else to run it for you, they kind of call the shots on some things about how it will be run and how it will be priced,” he said.
However, that risk can be mitigated by addressing expectations and responsibilities in the management contract from the outset.
“If you contract it right, you can work it in and make sure that it’s part of the deal right from the beginning, that there’s certain responsibilities and certain fundamentals of how you’re going to run the business that has to be adhered to,” he said.
Partnership for success
Goldblatt said any management deal needs to be a true partnership so both sides can achieve their goals.
“What are they trying to accomplish? If there’s a golf course they haven’t put any money into and there’s not a desire or ability to invest in the course, there’s only so much you could do,” he said. “To a certain degree, the expectation now is that these golf courses are economically self-sustainable. So, oftentimes we want to be very clear about what success looks like and make sure that we can align. Because when a municipality hires a management company, they’re still driving the boat. They’re making the decisions.”
Goldblatt said KemperSports’ partnerships with municipalities have probably never been stronger.
“With the golf courses, we’re kind of in a virtuous cycle where we’re able to drive a lot of revenue, rounds, repeat guests and satisfaction,” he said. “We’re creating more money and revenue that’s getting invested back into these courses, which makes them even better.”
Every situation is different, and what works for one municipality, even one 20 miles away, may not work for another.
Singer said there is not necessarily a pattern among the types of municipalities that partner with third-party operators. A small city with a handful of courses might use one because it has a destination-style property that does not receive enough support from residents to work economically. Conversely, a city in a large metropolitan area might turn to an operator to help its courses stand out among the many options available in a competitive market.
“There’s a lot of things they all have in common, but every single muni is different in some way,” Singer said. “There’s good golf courses in bad markets; there’s bad golf courses in good markets and there’s good golf courses in good markets. There’s a lot of different possibilities within that matrix to see what can work.”
What the data shows
For many municipal courses, finding the data needed to make those decisions has traditionally been difficult. In recent years, however, the industry has moved toward bringing that information together and making it more accessible.
Mike Suglich, CEO at Greenlight Advisors and founder/president of Golf Club Benchmarks, has spent the past few years running the Municipal Golf Report, a benchmarking study with data from municipal courses all over the country. The study evaluates and grades participating courses’ financial and operational performance data against industry benchmarks and gives them insights into how they compare both with each other and the industry at large.
“The benchmark data is so significant to the directors of golf operations for these municipalities because now they’re armed with information that they can go into a meeting with government leadership and provide them with intelligent information,” Suglich said.
“When I produce a report and show them that the most profitable golf courses are the ones that are reinvesting into their greens, bunkers and irrigation systems and providing a quality product to their players, they could take that to the city council and say, ‘We need to reinvest into our courses so that we can get the repeat play, we can increase the greens fees and we can make this profitable, or at least not lose money.’ That’s kind of the recipe for success.”
This year, Suglich expanded the study to include daily-fee and resort courses, and he hopes to add private courses in the future. He has secured partnerships with national industry associations, including the PGA, NGF, NGCOA and IAGA, to expand the data pool and make the study more comprehensive. Any courses that want to participate can go to the Golf Club Benchmarks website and sign up for the study until September 30, 2026.
The value of public golf
Goldblatt said one reason municipal courses are becoming more popular is their ability to provide accessible golf to their communities.
“The ability for golf to now become seen as a sport for everyone, regardless of background, has opened the doors for municipalities to look at this as a part of the services they provide to their community, and the community is asking for it,” he said. “It’s become in many ways the ‘third place’ for folks who can’t afford to belong to a private club or have a weekend house somewhere.
“The audience is diverse: old, young, men, women, people of color. It’s a real full community opportunity.”
This article originally appeared in the September/October 2026 issue of Golf Inc.