I've tried to be patient and wait for the problem to correct itself, but it looks as if it's not going to happen. I'm talking about the condition of the city-run/owned golf courses in Portland and the lack of proper management. The situation is deplorable.
At Heron Lakes, the city has been "remodeling" sand traps on the seventh and sixth holes on Greenback for two years.
At Rose City on a Friday, I paid for 18 holes and teed off at 5:30 p.m. There was no drink cart on the course, the snack bar was closed at the turn (7:15 p.m.), and they pulled the flags on our last five holes. The sun didn't set for another hour.
Naturally, the clubhouse was closed when we finished our round, so we couldn't complain in person. Traps don't have enough sand in them, there are broken rakes, there's no over-seeding in divots on tees (let alone the fairways), burned greens, broken pipes making mud puddles, drinking fountains that don't work, no benches or garbage cans on tee boxes, no monitoring of play during busy times.
Now they have raised the prices and are offering a more inferior product than before. What's next? Sheep grazing the fairways?
It's very noticeable the city is cutting back services. It's my guess they're extracting as much money as possible from these courses to fund other projects.
I hope we don't get to the point where the city has to spend additional money to advertise again. A few years back, it tried to charge people from outside the city extra fees and lost its player base.
Source: The Oregonian