Salt Lake City's six municipal courses are expected to increase revenues by 14%. That means $2.2 million dollars this fiscal year, which ends on June 30.
City golf division director Matt Kammeyer said increased play across Bonneville, Forest Dale, Glendale, Mountain Dell, Nibley Park and Rose Park courses was one silver lining of Utah’s historically bad winter. In all, he said city courses have been open for more than 270 days since last July, more than he can remember since taking the job over 20 years ago.
“This last year was a strange one, weather-wise,” he said. “We had a lot of play in December when we normally wouldn't, January, February, so that was part of it.”
The golf division’s success over the last year got the attention of Mayor Erin Mendenhall, who gave the division a shout out in her annual budget speech May 5. She cited increased play as the reason the city was able to save $1.3 million in taxpayer funds originally slated to go toward the courses.
There are some important infrastructure projects that are able to get off the ground thanks in no small part to that influx of cash from players over the past 12 months.
“Obviously, we're able to put that money back into the golf courses,” Kammayer said. “We've put in a lot of repaired car paths, new tee boxes, little tee boxes. We've been rehabbing a lot of our bunker complexes, things like that, which really make a big difference to the golfer.”
But it’s not just the players who will be seeing the benefits. The division also plans to replace aging irrigation systems and modernize decades-old courses to conserve water.
With a hot, dry summer on the horizon, turf experts say courses across the state need to rethink their irrigation practices if they want to keep their grass healthy and the public coming back. Over the last four years, Kammeyer said their water bill has gone up 75%.
“We're motivated, both from a financial standpoint, but also a conservation standpoint, being in a drought, to reduce that and to at least apply the water as efficiently as we can,” he said.
That’s something Brigham Young University professor and turfgrass science specialist Bryan Hopkins spends a lot of time thinking about. He consults golf courses all over the world on how to water more efficiently and said he’s been a busy man this spring.
“I've done more than I can handle, actually,” he said. “I’ve gotten plenty of work.”
He said, yes, courses can spend big bucks replacing infrastructure or completely re-sodding with drought-resistant grass, but that’s just not feasible for many. Improvements don’t have to be as expensive as a new irrigation system. In fact, Hopkins said almost every course could cut their water bill by at least 10% with one simple trick.
“It’s just reducing the amount of fairway and increasing the amount of rough, and that's something that I think everybody ought to be taking a look at,” he said.
That’s because longer grass means deeper roots, which need less water to stay healthy. That way, course managers can cut back there and focus on areas that need more water like greens, tee boxes and landing zones.
Hopkins also recommends reducing the amount of turf all together. He said many courses are now leveraging player heat maps to show areas where there is little player traffic and less need for grass.
“I've worked with some golf courses and we cut, you know, 10% to 20% of the course without anybody even really knowing,” he said.
It’s an approach Kammeyer is already using at some of Salt Lake City’s courses to great effect.
“We've redesigned the irrigation system [at Rose Park] around taking about 25% of the turf out that was previously irrigated,” he said. “It's just part of what we're trying to do in order to keep our operations sustainable financially, but also to be good stewards of the resource.”
Kammeyer said Rose Park’s new irrigation project could break ground as early as this winter.
When it comes to other courses around the state, Hopkins said the best time to start thinking about a new watering plan is right now.
“If you're under the knife, I think we have to have those conversations now,” he said. “You can’t wait until somebody's coming at us with mandatory reductions that could, you know, wipe out the grass on our course.”
