Warning: You may become irate after reading this.
About Miller and Thomas Roads sites the Coronado Golf Course. There, affordable golf on nine holes, with a driving range, has been available to the community for decades. It’s where kids learn to play, seniors get around easily and most everyone who can’t afford Estancia, Whisper Rock or DC Ranch can enjoy a nice, easy afternoon on the links.
The course is a combination of private and public land. It’s an innovative approach whereby a private operator effectively saves the city a bunch of money by paying for and managing a golf course in areas where it would otherwise have to spend money to maintain the Indian Bend Wash.
Homes and apartments adjoin parts of the course. Residents don’t need to be Magellan to understand that flying golf balls and the like can impact where they live. After all, the golf course was there first.
Yet, a couple of loud neighbors on the 9th hole with little else to do than email Scottsdale officials may be on the verge of convincing the city to spend taxpayer money to cut the finishing hole from a Par 4 to a Par 3, changing a beloved closing hole just so people who moved onto it don’t have to get as many golf balls in their yards. Did we mention the hole has been as is for forty years? Fore!
This is undeniably government at its worst. Once upon a time there was a golfer uprising that defeated a plan to transform the Coronado Golf Course into a private practice facility for the San Francisco Giants. Elected officials scurried away from the concept when the rancor rang so loud.
Are we about to see a repeat of this? If there’s no course correction by Scottsdale there should be. If there’s no further consultation with the operator there must be. And we look forward to leading the charge. There are some very easy solutions that won’t ignite outrage or cost taxpayers so much money if only city staff would have had the decency to explore them.
Instead, we have yet another unforced error by bureaucrats, to borrow a tennis phrase, that respected City Manager Jim Thompson must address, and fix.