Monday, October 19, 2015

More sobering news about golf in Palm Beach County, the trend for the sport is way down

The City of Lake Worth's golf course has been getting a lot of press and attention of late with this news being the latest.
Babe Ruth played at the Lake Worth Golf Course.
City Manager Michael Bornstein and Mayor Pam Triolo with plaque from Southern Golf Central Magazine.
There's a lot of excitement about the course but the trends for golf generally in south Florida are not good. A huge housing project to be constructed in Palm Beach Gardens, the Alton Tract, will not include a golf course and that surprised a lot of people, but it shouldn't have—the public desire to play the sport has been going down for a while now (probably because the Millennials interests lie elsewhere like biking trails and public parks).

Now is this news from Alexandra Seltzer at the Post on the Boynton Beach Golf Course titled, "Outgoing Boynton golf course cafe vendor: ‘The writing’s on the wall' ":
     The number of rounds for the 18-hole championship course have been decreasing each year for the past three years, and to Foley [Terry Foley, the owner of the Ala Carte cafe], that’s a sign. A bad one.
     “The numbers don’t lie. The writing’s on the wall, and I just can’t be part of that anymore,” he said.
     The Links at Boynton Beach golf course on Jog Road is owned by the city, but runs on its own money and has a $2 million budget. It’s on land leased from the county. The course has had recent upgrades such as new Yamaha carts, GPS tablets, and improvements to the course itself. Also, the course will be getting 175 native trees with the help of a $5,000 grant.
     But the number of rounds are declining, and this year, the city will help the course try to get out of its financial struggles by giving it $240,000, said Tim Howard, the city’s director of finance.
The city of Boynton Beach is giving the golf course money to help solve its problems and hopes this won't be an annual request every year going forward.