Ag District should offer time for Bolado to find long-term
rescue plan
While the 33rd Agricultural District’s board should allow Bolado
Park Golf Course officials to postpone lease payments for a set
number of months
– in order to reformulate a business plan with long-term
sustainability – state and local leaders also must take a realistic
view and start to simultaneously plan for other options at the
property.
Ag District should offer time for Bolado to find long-term rescue plan
While the 33rd Agricultural District’s board should allow Bolado Park Golf Course officials to postpone lease payments for a set number of months – in order to reformulate a business plan with long-term sustainability – state and local leaders also must take a realistic view and start to simultaneously plan for other options at the property.
It looks like an irreversible demise for the 64-year-old Bolado Park Golf Course, which closed for three days last week before re-opening Monday, after the club received a loan expected to get it through Jan. 11. That is when the agricultural district board, overseeing the Bolado Park fairgrounds and neighboring golf course, is set to consider the club’s request to reduce the $25,000 annual lease and help get it through a daunting rough patch.
The financial turmoil was a long time coming, as the club has experienced declining membership and revenues for a good decade. Part of the problem is an aging membership, while the golf course has done little to aggressively reform the way it markets and does business. Its leadership, meanwhile, failed to adequately invest through the years in necessary maintenance – the lifeblood of a golf course – to keep attracting new users. And competition has possibly played the biggest role: San Juan Oaks Golf Club opened in 1996 and thrived; Ridgemark Golf & Country Club in recent years had a change of ownership that brought with it millions of dollars in capital upgrades, such as vastly bettering the oft-neglected course maintenance there.
Bolado Park Golf Course leaders have responded in recent weeks by sounding the alarm bell, pleading for charitable donations from the community, and begging the state to reduce or postpone the quarterly lease payments.
It all sounds nice and idealistic, but you might as well bet for a hole in one on a par-4. One-time injections are merely Band-Aids to delay bleeding – as donations won’t fix a structural mess 10 years in the making. Considering the relatively minimal lease amount charged by the agricultural district, and the large costs of upgrading a golf course’s level of maintenance from paltry to adequate, which is absolutely necessary, it seems highly unlikely that any adjustment to the lease amount could offset the depth of Bolado Park Golf Course’s crisis.
And although the basic laws of capitalism are working against the club, it is in the agricultural district and public’s best interest to delay any lease payments – perhaps for three to six months – so that the course and its leadership can restructure the finances and come back with ideas to make it feasible again. It’s a long shot at this point, you could call it a miracle, but the state district might as well show major leeway in this case because it won’t hurt to give club members reasonable time to give it their best shot. If the course closes, it could take months or years before the district finds another tenant and, thus, earns any revenue from that portion of the property.
At the same time, it will be essential that the agricultural district – in cooperation with local government and business leaders – explore other options that might prove more profitable and sustainable, while also maintaining the recreational backdrop that is required in perpetuity through a deed donated in the 1940s.
Maybe another tenant has better ideas for successfully running a golf course. Perhaps someone might want to convert the property to a multi-use center, such as one with a golf range, batting cage, go-cart track or the like. Maybe the disc-golf phenomenon can find a fan base in San Benito County.
