I played the Vista Links the month it opened in 2004 and loved it. I played there for probably the last time on Friday. Even if the city owned the course outright, the economics just don't make sense and they never did. I recall reading in the local paper back in '04 that the course cost $7.x million, and when I showed up for my first round, the max rate was about $35 with cart and I think $20 for students. In a county with 20,000 people, with a long-standing country club, and without a whole lot of money, it never made sense. When I attempted to search for old articles tonight to verify this $7.x million number, I found a piece quoting the pro as saying "We believe people will travel an hour to play affordable golf." As has been commented several times, this project was greatly oversold. [And btw, most people won't even travel an hour to play Yale!]
Nowadays, the economics still don't make sense. They charged $19 to walk a course where the fairways are mowed at the same height as the first cut. It bordered on unplayable, and I really don't care much about conditioning. I don't think there were more than 20 players that Friday/holiday morning, and my friend said it was crowded. The annual membership for city residents is $700, and for non-residents $800. I can't see it staying open the rest of 2015, which is very sad to me.
Here's my question for Lester and others who know this stuff: How does a course like this cost more than $7 million? I know the city owned a bit of the land before they started planning the course, and I recall [but I may be wrong] that other parts were either gifted or sold below market value. There were 60 white sand bunkers originally. The cart barn is twice the size of the original clubhouse, the banquet barn was built using donated materials, and the parking lot is dirt. The only artificial water feature is the irrigation pond. How much do 72ish tee pads cost? It was probably a mistake to pave a continuous cartpath, and certainly a mistake to plant all bentgrass (given the climate and the amount of water needed--I don't know whether bent seed is particularly expensive). The course appears to follow the lay of the land, generally speaking--even to the extent that there are at least five holes with blind shots, one of which is created by a rock outcropping that plays an integral role in strategy. Without pointing fingers, was the course construction simply priced too high? (In today's economy, would the same product have been sold for less?) What should they have done to cut costs to $3-4 million, which would have been a lot more sustainable?
I am happy to take this conversation offline if my questions are sensitive. Thanks. JB