Billy Casper Golf is trying to persuade government officials in Hendry County, Florida to endorse its plan to build a municipal course in the city of LaBelle.
BCG has pitched a proposal to build and operate an 18-hole, Jerry Lemons-designed track with a short-game practice area. It thinks the facility will attract 41,000 rounds a year and generate $1.2 million in revenues against annual maintenance costs of just $450,000.
Some of the county commissioners are receptive to the idea – “The businesspeople of LaBelle want to do this,” one of them insisted at a public meeting – but others fear that Casper’s estimates are pie in the sky. “These numbers just don’t add up,” a commissioner groused, noting that the municipal course in nearby Clewiston gets “more like 15 to 16,000 annual rounds.”
The Clewiston News reports that the matter will be discussed again in the future. BCG is hoping to open the course by the end of 2014.