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Recently, Wichita City Manager Bob Layton announced that he is recommending that Wichita shut down one of its five public golf courses.  He needs to trim a couple more million dollars out of the 2012 overall budget in order to balance.  Let's face it, the economic times aren't getting any better and it appears there's still no end in sight.

Closing one of the public courses is the right thing to do, but several reliable sources told me last week that it will likely be L.W. Clapp that gets the axe.  It's the smallest and least played public course in town, so that automatically puts it on the chopping block.  That would be a shame, though, and closing Clapp would also be the wrong move.

I just don't see a way for the city to be able to sell any of the original four Wichita public courses for any purpose.  The only thing that could be done with them is to turn them into park space.  But that would still incur extreme mowing and maintenance expense.  We might as well keep those courses open with a continued revenue stream from golf.

Auburn Hills, however, was a senseless decision about 10 years ago.  I believed that then and still believe that today.  First, Wichita spent more than $10-million dollars to build a golf course that could have easily been half that cost.  Based on the city's own website, Auburn Hills was a "public/private partnership."  Well, that's the politically correct way to put it.  What it essentially was, was a publicly subsidized housing development for J. Russell.  You've probably heard of him.

Don't get me wrong.  Those homes are beautiful and add to the tax base at City Hall nicely.  But the project was done so wrongly and inappropriate that, well, guess what?  Now we find ourselves looking to close a perfectly good golf course because we can't afford it.

Auburn Hills is the only Wichita course that could possibly be sold to a private business person.  The others just aren't nice enough to be private golf clubs.  And that brings me to another point:

The average weekend warrior like myself and 80% of all the other golfers who utilize Wichita's public courses can't play Auburn Hills.  We're simply just not good enough.  I've played Auburn Hills once and I lost at least 3/4 of a box of balls.  Never again, I said.  I don't play golf (and neither do the majority of other public course users) to pay a higher price to be frustrated at how tough the course is.  I play golf to relax and enjoy a good walk.

On the other hand, I've often played Clapp and Sim and had an extremely enjoyable time and felt welcome in the clubhouse.

The bottom line here is that Auburn Hills should be closed.  It was a bad move to open it in the first place.  Let's hope we can have a fire sale and at least make something off of it.  I guarantee we won't make a dime by getting rid of any of the other four courses.