Memorial Day weekend generally tees off the summer golf season, and golfers who may have skipped the courses at North Little Rock's Burns Park for the past few years likely will be surprised at their new look and amenities.
"I think our course wasn't pretty," Terry Hartwick, North Little Rock's Parks and Recreation director, said last week. "We've cleaned the place up. We're getting lots of play. We started making it look like a golf course again."
The public Burns Park Golf Course has two 18-hole courses: The par-71 Championship Course and the par-70 Tournament Course. There's also a driving range, a golf pro shop and a clubhouse available for rentals that was renamed the Heritage Room last year.
Resurfacing the golf cart paths, building new tee boxes, replacing yardage markers at the practice range with mini-greens, and landscaping the fairways have all been ways the city has spruced things up, Hartwick said.
"I like to make things happen," said Hartwick, who took over the city's parks facilities 17 months ago after 15 years as president of the North Little Rock Chamber of Commerce.
It was the complete renovation of the clubhouse and the rebranding of it that Hartwick took on as the first big step to remaking Burns Park Golf Course. The round building with a 75-person capacity sits on a slight hill, overlooking a good portion of the Championship Course.
The building's restrooms were renovated and the women's locker room expanded. Hartwick also plans for new carpet to be installed this year. Its ribbon-cutting happened almost exactly a year ago.
"The Heritage Room is what I'm the most proud," Hartwick said, looking out of its curved windows to the course below. "People come up here and say, 'Wow. What a view.'"
The city's Parks and Recreation Department budgeted rental revenue for the Heritage House to bring in $15,000 this year.
"We've done $7,500 already," Hartwick said. "I'm proud of what we've done. We've done more with less."
The course's newest addition is a stone bridge that leads golfers to the 15th green. The bridge is influenced by the famous Swilcan Bridge at the Old Course at St. Andrews, Scotland, one of the British Open courses. It fits Hartwick's goal to add something that could become another draw, he said.
"I said, 'Let's do something iconic.' Make it something everyone will want to talk about," Hartwick said. "Now it's something we're proud of. Golfers stop and get their photos taken on it."
The North Little Rock City Council has helped by approving cash outlays to revive the golf course.
Aldermen approved a $221,850 low bid in November to renovate the course's golf cart paths. This month, the council approved a bond for the Parks Department to purchase $280,759 worth of golf carts, to be paid out over five years. The purchase includes 50 new 2016 model electric carts, according to the legislation.
"The biggest thing was the golf paths," Hartwick said.
The smoother cart paths and newer carts have increased cart rentals, said golf pro Joe Ralston. Ralston's brother, Steve, has been the golf course resident professional and manager since 1978.
"The golf course is in the best condition it's ever been in," Joe Ralston said. The amount of play also "is much better."
Golf participation took a hit after the 2007-09 recession, according to figures quoting National Golf Foundation annual reports. The number of golfers in the country declined from a high of about 30 million in 2005 to just less than 25 million now.
Hundreds of golfing facilities nationwide have closed in recent years -- including the Stone Links Golf Course in North Little Rock.
That's one reason it's been important to upgrade the courses at Burns Park, to draw more players and increase the number of rounds they play. Burns Park also offers Foot Golf, a combination of soccer and golf, and Disc Golf, both of which take much less time to play and are attractive to some millennials.
"It's come back a little bit," Joe Ralston said. "Back in the '90s, when you had John Daly and Tiger Woods doing so well, it got everybody playing golf. Then they figured out it was hard to do, and it took a long time to play.
"It'll never be like it was in the '90s," he said. "I don't think you'll see anything look like that again anywhere. Ours is on the upswing. We have new people coming out to play."
Hartwick said the improvements have been a big factor in getting golfers back and raising the amount of play at the course.
"When someone comes out to play golf, they don't want to see trash cans running over," Hartwick said. "The more pretty you make it, the more people are going to want to come play."
Metro on 05/29/2017