GOLF is a victim of its own success.
Back in the 1960s and 70s golf was seen as a game for the “social elite” or for those who could afford it.
To gain membership was not easy, sometimes involving a wait of between six months to two years, depending on how successful the club was.
Then one had to go through an extensive nomination process and once accepted into the club, for some it was deemed as some sort of social achievement.
Some believed, perhaps naively, membership of a private golf club gave one “social standing” in the community.
It was often said a club captain had more power than the prime minister and while that is a little exaggerated, it bears some truth.
Captains of yesteryear ran their clubs with autocratic leadership and promoted a culture clearly out of the 19th century.
Many clubs around the country had fields of about 240 playing each Saturday and some even had a playing “wait” list.
It was and still is an expensive game to play and to set yourself up with golf clubs, bag and buggy could cost anywhere from $500 to $2000.
Membership fees at private clubs were always expensive and out of the financial reach for most blue collar workers.
During the 1990s golf experienced a huge lift in participation levels, said to be mainly due to the success of international stars such as Greg Norman.
But in the past 20 years things started to change as the new generation became more selective about their recreation time and began to shy away from sports played over more than one or two hours.
This resulted in sports like golf, where 18 holes can take more than four hours, being hit hard in participation numbers.
Cost was also a factor as private clubs struggled to balance their books, as labour, machinery and chemical costs soared and suddenly maintaining an 18-hole golf course became an expensive exercise.
At the same time, for various reasons, membership at most clubs started to drop.
In 1980 a group of people including Jack Hopgood, Brian Abfalter and Bruce Messenger started a campaign to establish a lakes public golf course.
It started as a nine-hole course and later became 18-holes.
This resulted in a number of members leaving the Mount Gambier Golf Club, again for a variety of reasons, but mainly cost.
At the time some claimed it was another example of governments or councils using taxpayer or ratepayer money in opposition to private enterprise.
However, it did introduce new people to golf at a reasonable cost.
The current dilemma which faces the Queen Elizabeth Park Trust and eventually City Council and its ratepayers is the fact the Trust now acknowledges the lakes golf course, by only charging a “reasonable cost”, is not financially sustainable and because that can no longer continue, it is seeking a new model under which it operates in the future.
A suggestion is the Trust may offer the Blue Lake Golf Club the opportunity to sub-lease the course and run it as an on-going business, similar to other sporting clubs.
If that is rejected the Trust and also council have some serious decisions to make.
An emergency meeting of council is expected to discuss the issue but if, as stated, the course lost $250,000 last year, council has some serious thinking to do to find an answer which should not include any further financial impost for ratepayers.
A public course may be important for the city but as the Trust admits, it is difficult to make money out of golf courses.
In a separate issue, the treatment of bistro sub-lease holder Bill Burley seems unfair but the Trust appears reluctant to divulge its reasons to either Mr Burley or the public why this has occurred.
What seems certain is any new model will come at a higher cost for playing members if the Trust is to make the course financially sustainable.
Disclosure: Graham Greenwood is a member of the Mount Gambier Golf Club.
