Golfers Slice Up Proposal To Close “The Patch”

Augusta, GA—For golfer James McGee, “The Patch” is where his heart is, it’s home. “The Patch is near and dear to me, it is me, it’s where I started, so I would like to keep playing,” he said, getting ready to hit his first shot of the day at the Augusta Municipal Golf Course.

The Augusta Municipal Golf Course, also known as “The Patch”, is now in play as a possible casualty of the city’s budget troubles. The proposal is to close it to save somewhere between $200,000 and $300,000 a year. The idea is, if it’s losing money, the city should cut it loose.

“Well I think the loss is the quality of life value for Augusta. Most cities have good municipal golf courses, which I think we got, so I think it’s just difficult for golf courses to make ends meet,” says Augusta Recreation and Parks Director Tom Beck.

The course caters to all types of players, for many, especially seniors; the attraction is affordability.

“Very reasonable very that’s going to be hard to replace the way times are now,” said William Nesbit.

And for some of these seniors who golf regularly here, losing money is not a good enough reason to close it.

“I think we have to support people we support them in a lot of different ways this is one way to do it,” said Bob Zeyfang, who at age 79, has been playing “The Patch” for 55 years.

“It’s very disappointing to even think they would even consider that, with the history and tradition ‘The Patch’ has, it’s disappointing that they would even consider that,” says Kenny Larry.

“Yeah, it would be missed, people in Augusta don’t have anywhere to go. I hate to see it closed” said McGee.

But, facing a more than $8 million budget hole, City Administrator Fred Russell has closing “The Patch” as one on the options on the table. Also being discussed is turning the operation over to a private company.

It’s an effort to save some green that could have the city losing 18 of them.