Spokane County Courses Seek Policy To Reduce Teed-Off Golfers

As tee times grow more precious, the means of their allocation come under closer scrutiny.

This question of golf supply and demand is under study by Spokane County golf administrators, who are seeking the most efficient means of dispersing tee times.

Pros from the three county courses - Hangman Valley, Liberty Lake and MeadowWood - along with county golf manager Mike Kingsley met with county commissioners this week to discuss their tee-time policy. The result was a recommendation to form an advisory panel to help review the tee-time system.

“Our No. 1 problem is the availability of tee times,” Kingsley told the commissioners.

County courses take tee times on Tuesday for the subsequent seven days. That’s nearly 500 possible tee times being issued, which “creates a real bottleneck on Tuesday mornings,” Kingsley said.

Spokane city courses take tee times one day in advance for weekday play and seven days in advance for weekends - a plan that may eliminate the bottleneck, but means more manpower on the phones every day.

The city also takes phone reservations for an hour before accepting over-the-counter requests.

“I think we need to match the city, which Wandermere and Sundance (also) do now,” Kingsley said. “We’re kind of the odd man out. We need to make it what is best for the customers.”

As it stands, the county pros sometimes see customers at the counter lock up as many as 13 tee times on Tuesday morning. Whereas someone trying to get through on the phone that morning at 7 “has about a one-in-a-1,000 chance, so we want to make it fair for everybody,” Kingsley said.

Kingsley’s other concern with the current system is that “we get a lot of no-shows. When you’re booking a week in advance, you get a lot of them, but when you’re booking a day ahead, most people have a good idea if they’re going to be able to play tomorrow.”

Objections will certainly arise from those accustomed to booking more than one tee time per week.

Kingsley also had wondered if the county was allotting too many tee times to tournaments, men’s and women’s clubs, or out-of-town players.

But when he examined the numbers, that didn’t seem to be a problem. Of the 210,000 rounds played in the county last year, roughly 11 percent were tournament or out-of-town players, while various clubs accounted for roughly 10 percent of the rounds.

Hulteng in hall of fame

In recognition of more than 50 years of golfing excellence, Spokane’s Betty Jean Hulteng will be inducted into the Pacific Northwest Golf Hall of Fame Friday in a ceremony at Seattle’s Rainier Golf and Country Club.

Hulteng won the Spokane Women’s City Amateur title at age 15, and also won it three straight years, 1942-44.

In 1946, Hulteng won the PNGA Women’s Amateur title and advanced to the semifinals of the U.S. Women’s Open (match play) at Spokane Country Club, where she lost to Patty Berg on the 35th hole.

A Stanford graduate, Hulteng later lost to Babe Didrikson Zaharias, the eventual champ, in another U.S. Women’s Amateur.

Now 70, Hulteng still plays to “about a 12 handicap,” her husband John reported.

Pro Classic on Labor Day

Last year’s inaugural Pro Classic, which lured more than 4,000 fans to MeadowWood to see Senior PGA Tour players in action, was held on Aug. 22.

This year, it has been slotted between the Tour’s Park City, Utah, and Seattle stops, which causes it to fall on Labor Day.

“We have a lot of positives with this,” organizer Toby Steward said. “Canadian Labor Day is the same as ours and we’re going to market heavily up there, as well.”

The fact that it will occur on a scheduled day off for most working people is a boost, Steward said.

“We feel it’s going to be a lot bigger event and we’re working to bring in a couple of really big names,” Steward said.

Liberty’s new look

Reconstruction of several greens and tees at Liberty Lake is almost complete, with the water level on the new lake expected to soon reach capacity.

Kingsley said play on the new greens on Nos. 2, 7 and 12 should start in the middle of May.

Also, dirt mounds between the No. 1 and No. 10 fairways will be seeded with fescue, creating a more definite separation between the holes.

The lake, which lies to the left of Nos. 3, 4 and 7, doesn’t seem to present much of a hazard. For the most part, however, that’s not why it was constructed.

“We don’t really want to make Liberty Lake some monster course with lots of lakes,” Kingsley explained. “But when you go to build these (new) greens and you need 4,000 or 5,000 yards of material to build it, the best place to do it is to dig it on your own site instead of going out and buying it.”

Deer Park nears completion

Pro Craig Schuh said he’s looking for a July completion of the Deer Park Golf and Country Club.

“We’re just now getting some work done on the roads going to the clubhouse, but one (nine) will be open for sure,” Schuh said. “The other side, we’ll know about in the next two weeks. We’re hoping for all 18 (in July).”

Schuh described the course - semi-private but open to the public - as “kind of a desert-style MeadowWood, flat with rolling hills and a lot of waste bunkers with four lakes and a stream.”