Wichita considers raising fees to improve golf courses

WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) — As the City of Wichita displayed an improvement to one of the City’s public golf courses Thursday, it said other improvements are needed.

MacDonald Golf Course

The improvement the City pointed to on Thursday involves the MacDonald Golf Course’s driving range not being near the clubhouse like at other golf courses.

“It creates a big challenge for not only customers, staff, First Tee with their programmings, having to figure out to transport the balls from the clubhouse to here. It’s a big issue,” Jesse Coffman, the City’s golf director, said.

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Coffman spoke with Trent Jones, executive director at First Tee-Greater Wichita. First Tee, a program that teaches children core values alongside the game of golf, uses MacDonald Golf Course.

First Tee provided a golf ball dispensing machine next to the MacDonald driving range, but the City still needed a building to house the machine. Jones suggested contacting the Wichita East High Blue Aces construction team.

The students spent the winter building a shed for the machine. On Thursday, they participated in the ribbon-cutting ceremony with the mayor, Coffman, and Jones.

Other improvements needed

“The last two years have been very good. Last year was incredible. This year is above last year’s number so far through the first three months,” he said. “It doesn’t look like it’s slowing down, so it’s very encouraging.”

But he said it is the City’s job to provide a product everyone expects when going to a golf course. He said the list of things that need to be done includes cart path repairs and mowing equipment maintenance and purchasing. But he said irrigation is the biggest concern.

“Our irrigation systems are well beyond their expected life,” Coffman said. “It’s something we have to address. We have to have irrigation to have golf courses.”

Raising fees?

“I will say there’s no such thing as a free lunch,” Whipple said. “Our goal is to keep our, something like the golf program, to keep it on its feet by itself so you’re not stealing or taking from other programs as well.”

But he also said the City’s golf program is “in a really secure financial spot.”

“The goal is to find a way to stay sustainable,” Coffman said. “There are a lot of projects that need to be done. Over the last better part of the decade, there wasn’t money to do these projects. So we’re not only trying to improve, we’re also playing catch up on a lot of the things that need to be done.”

“We’re looking at ways to increase revenue so we can take care of some of these projects and provide the best possible product for our golfers,” he said.

First Tee-Greater Wichita

Jones discussed the goals for First Tee, including building an indoor facility for the program.

“Just last week, we started spring programs,” he said. “We have around 175 kids visiting the facility each week and anticipate nearly 800 participants by end of 2023 to step foot in First Tee programming.”

He said the program serves young people ages 5 to 17 and aims to keep programming fees extremely low.

But First Tee would like some help with one of its fundraising projects. He pointed to a plot at MacDonald Golf Course.

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“The plot where you see the sign is the future of home of our indoor facility,” Jones said. “We anticipate breaking ground on that within the next year if fundraising events go well. And that will really allow us to serve these junior golfers year-round and engage kids in our life skills and leadership curriculum 12 months out of the year instead of just during the warm summer months.”

He said First Tee is about 60% fundraiser on the construction budget. The goal is $1.5 million for a 6,000-square-foot facility.

“It’ll be a weatherproof facility with some indoor/outdoor driving bays that back up right to the current driving range,” Jones said. “Right now, we’re doing all of our programming outdoors. This will ensure that when it’s raining, when it’s cold or dark, (they) could still have a space to access our adult mentors and our programming.”