Why I Advocate for Golf for Non-Golfers
Tough times hit home in San Francisco
This one is going to be short, and personal.
Correction:
To start this article, I want to clarify the record in regards to the plight of Gleneagles SF that I’ve noted in my course profile from last year. If you’re not interested in these unrelated corrections, you can skip ahead.
During the meeting that will be discussed below, the operator of Gleneagles made it clear to me that he thought I’d been overemphasizing the amount of danger that Gleneagles SF was in. I’ve done my best to communicate as honestly as I could through this period of uncertainty with the course. My understanding, and an understanding that was communicated within the club, was always that the course was in genuine jeopardy, which is why I took a significant amount of time to bring attention to the course. The lease for the course had been extended only for one year. There had been some discussion by cycling advocates of a potential change of use, but it seems nothing official came of it. I had some personal concerns with redevelopment of the Sunnydale community. According to the operator, the year-to-year lease agreements had been commonplace at that point, and though this had been an ongoing concern, he did not think it signaled an imminent change to the use of the area, even if the lease agreement allowed for that.
I wanted to take the time to add his perspective here as best I could remember it from the conversation I had with him. I care about being as accurate as is practicable, and I’m happy to write these types of updates and clarifications. I will note that I did write some inaccurate statements over on Golf Club Atlas, in which I noted that the course was on a month-to-month lease, not a year-to-year lease, and I’ve updated those posts to correct that.
City Budgets Matter
The last year for me was exceedingly Cassandra-esque. As someone who is interested in and concerned about municipal finance, the warnings were about as subtle as a flashing neon sign:
SF Standard: San Francisco in a ‘tough spot’ as $1.4B budget deficit looms
SF Chronicle: ‘Misery loves company’: Both S.F. and Oakland more likely to close schools as budget outlook worsens
SF Examiner: San Francisco's budget paints a 'grim' picture for The City
The irony of the situation is that the most prominent mayoral debate that was held during last year’s election barely mentioned the looming budget crisis, focusing instead on more visible crises the city is facing: fentanyl, homelessness, and a shortage of housing. Watching that debate, I could only shake my head knowing the only thing people would be talking about after the election would be the brutal budget cuts the city will need to start implementing, and will likely have to accelerate over the next couple years.
Well, the election is over, the budget cuts are here and it’s basically the only thing people are talking about now. This led to muni golf becoming notable within the Rec and Park’s section of budget cuts.
After a significant amount of letter writing, our Gleneagles SF club president actually went to a club meeting to plead with city leaders about these cuts. This caught the attention of San Francisco Chronicle reporter Sam Whiting, who came to the course to interview some of the folks at the club. I attended this interview, but had little to no input. The reporter and photographer were very nice, and I see the article, Golfers grumble about S.F. plan to eliminate city subsidy for public golf courses, as an accurate description of the sentiments of most of the folks there.
Golf is Dispensable
I had a different take than the golfers and operators in the article, that we are at this unfortunate political crossroads because of the choices we’ve made. I’ve very constantly argued that golf courses need to serve more than golfers. I’ve argued that public golf, but more specifically municipal golf, needs to make itself indispensable to the community. This is the focus and the point of all of my posts in the Golf for Non-Golfers series:
There is a concerning lack of good will for golf in modern politics. Much of this animosity is misplaced, but a lot of it is not. American urban areas are facing various crises and in all of them, golf courses are a relatively easy target. The water crisis in the American West has already claimed many courses, and will likely only get worse as climate change and groundwater depletion continue unabated. But most importantly, as I wrote in a previous article, as long as there are folks desperately trying to afford a place to live, and as long as existing residents are not willing to upzone existing neighborhoods to meet that demand, golf courses will be targeted. It’s hard to even argue against these demands when most towns and cities are entirely belligerent toward the needs of these young people. We have not yet seriously addressed the housing crisis at all.
This isn’t just hypothetical. NYC Mayoral longshot Brad Lander is campaigning on converting municipal courses into urban greenfield developments.
At every point along this political timeline, individual golf courses have the opportunity to make a statement by remaining committed to the greater community. Using native areas between fairways as actual native flora and fauna habitats provides an environmental benefit to the community, which is a positive benefit that can exist for such large areas that are used by so few people. Setting up the clubhouse, restaurant, and bar as meeting places for the community gives people a reason to care about the course even if they don’t play there. Integrating walking trails through the course allows the natural beauty and isolation of the course to be shared instead of kept private. It’s all straightforward stuff, but it matters exactly when it’s politically expedient to ditch golf for alternatives with better PR.
Golf Should Almost Always Pay for Itself
What really stunned me about the situation in SF was learning that the municipal golf courses get non-trivial amounts of subsidies from the city. Now, my point here is not to say that golf should never get subsidies — that really depends on the goals of the city. Free public golf courses, like Buhl Park in Pennsylvania and the Bruntsfield Links in Edinburgh, Scotland, are obvious examples of how subsidies can make the game more accessible.
However, I see the function of subsidized golf being maximally impactful insofar as it makes golf accessible to non-golfers. That is, it should focus, like the Bruntsfield Links does, on creating a stepping stone to full-length courses, where there isn’t a real business model. Even with the subsidized land, many municipal courses struggle to turn much profit at all. We’re kidding ourselves if we think that we can create these welcoming, beginner-first golf environments without some kind of subsidy.
Golf can also be expensive, so means testing should obviously be a consideration. People who don’t have the money to play can be helped, but most of the people on these municipal courses do not need subsidies, especially in a budget crisis.
That said, my main worry is that when times are tough, having full-sized municipal courses be dependent on subsidies is a recipe for disaster. As long as golf is politically problematic, fairly or not, golf will be the target of budget cuts. This will mean that the business model for operators will be up in the air. There should be subsidies for folks who need subsidies, but it’s difficult for me to argue that I need a subsidy to play a muni course that’s cheaper than most of the courses in smaller towns outside of the city (even without a resident card).
I know this will be unsatisfying to many who read it, but I don’t think many folks realize how tenuous a situation urban municipal golf is in. Once the land is redeveloped, it’s no longer available for golf, ever. Talk of using public golf courses for housing means that any policy mistakes will be permanent policy mistakes, and muni regulars need to understand the gravity of these bad decisions.
Golf Will Always Get Picked On
Finally, I want to push back on the concern about the “unfairness” of singling out golf. Here we need to be honest with ourselves. Golf does use more resources than other sports. It has a larger footprint. It’s impossible to scale. In an urban setting, it is simply impossible for golf to be accessible to everyone in the city because there simply is not enough space. It’s a tough thing to accept, but that’s why golf is always, always, always going to be the target of budget cuts first, even when no other sports programs have any cuts at all.
That’s okay though, and it’s why I constantly argue that golf needs to make itself indispensable in ways that other sports can’t. A tennis court cannot act as an animal habitat. A football stadium can’t host a native pollinator apiary. All the basketball courts the city can build won’t do anything for migratory species. They don’t host wedding receptions at soccer fields. Golf courses that can do double duty in these ways can make themselves indispensable to the city by being a net benefit to all residents, not just residents who play golf.