Memo to struggling municipal golf courses in Great Britain: It’s your own fault.
At least that’s the message being delivered by Maureen Brooker, the chairperson of the National Association of Public Golf Courses. All too often, Brooker believes, municipalities milked their golf facilities for all they were worth and failed to make capital improvements that might have generated consistent play over the long term.
“Councils for many years reaped the benefit of good profits from municipal courses, but under-investment and the taking of these profits to put into council coffers brought many into decline,” she said in a comment published by Golf Club Management. “Courses need to be maintained correctly to attract golfers and members, and the facilities need to be adequate and kept to a decent standard.”
As has been well documented, in recent years British munis have been suffering as much as their U.S. counterparts, and the magazine notes that “the situation has continued to deteriorate this year.”