TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Don't Drop Golf Membership

ADVERTISEMENT

The Tampa Tribune

Published: March 11, 2009

The notice that golf cart inspection and registration is on the docket for March 23-25 brought me into the garage to kick the tires on my 1986 Club Car. I've had new canvas put on, a new motor installed and two sets of new batteries in the seven years I've lived here.

The major problem, though, with old Sarah Anne (named after a granddaughter who came to visit) is her solenoids. She has five of them and they are persnickety. However, it's better to pay $80 to replace one every so often than it is to pay out five grand or so for a new model, much as I envy those who have the new tricked out carts. Sarah Anne came with the house when I bought it and there is an affection for history.
Golf cart inspection time brings two thoughts to mind. The first, of course, is safety. It makes sense to go to a free inspection that can only do you good. The second concerns our financial world and what's going on around us in terms of golf.

I suspect only those of us in or approaching our 80s have memories of the Great Depression. My Dad's business failed and I remember him selling vacuum cleaners door-to-door. He was competing, he said, with many of his former business associates and members of various Westchester County, N.Y. golf courses. It was not a good time.

Interestingly enough, Dad managed to keep his golf club membership going. He knew the Depression would end and networking was valuable and he was right. He could afford it because the golf club was practically giving memberships away at the time - a lesson WCI seems more or less aware of today.

Our situation here is somewhat different but truly no less important.

It's very tempting, for those of us who elected to pay our golf dues to WCI quarterly to save some money and drop out. This, however, would push a series of bad things to happen. The first is you might be faced with paying an initiation fee next year when you decided to come back into the golfing fold.

The second is that it could trigger WCI, which is currently in Chapter 11 Bankruptcy, to close the North Lakes Course. WCI has said since last fall that it would keep the North Lakes Course operating as long as it was "viable." If we get a lot of dropouts, the WCI may be forced into closing the course. My understanding is that WCI's John Luper is on record as saying there are not enough golfers today in SCC to generate enough revenue to offset the expenses to afford to keep all the courses maintained and open.

I count Mr. Luper among the people I like a lot, but I must take a little Kentucky windage on his statement. He's a corporate employee and must take the corporate line. I personally think (without any hard figures to go by) that WCI is viable - based on the membership dues and outside play it is getting now. Not what it wants, but enough. However, if we get dropouts, that could change - and certainly not for the better.

The Golf Task Force that is charged with looking for ways to increase play on our courses was scheduled to present an interim report March 5 and I hope to be able to bring that report to you next week.

Bob Black is a member of the Sun City Center Community Association Board of Directors. The opinions expressed in his column are his and do not reflect the opinions of other board members.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT