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Golf Course Task Force Works At Frenzied Pace

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 8, 2008

Community Association vice president and golf course task force chairman Ed Barnes drove his seven-member group to warp speed, and in 10 days (10 days, my friends is an unheard of blink of the Sun City Center eye), presented the Community Association Board of Directors with a proposal for the golf course evaluation to go forward, a statement of work and some ancillary material. This last item includes studying what it would cost to convert the North Lakes Course to "open space," or "green space," or "a park," and to maintain it as such.

Incredibly fast work! And good solid workmanlike work, as well.

It seems this group took its charter to heart and put some powerful brainwork together. The little grey cells were snapping at surprising speed.

The Board of Directors (of which I admit to being a generally anti-establishment member), received the report at its monthly workshop and quickly proposed to put it on the agenda for the board meeting on Oct. 8.

The task force recommendations are so comprehensive (they are available in the CA office, by the way), that I figure they will far outstrip the amount in the CA budget's contingency account. But it is work that must be done.

Chuck Collett, a member of the task force feels the same way. He suggested to the board that this be considered a capital expenditure and thus taken from the CA Capital Fund. The Capital Fund is projected to have a balance of $536,000 at the end of this year.

More importantly, at least in this department's view, Collett urged the Board to fund a separate study on the impact of land and home values here with and without golf courses. Now this goes right to the heart of the matter. I've heard ever so much whining about why we shouldn't do the golf course evaluations. And why we shouldn't even talk about owning the golf courses - and I think I agree the CA probably shouldn't own golf courses, but we have the right of first refusal on North Lakes and Sandpiper and having that puts us into a very interesting position.

Collett's view - and mine - is that this is the most important decision any Community Association Board has ever or will ever make, and we simply must know what economic impact it will have on people coming here to buy homes. That impact, obviously, reflects on the price we can get for our own homes when we decide to sell.

Let us face reality: The golf courses are meaningful to the price of our houses! There are lots of boomers ready to retire and a reasonable percentage of them want to play golf, and while developers are having a tough go at selling half million and million dollar houses in newly developed golf communities, Sun City Center is a reasonably priced golf community and has a lot more going for it than just golf.

Thus, while we know that golf course closing(s) will affect every single person's economic well-being, we don't know by how much.

We need the impact study.

Eureka! We have found the answer to the golf course fairway mowing issue, and it's so simple we are ashamed of ourselves. It centers on human nature and the wonders of a straight line.

Golf course fairways are contoured to go with the lay of the land. The guys and gals running those big mowers sometimes - and inadvertently - aim their machines in more of a straight line than the curves of the contours call for. It's perfectly natural and if you think back to the days when you mowed your own lawns, you'll see how it works.

Thus, over time, the fairways become straighter - bit by bit. The current effort is to bring those fairways back to what they used to be and what they're supposed to be.

Bob Black is a member of the board of directors for the Sun City Center Community Association. He has been published in numerous publications including The New York Herald Tribune and the New York Times.

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