Friday, February 26, 2016

Golf Course Enhancement Update


Following this week’s Golf Course Enhancement Town Hall, members of the project team met with representatives from the City of Georgetown to discuss permitting requirements related to the project. Due to additional regulations put in place last year, the permitting process will now be significantly longer than originally projected. At best, this shift in the schedule may only allow for a small window of construction during the growing season in 2016.

The Golf Course Enhancement Task Force has discussed the new requirements and their impact to the timeline, budget, golfers and community. The group considered several options for moving forward on the project and has decided to delay the construction phase of the project until early 2017 in order to protect the quality of the courses and maximize the budgeted amount for the project. 

The next phases of the project including design development, master plan, permitting, construction documents and bidding will continue as planned in 2016. Both Legacy Hills and White Wing Golf Courses will continue normal operations throughout the year. Construction will commence in early 2017, providing optimal conditions for the grow-in phase and the best outcome possible for the project.

We will begin working on the new permitting requirements now and will incorporate your feedback from Tuesday's Town Hall into the next set of engineered schematics. This step is scheduled for completion in late March, after which a new project timeline will be communicated through your CA and Golf Communicators. 

For questions or to provide feedback, please email Gary.Wilson@sctexas.org

Tuesday, February 23, 2016

February 2016 Golf Staff Report


Renovation Project
The Golf Town Hall will be held tomorrow afternoon from 2:00pm – 4:00pm. Jason Straka will be here from Fry/Straka Golf Design Group to speak at the presentation and answer questions afterwards. He has assured us he will stay around as long as needed following the presentation to talk with the residents in regards to the project.

Financials

Great weather and expense reductions put us in a very good position for the month of January.

Golf finished January ahead of budget by $90,656.   
Total Revenue: $322,440
Total Budgeted Revenue: $287,767
Total Expenses: $254,366
Total Budgeted Expenses: $310,349

A few notes:

While combo and annual pass sales have trailed budget by $326K (as of 2/14/16), we are hopeful that punch cards will exceed budget by the end of the year.   The $326K short fall on passes is equivalent of the goodness from the reserve transfer.   On a monthly basis that means that the $27K loss in annual revenue from passes will be offset by the budget goodness of $27K from the reserve contribution transfer.   In January, punch card revenue exceeded budget by $51K!   February is tracking similarly.    Projections for the full year of 2016 were made in conjunction with the January financial close process.   While we did not attempt yet to estimate other revenue line items, we did adjust pass revenue to current 2016 sales and punch card revenue to 2015 revenue.  Additionally we eliminated the budgeted golf reserve contribution.    Additional projection adjustments will be made at the end of each month’s financial close process as we know more.

Pace of Play

Last month we discussed letting the waiting groups on Par 3’s hit up before the group playing that hole starts to putt out?  Any feedback?

Golf Pro Report

2016 Golfnow
Since January 2011, January 2016 was by far the best January with revenue exceeding $16,000.  With continued good weather, this trends seems to be continuing into February.

Non-Resident Tournaments
We’re starting off well this year with a current expected revenue just under $84,370.  This is far better than previous years including 2013 when times were fantastic.  We retained all of our major tournaments such as Dell MAW, GT Chamber of Comm. and CASA of Wilco.  We also retained the 2016 UIL State Championship and now have the State Preview at the end of this week. With good weather, we have also picked up some mini groups that have provided some nice revenue.  So we are off to a great start.

New Golfer Interest
Starting the year off well with new prospective golfers.  This Friday we will hot our annual New Golfer Day at the White Wing golf course.  As of Wednesday we have over 50 individuals signed up, which is up from the previous years.



Events
The latest in-house event was the Super Bowl Scramble and, although numbers were slightly less than year’s past, we still managed 80 players who enjoyed a pretty good day.

Non-Resident Golf and Range Pass
We are developing a non-resident pass to target non-resident play in the afternoon window that we often see vacant, especially in the hot summer months. 

We are also developing a non-resident range pass in an effort to drive more range revenue.

Please see the attached information on these passes.

Non-Resident Afternoon Pass includes:  Greens fees, range balls on the day of play only, and cart.
15 18-Hole Rounds after 1pm            $450
I understand and agree to the following rules while purchasing this pass:
1.         Passes are valid in the year of purchase and expire December 31 of that year.
2.         The price of each round includes cart.
3.         Passes may be used for the purchaser and guests.
4.         Pass balances are available at the golf shops upon requests.
5.         Unused rounds of passes will be forfeited.  There will be no refunds or exchanges.
6.         Resident pricing on range balls on non-play days.
7.         Resident pricing on merchandise.

Goal:   To fill afternoon times that may otherwise go unused, especially during the hot summer months and weekends.
•           Provides an opportunity to receive prepaid revenue from non-residents.
•           No priority would be provided.  Tee Times have to be scheduled by calling the golf shop no sooner than 3 days ahead of the day of play (i.e. After Chelsea Processing of Resident Requests).
•           Per round rate is less than the 18 hole resident PAYGO rate between 1pm and twilight.  However, it is more than the Resident 15 Round Afternoon Pass.

Non-Resident Range Pass

$150 per Pass
20 Large buckets of balls

Pass is valid for the year in which it is purchased and expires December 31.

Superintendent Report

White Wing

Maintaining adequate greens moisture has been a big focus. Warm temperatures have kept greens from going completely dormant and helped ability to visual see any problems on the greens. We have been monitoring the Poa annua problem on the greens and are still trying to find the product that will help eradicate the plant. With the warmer weather we were able to aerify and top dress greens twice this month which will help with air and moisture movement. A small drainage project to the left of #15 green has helped with the soggy approach but more drainage on that side may be necessary. A couple of trees were removed from the back left and back side of the 7th green. Already the added daylight on the back of the green is making a positive difference. We have went out with fertilizer, added seed and sand to the over seeded tees to perk them up a bit as they have been getting a beating. Bulk spring pre-emergent has been ordered and delivery is scheduled for the end of the month with application to the course being made early March.

Legacy Hills 

One of the big things for this month has been the drainage for #3 Green to the right in the native. Upon further examination we have found roots clogging up the drainage. We should be able to wrap this area up next week. Our other main focus has been checking bunker depths and adding sand where needed. We are aware of the Poa annua problem and are continuing to search for ways to eradicate the problem as well.


Cowan Creek 

This month was dedicated to improving the overall drainage on hole #6.  We cleared out a large area in the native along the left side of the hole that would collect debris during rain events.  We trenched the area from where the two fairway drains daylight into the native to ease the flow of the fairway drainage.  We also added over 500’ of herringbone French drains inside the 100 yardage marker leading to two large drainage basins along the left side.  The trenches are currently topped with sand and ryegrass seed, and the area has been marked ground under repair.  Hopefully both of these efforts will expedite the dry time after rain events or heavy irrigation cycles.  Our other focuses this month have been overseed (tees, fairways, collars and approaches) fertility and greens’ moisture management.  We have applied our first round of pre-emergent granular herbicide on the greens for goosegrass and crabgrass (2/17/16).