I love the lexicon of golf, the vast glossary of words that make up the grammar of the game. My personal favourites are ‘gimme,’ ‘Calcutta,’ ‘dogleg,’ ‘sandbagger,’ ‘banana-ball’ and ‘muni.’ The latter is short form for a municipally owned course, a tax-supported public facility.
In Ken Dryden’s seminal tome, The Game, he called the backyard rink the place where many Canadian kids fell in love with hockey. “It was here that our inextricable bond with the game was made,” he wrote.
The same holds true for golfers.
For many of us, the local muni was our backyard rink.
It might have been the Golf municipal de Montréal, Victoria Golf course in Edmonton (Canada’s oldest muni), or any of the others scattered across the country. For me, it was the Lakeview Golf Club in Mississauga, Ontario.
Munis have been around since, well, Scottish shepherds exchanged sticks and rocks for balls and clubs and placed flags in holes and added a few rudimentary rules. It’s said that Mother Nature designed the very first muni – St. Andrews in Scotland.
But the term ‘muni’ might soon disappear from our lexicon, suffering the same fate as Mashie niblick, Stymie, and Scotch foursomes.
That’s potentially true in two of Canada’s largest metropolitan areas.
This past winter, news trickled out that Toronto and Vancouver are reassessing their commitment to municipal golf. In early January, Canadian Press published a story that said Canada’s largest city is considering a full-scale review of its muni courses. The catalysts were “rising maintenance costs” and a “declining interest in the sport.”
Toronto is looking to determine “the best model for golf service delivery” over the next 20 years. The proposed review could be completed by early next year.
Toronto owns seven golf courses and leases two to private operators. It manages the other five but contracts out some operations. It doesn’t bring in enough money – $4.5 million to $5 million per year – to recoup its costs, and those costs are expected to mount like a string of double-bogeys.
The City says it needs nearly $10 million to modernize its munis.
Considering rounds played at its courses fell by almost 15 per cent between ‘07 and ’16 and this looks very much like a diminishing return on investment – a tough sell to a public already groaning under rising tax rates.
And if those numbers don’t make lovers of golf gulp hard, this will: The report also said many Canadian municipalities are exploring alternate use options for golf operations.
One of them is Vancouver, currently reviewing its entire 25-year plan for public parks, including its six municipal golf courses. Its courses are spread out across 200 hectares, half the size of Stanley Park. As a collective, its rounds played year-round produce between $2 and $3 million in revenue. Obviously, not enough.
Margaret Kohn, a University of Toronto professor specializing in urbanism and public space, told CP that cities have to ask themselves two questions about the future of this public land: Does it serve citizens who are unlikely to have easy access to public recreation space, and can the space be used for multiple purposes?
She adds, rather cryptically: “Golf courses, as I understand it, are not open to alternative uses.”
Charles Montgomery, author of ‘Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design,’ agrees. He was eager to weigh in on the future of muni courses in Vancouver. He told CBC News: “If we …really care about building an inclusive city and reducing barriers to green space, then the first thing we need to do is look at our golf courses. If we want to achieve the greenest city vision, we would be taking our pay-to-play golf courses and turning them into more accessible spaces to everyone.”
No doubt, Canada’s major urban areas are bombarded by development and burgeoning land valuations. The full press is on to pave paradise and put up more parking lots – or urban housing. Vancouver’s three munis located in the city’s south end – Langara, Fraserview and McCleery – seem particularly vulnerable to a reassessment, according to press reports.
One pro-density advocacy group in Vancouver even included private club elitism in its argument, applying it, perhaps unfairly, to munis. “Reserving six very large pieces of public land for nothing but 500 or 600 people a day seems a little ridiculous in this environment,” said one member.
It’s clear the days of big cities parceling out 100+ acre plots to build a muni golf course are over. Even a moderate-sized city like Thunder Bay recently sold one of its munis.
When I grew up in the 1960s, Mississauga was then known as the Township of Toronto, a lightly populated area on the western edge of Toronto. Land was cheap, golf was very much on the ascendency, and the owner of a local private club called Lakeview (home to two Canadian Opens in the 1930s), generously donated his course to the local community – with the proviso that it remain a golf course. My local muni is there today, thanks to that 99-year lease. It was on this course that I forged my inextricable bond with the game. I’m sure I share those memories with thousands of others who learned the game at their local muni.
But waxing poetic about a bygone era ignores the realities of modern-day life. To a new generation, muni courses aren’t green walls standing tall against the ravages of over-development, but simply white elephants – underused playpens supporting a dying game played by an aging demographic.
Still, munis have their champions. Earlier this year, Brian Caldwell, addressed a letter to the editor in response to the CP story in the Toronto Star. He wrote: “I would like to cast my vote to not only keep Toronto’s municipal golf courses open, but to make them a centrepiece of a youth and sport initiative. If rounds are down, the city has a great opportunity to get inner-city kids involved in a sport and a game that players all over the world love and that will return their love over a lifetime.
“They deserve a chance to at least see if they enjoy the combination of outdoor beauty, a game, a source of continuing personal challenge and the humility of facing a great equalizer. The fact that municipal courses are not part of the Future Links and Golf in Schools programs …is ridiculous. It is time to get serious and use these great facilities to help kids.”
Will munis survive all this political reassessment? Will the word even remain part of golf’s lexicon?
I wish I had the answer.
