In Dick Leonard’s recent LOVE article on the Oro Valley Community Center Golf Courses, he suggested some revenue sources that the Town should utilize to increase revenue for the golf course operations. One of his ideas was to “install fee-based ball dispensers to provide continuous daily income.”
One of our readers wondered, “Does this mean that people can hit some balls on the driving range at no charge?” They decided to do a little investigating. Here is what they found:
“One day a few of us drove down to the Community Center golf courses and discovered that although they do charge $10 just to hit some balls, there is no control over it. Anyone can walk in the front door and go down to the range without stopping at the Pro Shop to pay. These golf courses continue to lose money and yet people have easy access to free stacks of balls.”
We at LOVE hope that someone from Parks and Recreation will take Mr. Leonard’s revenue-enhancing suggestions seriously. It doesn’t make sense to offer “freebies” while the golf courses continue to lose money.
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Editor’s Note
Members, regardless of their membership category, receive unlimited/free driving range benefits. As the author states, the Town attempts to charge $10.00 for anybody who just wishes to use the range, however, all one needs to do is walk to the range and start hitting as the balls are already there, supplied in an unlimited fashion by the Town, courtesy of Oro Valley taxpayers!
Golfers that LOVE spoke with said that every public course they’ve played has had a ball dispenser where one pays, for example, $4.00 for a small bucket and $7.00 for a large one.
