Golf and the economy

THE EDITOR: Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley’s initiative to pump $3 million into the nine-hole Chaguaramas golf course at a time of economic need is a courageous and most welcome one.

If TT is to grow and develop a viable sport tourism industry and export market where there are obvious strengths, the Chaguaramas golf course should be an integrated part of that growth and development.

We should all know that attracting golfers is big business for countries that depend on tourist markets, including the US.

High-end hotels and international commercial airlines recognise the value of golfers as high-income earners and spend a disproportionate amount of money, and provide concessions trying to attract this market to their frequent-flyer programmes and long-stay business.

As a rule, the presence of numerous golf courses in a community improves the local environment by increasing real-estate values and commercial activity, providing employment for carpenters, cobblers, masons, electricians, groundsmen, coaches, golf course superintendents, facility operators, restaurateurs, concessioners, farmers, retail outlets and so forth.

The conundrum for our country is that to attract high-end markets, like golfers, there needs to be a critical mass of well designed and maintained golf courses. No serious golfer will be attracted to TT without a threshold minimum number of challenging, well-maintained and tooled courses available across the two islands. Otherwise, we will be just spinning top in mud unless there is a share agreement with another Caribbean territories.

The country is in dire need of more golf courses of which one or more should meet the international Professional Golfers Association standard.

Secondly, while there has been discussion over several years that the Chaguaramas course should evolve into an 18-hole course, I am of a contrary view that it should remain a nine-hole course.

There are internationally held environmental principles that ought to guide the planning, design or redesign of golf courses such as the Chaguaramas course, which exists in a sensitive ecosystem of a nature reserve and national park subsisting for future generations, over which there are protections and environmental responsibilities.

In a finite space such as ours, golf course development may therefore be better served as a means of rehabilitating degraded sites like quarries and landfills.

Thirdly, the Chaguaramas course in its current format of nine holes serves an important, specific social purpose. A nine-hole course makes it less time-consuming for working players with less time for the activity, as well as less daunting for new and young golfers and others who may, for other reasons, be challenged by an 18-hole course.

A nine-hole course makes golf accessible and convenient for most starters. Of course, any golfer can complete 18 holes by completing the course twice. A nine-hole course is also family friendly, or could be made so. By way of costs, it is the least expensive and most accessible of all course types for the pockets of ordinary citizens.

Golf courses are very expensive to maintain. Internationally, to offset their high costs, course designs in the Middle East, Europe and places like Kenya are now being annexed or incorporated into mix-use and environmentally sustainable development, which are what our political leader may need to focus on.

In anticipation of an improved Chaguaramas public golf facility as a result of a $30 million injection, greater employment generation is a reasonable expectation, along with a better quality of life for any ordinary citizen wishing to take advantage of it.

The fact that the country could generate greatness in our athletes and export market in an area not traditionally opened and generally accessible to ordinary citizens, because of such improvements, $30 million is money well spent.

KATHLEEN PINDER via e-mail