The Web site for the city's golf course tells readers the good news: "With ongoing improvements, including upgrading the 'rough,' redesigning and rebuilding many of the traps, and building four additions onto the clubhouse, the West Palm Beach Country Club has become one of the top public courses in the country as rated by Golf Digest."
What it doesn't say is that the part about Golf Digest magazine is from the late 1980s and early '90s.
Hope as it might, the course hasn't been able to recapture the glory of yesteryear. But it's now poised to give it a shot.
The old golf commission, made up of longtime players many felt practiced favoritism, has been disbanded and replaced by city commissioners. The course's condition is greener and better than it's been in years, players say. And for the first time, a private company hired last week will try to attract new golfers and maximize profits.
JCD Sports Group of Delray Beach, which is negotiating a four-year contract and likely will start Oct. 1, would get $75,000 to manage the course the first year, with $2,500 more each year after. The company manages four other public courses in Palm Beach County: Delray Beach Golf Club, Lakeview Golf Club in Delray Beach, the county's Southwinds Golf Course and Belle Glade Golf Course.
President Brahm Dubin promises to keep the current employees - something the city requested - and to boost the rounds to 72,000 in the first year, which would be an increase of about 5,000 rounds.
He hopes to do that by keeping the course in good shape and improving the course's marketing.
"People will come back," Dubin said Friday. "Will they come back all at once? No. But one friend will tell another friend."
Bob Barcinski, an assistant city manager with the city of Delray Beach, said JCD has been "very responsive" to his requests. The Delray Golf Club has performed well for years, he said.
But Dubin will come into the job with an image problem. Players who have gone elsewhere think of the course as poorly maintained and inaccessible if you're not an insider. Groups of older club members, including one group known as the "Rinky Dinks," still get blocks of prime tee times set aside. That's one reason it's been difficult to attract younger golfers.
Memberships dropped from 442 in 2002 to 364 today, although more lucrative nonmember rounds are up.
Course manager Jim Roberts said times already are changing at the West Palm Beach course. The clubhouse's " '70s decor" needs an overhaul, but the managers have trimmed the number of tee times set aside for special groups, he said. And Joe Sellars, the superintendent, has improved the quality of the grasses and the soil, he said.
He questioned the need for the management company, concerned that JCD's fee might take money away from the course maintenance.
"The management company coming is going to be getting a free-ride gem is pretty much what they're going to get," Roberts said. "I just hope the guys who are here get the credit for what they've done."
He added: "We're not overly excited about what's going on, but we're going to work with them."
Longtime golfers are worried, too.
Ed Smith, 60, of West Palm Beach has been golfing at the course for nine years and worries greens fees will skyrocket and a new clientele will be ushered in, something Dubin said won't happen.
"I don't know if we'll have the same access that we have now," Smith said.
Mitch Gornto, a golfer at the course for 40 years, said the course is already "as good as any of the public courses if not better."
"I don't see that it made that much sense to me to spend that amount of money to bring somebody in here to run this place," said Gornto, 81.
But Kimberly Mitchell, the city commissioner who has pushed hardest for the private manager and other changes at the course, said the golfers shouldn't worry.
"When you have somebody that professionally runs a golf course, they can more than make up for their management fee," Mitchell said.
Source: Palm Beach Post (Florida)