A new operator has signed a five-year lease to oversee the nine-hole golf course at Bolado Park facing financial problems under prior management.
Sierra Golf Operations in late January signed the five-year lease for a rate of $1 annually to operate the golf course in the Tres Pinos area, said Paul Rovella, a board member for the 33rd Agricultural District, which owns the land. The district put out a request for proposal late last year for a possible, new operator after the Bolado Park Golf Club had faced imminent financial collapse.
Bolado Park Golf Club has dealt with continued money issues that came to a head in 2010 and resurfaced last year, apparently a result of the declining golf industry nationally and locally.
The new course will be named Pinnacle Hills Golf Club.
Chowchilla-based Sierra Golf Operations, which operates nine other golf courses in the region, signed the lease with the ag district that includes the golf property but excludes management of two residences there, Rovella said.
Bolado Park Golf Club had been paying monthly rent of $2,000, but Rovella pointed out the Bolado club previously maintained the homes and generated about the same amount of revenue from the residence as it paid for the golf course lease.
Sierra Golf Operations in making the deal with the agricultural district committed to funding improvements to the course, Rovella said.
Sierra Golf President & CEO Jeff Christensen reiterated those intentions in an interview with the Free Lance on Wednesday. Christensen said the new operator planned to gradually improve the grounds with hopes of reopening around mid-March. Sierra Golf also expects its marketing and membership programs to benefit the renewed course at Bolado, which will name the new name to correlate with the attraction of Pinnacles National Park in the area.
Christensen said Sierra specializes in revamping at-risk, struggling properties such as the local course.
He said he envisions Pinnacle Hills as affordable, but also somewhere for all types of players.
“We want that working mom and dad as well as that country club player to come out,” he said.
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