Original article posted on Gazette.net on June 3, 2009

Residents: Keep golf at Sligo Creek course

Parks Department weighing options for facility

by Jason Tomassini | Staff Writer


While county planning officials have said Sligo Creek Golf Course in Silver Spring will no longer be operated as a golf course beginning this fall, residents asked officials last week to consider any alternative that would keep golf at Sligo Creek.

Parks Department officials met with residents May 26 to discuss the future of the course, which the county Revenue Authority will hand back to Park and Planning on Oct. 1 because the course was ruled a financial drain on the county golf system. It will still operate as a golf course until that date.

But most residents at the meeting weren't interested in finding new uses for the course instead they wanted to explore options that would save the course for golfers of all ages and ability and allow the site to offer the youth golf program First Tee of Montgomery County.

"It fulfills a unique need in the county," said Andrew Kleine, moderator for Prezco, an umbrella group of several civic associations in Silver Spring.

Park and Planning leased operation of four courses, including Sligo Creek, to the Revenue Authority in 2006. The Revenue Authority already owns five courses. There is a clause in the lease that prohibits Sligo Creek from operating as a golf course if the Revenue Authority feels it will compete with its existing courses.

The council signed off on that original lease and voted March 31 to pass an amendment to the lease that would require the Revenue Authority to operate Sligo Creek Golf Course until Oct. 1 before terminating its lease.

Residents have disparaged the council's actions in both instances as being too lenient on the Revenue Authority and for the general lack of transparency throughout the process.

"These management issues and monetary issues need to be truly brought out in a way that is truly transparent to the public," said Carol Barth of the Montgomery County Civic Federation's parks committee.

Sligo Creek is the only nine-hole course in the system and a study by the National Golf Foundation projected Sligo Creek would lose more than $200,000 in each of the next five years.

Planning Board Chairman Royce Hanson has said that the facility will not be operated as a golf course in the future, but will still remain green space. Mike Riley, deputy director of the Parks Department, said it would be unlikely that Sligo Creek would be operated as a golf course, even without the no-compete clause in the lease.

"We would not operate a golf course in our current model — one that wouldn't make money and would be operated by tax-supported dollars," Riley said, although he later conceded that the department would look into "what it would take" for Sligo Creek to remain a golf course as the master plan study for reuse of the course continues.

"The only foregone conclusion is the property comes back to the commission," said Carol Rubin, a lawyer for Park and Planning, adding that the no-compete portion of the lease could be renegotiated if the Revenue Authority agreed to do so.

Parks staff is scheduled to bring an "objectives and outreach" report before the Planning Board on July 16 with adoption of a reuse plan scheduled for December at the earliest. It will cost Park and Planning $56,000 for general upkeep of the land until a new use is determined.

One suggestion for future use is Frisbee golf, said Brad Beeson, vice president of Bethesda Bungalows, a custom home builder specializing in green building.

Beeson said converting the course to a Frisbee golf course would take a few weeks and could be done for less than $30,000. It would also generate revenue from user fees and merchandise sales.

"If it can't [stay a golf course], disc golf is a great, great alternative," Beeson said.

Staff Writer Amber Parcher contributed to this report.