re: Your one request for Baton Rouge golf

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I must be going at the wrong times because I've never seen Beaver empty.

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It's certainly "empty" in comparison to other courses on a weekday. I go there for practice fairly often.

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I am not worried about losing the best range. I am trying to improve the quality of BR golf. BREC and LSU are holding it back with crappy courses subsidized by taxpayers.

Now if they want to invest in them and make them amazing courses then I am fine with that but they are not doing that. They are putting what would be good courses out of business with crappy low priced golf.

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LSU is absolutely necessary. You need a course where the hackers can go frick up a course for cheap. I don't want the average LSU golfer to start invading Santa Maria, Beaver, or Greystone. You need courses like LSU so the shite you see there doesn't leak out.

Beaver is pretty easy too. Greens are usually pretty good and have some nice attributes to them, but the golf is straight forward.

Would love for BR golf to have a true test besides UClub. A good public true test of hard, hard golf

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I read in the Advocate it costs LSU $250k per year to keep it open. Obviously, taxpayer funded.

You don't think increased revenues in remaining courses would result in increased quality? I think it would.

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Every LSU student pays $2.50 per year towards the golf course. Now, I'm sure that doesn't cover everything, but the full $250k is not from taxpayers.

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Santa Maria isn't the only other option for golf if LSU or City closes. Tons of other options and cheap ones too if you look at Golf Now. Gasp, these cheap asses may have to play at odd times like lunch or afternoons or weekdays.

Yes some people may have to play in afternoon or on weekday. That is actually healthy for golf. Having everyone only playing on Saturday and Sunday morning is actually what is hurting BR golf. Courses are dead during week and afternoons. Not good.

The amount of play that would move from LSU Clark and City Park to the other courses would not be hard on the courses. No course is getting 100 rounds a day everyday day no matter who closes. Weekdays no one is on our courses so plenty of time to heal.

When the courses close turn them into parks. Like you say that is great for the City. More people use our parks than these golf courses.

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Lunch, afternoons, and weekends are already packed on many courses. It's rare to hit any BR course and not be stuck in a backlog of retards. I don't know where you think three courses worth of shitty golfers are going to go and not piss off the serious golfers.

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There is also Dumas, Copper, Beaver, Pelican, The Island and Webb to absorb some Hackers too

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The problem is that nobody is going to go out to Copper or Beaver, and Pelican/The Island is too pricy and far for the weekend hacker. Which puts us back at square one.

I'm not try to be a dick, I just don't see how closing courses is the answer here.

Are they full all day, every day? Probably not.


But you can't take three courses worth of rounds, add them to a course that is already packed during prime time and expect the players from the closed course to play at non prime times. People work for a living and weekends and afternoons are the only time they can get away.

No golf course in Baton Rouge will ever be packed all day, every day. That only happens at destination golf courses or the beach. An attempt to make them packed all day will just result on less over all rounds because people will find other things to do.

I have never been to this particular board before, but noticed it today and was interested because my son has been getting into golf recently. He is 13 and a good athlete who plays a lot of sports throughout the year.

Those sports, games and practices, prevent not only him from playing much golf, but also his father and I. Although we were both taught how to play somewhat in our youth, neither of us play much and neither of us are very good.

There is absolutely zero chance that we would ever spend the money to join a private course. There is also zero chance that we would currently be playing any golf at all if each round were $50+ for each person.

The crappy BREC park courses are actually fricking awesome for us. In a rare lull from other sports this summer, my son has been playing at least 9 holes at least 3-4 times a week. He has played with me, with his dad, with my dad, etc. None of us would be playing otherwise.

The collateral effect of this on golf as a whole is really important:
1. If his father and I were not getting this practice in at this point in our lives, there is probably little chance that we would be picking golf up more seriously when the kids are older and we have more time. But with the golf exposure we are currently getting, our future support of better courses with higher price tags is actually a pretty good possibility.
2. More importantly, we are developing an interest in golf in a young person (who also happens to be a great athlete and will probably really develop a love of golf as he grows up). He will be far more likely to spend money on better golf as he grows up than he ever would have without these cheap courses.

So...yeah. Maybe these junk courses are taking budget dollars away from other courses that could be "good." But in reality the collateral effect of that would be to eradicate any new generation of golfers except for a few kids here and there who grow up on golf courses.

I'm not saying golf is expensive in Baton Rouge specifically, but golf is an expensive sport.

When people have multiple kids in various sports and are paying tuition, competitive soccer, football, baseball, etc. then golf is going to fall by the wayside unless there is a way to make it actually quite cheap and convenient.

Not saying that anyone is advocating for only private courses, but I for one am pretty grateful that we have several convenient and inexpensive ones to choose from, and I think in the long run those options can have some really good benefits for "better" golf in Baton Rouge overall down the road. Hopefully, anyway!

I cannot think of a sport or hobby that doesn't cost a good bit of money. People act as if golf is the only one. I know people that spend more on LSU football than I spend on golf in a year.

Again, no one is advocating for BREC to close all courses. There is and always will be convenient and cheap golf in the BR area. Even if City Park and LSU closed. Webb Park, Beaver, and Dumas can handle more golfers.