To the Editor:
In response to the recent letter supporting the increased Villages Championship Golf Course greens fees:
The nice thing about statistics is you can make them say whatever you want. The fact is the average greens fees for the afternoon wave this year from last year’s May 1-Oct 1 period went up 26.55 percent. That, to me, is “exorbitant.”
True, the greens fees in the fall period (Oct. 1-Dec. 31) have gone down. That’s the smartest move the golf division has made. During the fall/winter/spring season this past year you could go by almost any championship golf course around 12:30 p.m., which should be the peak of the afternoon wave which starts just before noon, and see NOBODY teeing off. The prices were too high!
It used to be every championship course had its own Men’s Day. Now, in the case of Glenview and Lopez, they are split between the two courses because they couldn’t get enough players. In the old days there was no Priority Membership. Everybody paid the same rate. Morning wave or afternoon wave it didn’t matter, the price was the same.
Now you pay hundreds of dollars to save a couple of bucks on greens fees while putting millions of dollars in the Developer’s hands before anybody even sticks a tee in the ground. (There are 130,000 people in The Villages. Say 25 percent pay $750/year for the Priority Membership. That’s $24,375,000 in their pocket even if NOBODY plays.) And they need to increase greens fees? If you think that’s a good deal maybe you should also invest in a time share!!
Steve Robinson
Village of Polo Ridge
