CHICKASHA – Municipal officials are in discussions with an as-yet unidentified organization to operate the golf course that the City of Chickasha acquired when it bought the local Golf and Country Club from Jimmy Crews of Ninnekah.
The Chickasha Municipal Authority closed June 20 on the $1.6 million purchase of the 70.5-acre facility located at 2900 South 16th Street.
“This will probably come before the City Council in September,” and if negotiations are successful the management group would begin operating the golf course on Oct. 1, City Manager Jim Crosby said during the Aug. 4 Council/CMA meeting.
The golf course will be “youth-focused,” Jim Cowan, president of the Chickasha Chamber of Commerce, told Southwest Ledger. The ninehole golf course will cater to Chickasha’s junior and senior high school golf teams, he indicated.
Chickasha’s University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma also has a golf team, but they will probably use the Winter Creek Golf Course at nearby Blanchard because it has an 18-hole course, Cowan said.
However, the Chickasha golf course apparently will continue hosting popular local events.
For example, the CMA authorized the Chamber to use the golf course and clubhouse to host the 97th annual Washita Valley Golf Tournament July 3-6.
Also, the council voted Aug. 4 to allow the Chickasha Chamber to hold its annual golf tournament Sept. 5 at the country club.
“It’s the same golf scramble we’ve been doing for years,” Cowan said. The Chamber anticipates 80 to 90 golfers constituting 10 to 11 teams, four golfers per team, in each of two scrambles: morning and afternoon.
The Chamber will sign an indemnification agreement and will provide a certificate of liability insurance, Cowan said. “We carry liability insurance on all of our events.” The Chamber also will pay the city $25 per golfer for use of the links, Cowan said.
In another related issue, Elizabeth Reed, whose house lies near the Chickasha Golf and Country Club, appealed again to the city to install “a couple of sections of netting” to prevent errant golf balls from hitting people, vehicles, and her property.
When the City of Chickasha opted to buy and maintain the golf course, “I believe you took on the liability for it, too,” she said.
Children have been nearly struck by golf balls “when they got off a school bus,” and her vehicle’s windshield was hit by a golf ball, she said.
She first made her request on July 7, when she and her son brought to the council meeting a plastic tub that contained 800 of the 900 golf balls they collected in the last four years; she sold the other hundred, she said.
Reed said she and her grandson both have been hit with ricocheting golf balls. “I can’t park in my own driveway or enjoy my home” because of golf balls that “come flying across the road.” Golf balls have hit vehicles in the area, broken windows in her house, and dented her siding and garage door.
“Please consider putting up netting,” she pleaded.