Bob CollinsThere’s a plan in Duluth for stemming the red ink resulting from Minnesota falling out of love with the game of golf: Less golf.
Like many Minnesota cities that own golf courses, Duluth is losing money on the game — $176,000 this year, the Duluth News Tribune reports today.
So the company that manages the courses is proposing shortening the season to May to October.
“We would do this to consolidate the activity to one location in Enger Park during the slower months of the season — being April, October and sometimes November, if we’re lucky. The reason why we’d do that is each day Lester Park and Enger Park both simultaneously stay open, we lose about $600 per day,” Gary Nelson, general manager for Billy Casper’s Duluth operations, said at a meeting this week.
There’s another problem: Golf is too hard, at least at one course. The city will consider closing the Lake 9 holes at Lester Park, which many golfers find too challenging. That would save $21,000.
“You would lose a well-loved golf course with a long tradition and a strong community. This would obviously be our last resort option that we’d want to go to. But you can see the savings of almost $180,000 if Duluth had one 27-hole golf course at Enger Park.”
