The Montgomery County Council voted 7-2 Tuesday to approve spending $150,000 in public money to keep an inside-the-Beltway golf course open for the next nine months while the county tries to come up with a long-term plan to make the course financially solvent.
Elected officials who supported the appropriation to save Sligo Golf Course, which is a nine-hole course in Silver Spring that is popular with seniors and beginning golfers, said it was a jewel the county couldn’t afford to lose.
“This funding will give us the ‘breathing space’ to roll up our sleeves and craft a long-term solution to sustain this valuable resource,” said County Executive Ike Leggett, who advocated spending the money to keep the course open. “Now let’s get moving on building the future.”
An analysis by the National Golf Foundation projected the course would lose more than $200,000 a year for the next four years and was not “economically viable under its current configuration.”
The county suggested adding a driving range and minigolf to the course to add revenue, but residents rejected those proposals over concerns of increased traffic and noise and light pollution.
Councilwoman Valerie Ervin, D-Silver Spring, has suggested the county partner with the Maryland Department of Veterans Affairs to offer “therapeutic golf” for veterans as an alternative way to keep the course open for the long term.
Council President Phil Andrews, D-Gaithersburg/Rockville, and Councilman Mike Knapp, D-Germantown, voted against the measure.
Andrews said the number of rounds being played in the county was dropping and the county was “overbuilt in terms of golf courses and we have to confront that.”
“It’s been the county’s policy not to subsidize golf,” Andrews said. “I have long supported that view; I still do.”
