Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Lafayette Park Board votes to close municipal golf course

The Lafayette Municipal Golf Course will officially close March 1st. The decision was made due to the high cost of dealing with Wabash River flooding on the land.

However, the Park Board decided to keep the practice areas, such as the driving range, open until June 1st. Board members say those could stay open indefinitely, if user fees cover the cost.

Park Board President Dave Mecklenburg says they will decide what to do with the rest of the land after gathering input from the community.

"That's a great place for disc golf," he says. "Those people play at Murdock Park now and that's pretty much a confined space. Maybe we can make that a better place for those people. There are a lot of different opportunities."

The land at the golf course will remain park space, because state funding used for its purchase requires it remain as such.

The owner of the Battle Ground Golf Club donated his course to the Parks Foundation and it will be operated as a non-profit entity run by a board of city, park board and county commission appointees.

Mecklenburg says it wasn't an easy decision, but the right one.

"If we had one flood last year, we would have closed with no place to play," he says. "Battle Ground is a nice facility, given to us with money to run it, with someone to operate it. It's not something we could turn down."

Mayor Tony Roswarski agrees. He says the donation of the Battle Ground Golf Club made the closing more of a possibility.

"We now have a high quality facility that the board can keep at an affordable price, so there is an alternative."

Related Content