Archie:
Let me cover a number of your last comments to me.
The AC market was oversaturated with golf before McCullough's came onto the scene. There were too many courses thinking they could charge $100 green fees and believing the gravy train would continue indefinitely. When a publicly owned entity entered the scene the remaining players who were under the impression their $100 cash cow would go on saw them as the principal enemy -- when in reality the show was over before that happened.
I am not excusing the tactics employed against you -- so please -- no need to repeat yourself on that front.
You ask why should golf be subsidized? Ok -- then under your theory -- why have ANY muni golf at all. As an FYI -- muni golf provides a pipeline for people who are just getting started into golf -- it does so through a fee structure that allows them to pay for rounds of golf when such fees at other CCFAD or privately owned daily fee layouts are higher -- and in a number of cases -- much higher. Golf, prior to muni golf, was an elitist game -- shall we return to those glory days!
I would guess, taking your position to its logical end, why the need to build a Chambers Bay -- why the need to have public $$ plowed into Bethpage State Park?
Let me point out that libraries -- those created from the public treasury -- were once viewed by private hands as something that was wasteful too. We now know that such thinking is backward. Let me point out that libraries directly compete with private providers such as Barnes & Nobles, Blockbuster, et al. Shall we close libaries under your rationale? What about towns with tennis courts, health club options, municipal pools? Shall we close them because they are publicly subsidized and compete with private providers? What about public education institutions? Why don't we close them because they drain $$ and people away from private providers?
When you speak about the inventory -- the reality is that developers of privately owned courses / real estate have only themselves to blame. They are the ones who went out and simply built and built and built. The glut of courses happened through their own inabilty to see clearly the forces that were at work.
In all reality -- those who wanted to cherry pick off the top tier deep-pocketed players only were thinking short term -- they weren't interested in growing the game. Now that the situation has become what it is -- it's convenient to use the muni golf system as the culprit for their own failures.
Last thought -- if McCullough's spent that much on a project -- then the taxpayers of that jurisdiction should raise holy hell because of the demands all people are facing with this economy -- even when the course was first proposed there may have been other more needed items for the public $$ to be spent upon.
Archie, you are clearly entitled to see what happened to you and those connected to you as the rationale you are advocating now. I don't live within your specific shoes but believe your broad brush conclusion on the value / lack thereof of muni golf is way overstated.