Villagers golfers are being forced to ring in the new year with the Morse family’s hands in their wallets.
That’s because the cost to play 18 holes at any of the 12 Championship Courses in The Villages is taking a significant jump on Jan. 1. In some instances, greens fees will increase by as much $48 to play 18 holes – an increase that we consider ludicrous at best. In other cases, the increases will be smaller, but you can be rest assured that if you enjoy spending time on the links, your cash supply is going to be lighter.
There are many issues tied to the new rate schedule that should anger and annoy golfers across the community. For starters, it eliminates the varying price structures for playing at different times of the day. So those who have factored those discounts into their budgets can just wipe them back out, because now it’s one price to play, regardless of the time of day.
The new rate schedule identifies the priciest courses as Palmer Legends, Cane Garden, Mallory Hill, Havana, Bonifay, Evans Prairie, Belle Glade and Tierra Del Sol, which is an addition to the upper-echelon pricing group for 2020. The mid-range-priced courses are Hacienda Hills, Glenview Champions and Lopez Legacy. And in what should be a disturbing statement to golfers who live on the Historic Side of The Villages, Orange Blossom Hills has been deemed as the cheap place to play golf in The Villages.
If you’re wondering what the new fee structure looks like, you can see it by clicking HERE. You also can view the current fee breakdown by clicking HERE. But know this before you click – you probably aren’t going to like what you see.
As most Villagers know, there are several categories – priority member, resident member, priority guest, resident guest and non-resident – golfers can fall into to determine how much they’ll pay to play. But’s here’s a quick range of what the rates will be at each championship course beginning New Year’s Day:
- Palmer Legends, Cane Garden, Mallory Hill, Havana, Bonifay, Evans Prairie, Belle Glade and Tierra Del Sol: $47-$84.
- Hacienda Hills, Glenview Champions and Lopez Legacy: $41-$78.
- Orange Blossom Hills: $33-$70.
Villagers will soon find out that many of those numbers shown above represent double-digit percentage increases in the cost to play golf. For instance, if you enjoyed playing in the evenings at Palmer Legends, Cane Garden, Mallory Hill, Havana, Bonifay, Evans Prairie or Belle Glade, you’re facing a whopping 75 percent increase over the current evening wave price. For those of you who enjoy math, it will soon cost you $64 versus the current rate of $16.
Those who enjoy playing Hacienda Hills, Glenview Champions and Lopez Legacy during the morning hours will see a 34.5 percent increase to the fee they pay – $38 versus $58. Likewise, residents who play Orange Blossom Hills on the Historic side, where an older population lives with many on fixed incomes, will see their greens fee jump to $50, which equates to percentage increases of 36, 48 and 76, depending on the time of you day you have been playing in the past.
If you think about it, this latest money grab into the pockets of golfers is just one more piece of the disgusting state of affairs Villagers have had to endure this year from the Morse Millennials – the first generation of the Developer’s family who hasn’t had to work for it. Some of the others include:
- The Sumter County Commission – well-known puppets of the Developer – ignored pleas from area residents and voted to raise property taxes by a whopping 25 percent, largely to cover infrastructure costs in the newest sections of the sprawling retirement community.
- Amenity fee caps have been removed.
- Trash fees have increased.
- Recycling fees appear headed in the same direction.
- The North Sumter County Utility Dependent District is in the process of purchasing the Central Sumter Utility Co. for about $98.5 million, which we all know is going to fall on the backs of Villagers in one way or another.
- VIP seating areas were sold at two of the recent Christmas tree lightings, which quickly negated the desires of late Villagers Founder Harold Schwartz and his son, retirement community guru H. Gary Morse, who demanded that all Villagers should be treated equal once they became residents.
- The Developer clearly is saving huge wads of cash by dispatching food trucks – one of them recently caught the attention of a health inspector – to the newer areas of the community instead of building nice, air-conditioned country clubs like those that exist north of State Road 44.
- Inadequate parking plagued the Fenney Putt & Play, which forced those who shelled out hundreds of thousands of dollars for new homes to deal with Villagers who were leaving their vehicles in front of their residences and walking to the facility.
Unfortunately, we don’t think the increase in golf fees will be the last one we’ll see. We knew when the Developer took the golf division back under his wing late last year that Villagers were in for something bad. And now we know that it’s outrageous fee increases that probably will turn some Villagers away from the game.
Of course, we believe the Developer has a much bigger motive in mind in this debacle. It’s a known fact that golf’s popularity is waning across the rest of the United States, so it should come as no surprise that smaller, 9-hole executive courses seem to be on the Developer’s radar more and more. And that said, don’t be shocked if it ends up being “what you see is what you’ve got” when it comes to championship courses.
Luckily, Villages golfers have alternatives. There are many high-quality courses in the tri-county area that offer competitive rates that fall way below the fee schedule Villagers golfers are about to face. Many of those facilities, like the courses at Harbor Hills, Spruce Creek South and Del Webb Spruce Creek, are quite nice. And if Villagers take their business to those courses instead of handing over their hard-earned cash to the greedy Developer, you can bet some of this constant nickel-and-diming will finally end.