Golfers teed off in Everett

EVERETT – Golfers who hold annual passes to the city’s two courses could be forced to pay per round as soon as next year.

The City Council will vote tonight on a proposal that would end all annual passes to make more money from Walter E. Hall and Legion Park golf courses – a move long-time golfers say could drive them away from Everett.

Michael OLeary / The Herald Jerry Dezotell currently has an annual pass at Legion Park Golf Course in Everett. Dezotell and his friends play five times a week, weather permitting. If the Everett City Council votes to stop selling annual passes, Dezotell says he wont be able to play as many rounds.

“I’ll finish out this year, but that’s it,” Dennis Finlayson, 67, said. “Then I’m gone.”

Finlayson retired to Everett in part for the city’s golf courses. He’d rather move away than golf without his senior citizen discount pass. He and other longtime golfers plan to speak their minds at the council meeting tonight.

Under the proposal, passes would continue to sell until the end of this month. They would all expire on Dec. 31.

The proposal would also slap a $2 golf cart path paving fee onto each 18-hole round played at Walter E. Hall. The fee will be $1 for nine-hole rounds. Profit from the fee will pay back a loan that will pave existing cart paths.

“Right now I spend $30 a week on carts, and now it’ll cost me $40 a week, when I play five days a week,” Jerry Dezotell, 72, said. “But if they take away my pass, I won’t be playing as much anyway.”

Seniors currently pay $750 a year for annual passes at Legion, and $550 for annual passes at Walter E. Hall. Regular rate passes are $1,300 at Legion and $900 at Walter E. Hall.

For Dezotell, who plays five rounds each week with his senior pass, that’s a savings of $2,050 at Legion and $1,250 at Walter E. Hall, not including rounds played outside of golf’s high season, which goes from April to September. The passes apply year-round.

If Dezotell paid for five months of golf at five rounds a week without a pass, it would cost 73 percent more at Legion and 64 percent more at Walter E. Hall.

“We’re the only ones out here in the winter,” Lloyd Keefe, 72, said.

The change is the latest in a series of efforts to bring in golf revenue. In June, the city cut golf rates by up to 33 percent to attract more players. The slashed rates were at the behest of PROS Consulting LLC, a firm hired for $30,000 in January 2005.

City Councilman Mark Olson said it’s a mistake to end annual passes.

“There’s an illusion that somehow those folks are just displacing per-round, fee players,” he said. “It’s ludicrous. Most of the folks that have weekday passes play when nobody else is out there.”

Olson, who has held annual passes in recent years, plans to offer a different solution. He wants to expand the current annual pass program to offer separate weekend and weekday passes at a slightly higher rate, but eliminate the senior citizen pass entirely.

“The seniors are the wealthiest generation in the history of mankind,” he said. “It frankly is the last group of people that needs a subsidy for golf.” The courses had a combined total of 104,000 rounds in 2004 – down by 8,000 rounds from the year before. Figures for 2005 were not available. Neither course has been profitable since 2000.

City officials have said the dip is in part the fault of Billy Casper Golf Management, a firm hired in 2003 to oversee the courses. The firm hasn’t been required to report back to the city regularly, and the city has little power to take corrective action. Billy Casper’s contract with the city runs until 2008.

To many golfers, there is no excuse for eliminating senior discounts.

For seniors in Everett, Finlayson said, “it’s like a stab in the back.”

Reporter Krista J. Kapralos: 425-339-3422 or kkapralos@heraldnet.com.

Michael O’Leary / The Herald

Jerry Dezotell currently has an annual pass at Legion Park Golf Course in Everett. Dezotell and his friends play five times a week, weather permitting. If the Everett City Council votes to stop selling annual passes, Dezotell says he won’t be able to play as many rounds.