LSU students and faculty members who play at the LSU Golf Course may soon have to find a new place to tee up.
According to Assistant Director of Facility Services Tammy Millican, a review board is considering closure as part of LSU revisiting its campus master plan.
The par-72 layout sits on 127 acres of University land alongside Nicholson Drive, between Gourrier Avenue and Bob Petit Boulevard.
“There are a lot of public golf courses in the United States, in that same green-fee price range as the LSU golf course, and they’re struggling,” Millican said. “We’re just not sure how long the course can continue to operate on such a razor-thin profit margin. So we need to look and see what is the best thing for the University.”
The LSU golf course is currently run by the LSU’s Department of Facility Services, and Millican said the course is up for review by members of Facility Services and the Kinesiology Department.
According to course director Mike Johnson, the course was run by the Athletic Department when it originally opened.
The course was used by the LSU golf teams and was open only to students and LSU staff members. The limited access caused a loss of income for the University’s course, and the care of the course changed hands a number of times.
“In 1981, the Athletic Department was actually losing money with it, and the University recognized this and turned it over to Business Affairs to be run more as a business to make money,” Johnson said. “At that time Business Affairs ran it as a business and opened it up to the public. It made money during those years.”
Johnson said the course was handed over to Facility Services around 1993. The decision to make the move was because of the amount of maintenance the property requires.
“It was under [Facility Services] because it was 127 acres of property that had to be maintained,” Johnson said. “Whether it was utilities, whether it was property and grounds, it had to be maintained.”
The expertise of the Facility Services’ crew helped cut the expense of hiring another source to oversee the course’s upkeep.
“Finance and Administrative Services decided it would make sense, on the expense side of it, to put it under [Facility Services], because Facility Services has plumbing, a landscape services crew, [heating, ventilating and air condition] crews that can help maintain the facilities and the greens,” Millican said.
The course is currently open to the public and used by the Kinesiology Department for golf instruction, but it is no longer used by LSU’s golf teams. The Kinesiology Department is actively involved in the decision, and there are questions as to whether an entire 18-hole course is necessary.
Potential solutions include changing the course to a 9-hole layout or just keeping the driving range and practice green.
“We want to maintain opportunities for the University to teach a life sport to students, and the teaching environment may not require an 18-hole course,” Millican said. “There is a possibility that the course could be closed to the public, we just don’t know at this point.”
The exact future of the course is unknown at this time. The decision will take into account the needs of the Kinesiology Department to teach the game to students.
The timetable for the decision is inexact, but Facility Services will look to keep the campus community informed.
“I think that we’ll have a decision in the next several months,” Millican said. “We’re going to notify the campus community first and let the public know. Whatever decision is made is going to involve our students, our faculty and our staff, so we want to keep them informed with what’s going on.”