Birmingham proposes massive change for municipal golf courses

Jun 18 2009 by Paul Dale, Birmingham Post

Only two of Birmingham’s six 18-hole municipal golf courses are likely to remain in their present form, the city council’s new cabinet member for leisure, sport and culture has admitted.

Councillor Martin Mullaney said Pype Hayes and Lickey Hills were “quality courses” where new investment was required to make them more attractive.

The remaining courses – Boldmere, Cocks Moors Woods, Hatchford Brook and Hilltop – are likely to be transformed into a mixture of nine-hole, six-hole and three-hole courses with pitch and putt facilities and driving ranges.

Adventure golf centres, where teenagers use child-friendly clubs and reduced flight balls, are also planned. Coun Mullaney (Lib Dem Moseley & Kings Heath) is reviewing the future of the courses and has appealed for public comments on his proposals.

He said the city’s six 18-hole courses and one nine-hole course at Harborne, which lost a total of £400,000 last year, cannot survive as they are.

He believes the only way to stem the losses is to make golf more attractive to teenagers, women and Birmingham’s ethnic minority population, pointing out that 97 per cent of people using the city’s courses are white, 90 per cent are men and 50 per cent are retired.

Warning that he was prepared to take “tough decisions”, Coun Mullaney said that fresh investment was likely to go into Pype Hayes and Lickey Hills.

Rebuilding the Pype Hayes clubhouse, which was destroyed in a £1 million arson attack on Easter Sunday, is seen as a priority.

He said: “The remaining courses are likely to be changed. Some will be converted to pitch and putt, some will be pitch and putt plus driving ranges, some will be reduced to six holes and some to three holes.

“Playing traditional 18-hole golf courses can take four hours, and most people just don’t have the time. That’s why so many retired people use our courses.

“If younger people could get around in one hour and have some excitement along the way, that would be better. We must make golf attractive to families.”

One of the ideas under consideration is to promote the Golf Foundation’s latest move to sell the sport to young people – ExtremeGolf.

With lighter clubs and reduced flight balls, youngsters use marker cones, Velcro disc targets and putting cups to mark out their own courses.

Described by Coun Mullaney as a “more adult form of crazy golf”, the aim is to get schoolchildren interested in the sport in the hope that they will eventually play on an 18-hole course.

Coun Mullaney added: “I come to this with an open mind and I’m determined to find solutions that will increase participation in Birmingham.

“To do that we have to offer people ways into golf at different levels.

“Golf should be attractive and I want a golf that will appeal to more young people, women and girls and more people from the city’s ethnic communities.”