The Town of Carstairs has purchased the Carstairs Community Golf Club at a cost of $700,000, say officials.
The sale was approved by the club members at a meeting on Sept. 9. It was then approved by Carstairs council at its regular council meeting that same evening.
The Carstairs Golf Club was formerly a semi-private course with nearly 500 members each holding shares. The members ran the club through a society.
The club will fall under the auspices of the Town of Carstairs beginning on Oct. 1.
Mayor Lance Colby said the purchase of the golf course will be a benefit to the town.
“We look at it that we can bring the golf course in and run it through our administration,” said Colby. “I think it’s a good draw for the town. We feel we should keep that because a lot of people do come out here for the golf. In the (Mountain View Gazette) Readers’ Choice Awards it was the number 1 golf course. We want to work at it and keep it that way.”
Colby said there was some debate around whether the town should purchase the course.
“Acquiring the golf course is something that we had a lot of discussion about whether we should or shouldn’t,” said Colby. “The biggest fear is if we didn’t pick it up and it went to a developer and they didn’t look after it. What if they came back and said we can’t operate it, we need to put a development in.”
Colby said that money to pay for the golf course will come from both the town’s reserve fund ($300,000) and a short-term loan ($400,000).
Carstairs CAO Carl McDonnell said that the town has been in discussions with the golf club for almost two years.
“We assisted them with their administration and human resource files,” said McDonnell. “Through the progression of some of these discussions and given the current state of golf across the province and the weather they had last year — golfers are getting older for the most part and not as many people are golfing — so they’re looking at the long-term viability of the golf course and what that looks like.”
McDonnell said the town spoke to the board of directors and talked about the long-term viability of the golf course and the direction it needs to go in, as well as the importance of the course to the community.
