Board president lays out issues

ROYAL CITY - Board members for the Royal Golf Course met with the public last week to discuss the course's financial woes and ways to secure its future.

Roughly two-dozen citizens gathered at the RGC clubhouse and listened to Board President Patrick Dorsing discuss the state of Royal City's nine-hole course.

The main problem, according to Dorsing, is that the course doesn't attract enough players to generate enough revenue to cover the course's expenses.

To attract more players, the course needs to be nicely groomed and maintained. The undermanned staff and aged equipment make such grooming and maintenance impossible.

"For the past three years, we've been operating at, roughly, a $10-15,000 loss. The donations and fundraisers have been letting us break even," Dorsing said.

Dorsing said the course will continue to "bleed" with the jury-rigged gear they've had to use, and, within 3-5 years, will no longer be playable unless significant funds are raised to purchase new equipment.

In addition to the cost of new equipment, a federally-mandated change to the course's water contract will increase its expenses this year by roughly $8,000.

Members of the public pressed Dorsing for specifics regarding the course's budget and needs. He said the course has $115,000 in projected expenses for the upcoming 2016 season, not including the amount needed to replace equipment.

Approximately $60,000 is needed to replace all the equipment by the time the course opens in March, Dorsing said. That would cover a gator (approximately $7,000), a greens mower (approximately $12,000), four new carts ($3,500 each), and a sod-cutter (approximately $20,000).

Royal City Mayor Kent Anderson was in attendance and said the city will continue to contribute what it can to the course. But, though the city is in good financial shape, much of the city's money, by law, is allocated to different purposes.

A concerned citizen and golfer said the fundraisers and crab feeds are helpful, but it's up to locals to do more for their community individually.

"The community needs to step up, too. If we want this to be an asset that we enjoy, then we've got to step up either through memberships or ways to keep it going," he said.

Some of the suggestions mentioned at the meeting included having volunteers staff the clubhouse to collect fees, sending out a donations request letter, reaching out to manufacturers for either second-hand or donated machinery, and seeing if renting or leasing the machinery made sense, financially.

As the meeting wound down, one golfer understood the urgency of the situation facing the Royal Golf Course, saying: "It's gotta be a community effort, and it's gotta happen now."