Committee hears plan to reopen nine-hole course

On Wednesday, the Joint Advisory Committee on Golf heard about a plan to reopen the nine-hole Berksdale Golf Course.

The course was originally 18 holes, but a flood in 2017 damaged a section of cart path and nine holes were closed permanently. In June 2019, damage to a bridge on the open nine holes was discovered and those holes were closed, leaving only one nine-hole course at the Metfield complex.

The POA board recently agreed to remove the bridge since repair was expensive, but Golf Operations Director Darryl Muldoon came up with a plan to reopen the nine-hole course without the bridge. He planned to make some sections of the cart path two way, but a fence was also needed to protect golfers returning to the cart barn.

Last week, committee chair Jason Loyd announced the course would reopen as a minimum maintenance nine-hole course. Fairways and greens will be mowed to the same height with no roller used. Fertilizer and water will be limited.

Golf Maintenance Director Keith Ihms said the amount of mowing will depend on man power, which is limited by the budget.

Since the fence will not be installed, the staff will implement a wave system for tee times to keep golfers safe as they pass hole number one, headed back to the cart barn. Tee times will be assigned for about an hour and a half until the first players are expected to be returning. Then there will be no more tee times assigned until all the golfers have returned. At that point a second wave will begin.

During the summer it should be possible to have four or five waves in a day.

The course will also be limited to POA carts only because of the steep hill near hole number two.

Committee member Susan Nuttall pointed out that the course will be substandard. Non-members who come in because of POA marketing won’t know that the course is unique and other courses are maintained to a higher level. They may not return to play the other courses, she said.

Groups that play nine holes will not be happy either, she said. They want the same experience as a playing a well maintained 18 hole course.

Rounds have been down, Nuttall said, and she hasn’t seen any indication that the nine-hole course is needed.

Muldoon said, non-members probably won’t play Berksdale very often. It’s not listed on Golf Now, the website that allows non-members to book tee times.

Without a nine-hole course, some tee times at the 18 hole courses will be sacrificed for nine-hole players, he pointed out. Having a nine-hole course open means more space on the 18-hole courses.

Nuttall said she thinks the new plan sounds like what happened to Branchwood, which was closed permanently in 2014 after maintenance expenses and the fees to play were cut.