Yoakum Golf Course in need of new greens

The Yoakum Golf Course is in need of new greens and other amenities.

“Historically, the golf course has been a very good thing for the community,” Yoakum Golf Course AssociaYoakum Golf Course in need of new greens tion (YGA) President Patrick Matusek said.

“Generally, the golf course has been in great condition. However, ever since the freeze about four years ago, we have had trouble with several greens. The greens are what really make a golf course. The green is where you hit the final shot to where you’re putting. They are a round circle or shape that you hit your ball to and then you get your putter out to finish the hole. At one point, we were named top 25 golf course in Texas about five years ago. Before the freeze, the golf course was in the best shape it’s ever been, and we have had people coming from all over the surrounding cities to use our golf course. Lately, people have been saying they won’t use the golf course until the greens are fixed.”

A couple of months ago, the association went to the Yoakum City Council and asked for their help in assisting in new greens.

“Typically, greens need to be rebuilt every 25 to 30 years on many golf courses,” Matusek said. “These greens have been in place for about 75 years. Only a couple of greens have been rebuilt within those years. However, the whole landscape hasn’t been worked on.”

Other courses, including Victoria’s golf course, had issues with greens according to Matusek. However, the city has taken care of that already.

Last week, Matusek and the superintendent of the golf course met with Mayor CarlO’ Neill and he agreed to put in new greens for this coming year’s budget.

“They agreed to rebuild three greens at a cost of around $10,000 to $12,000 per green,” Matusek said.

“That’s if the city can get that in their budget, so that would happen later this fall. Those are the three that have been constantly giving us trouble over the last three years. They’ve been bad. We’ve had temporary greens in the middle of the fairway off and on for the last three years.”

Along with the rebuilding the greens, there were a couple of other items that were presented to council and need to be addressed in this coming year’s budget workshop.

“When you cut the greens, you cut them fairly low so you can roll the ball well,” Matusek said.

“So, one of the things we need is a green sander. That’s a piece of equipment that you pull behind like a mower and it distributes a sand in a fine powder evenly over the green. That is about a $3,000 item and all of the golf courses around here including Cuero and Hallettsville have a sander.”

Thirdly, in the budget that the golf course would like to get is an additional employee that will take care of the golf course exclusively on a day-to-day basis.

“For the last several years, we’ve had a golf superintendent and two workers,” Matusek said. “There’s another additional worker that currently takes care of the rest of the park and the downtown area and that gives them no time to work on the golf course. We need one more full-time helper to make a staff of four. That would cost around no more than another $50,000 per year in the budget.”

Council tabled those requests when it was mentioned to them because their budget for this year is currently used up.

However, another request was made to council at that meeting for a lease agreement for the rental of new golf carts. That was approved.

Matusek believes it’s time for Yoakum to make this golf course another top 25 golf course in the state.

“If we want to have a competitive city golf course, we need to do something,” Matusek said.

"I'd like to give credit to our guys at the golf course for the equipment they have and the manpower they have. They work very hard.”

There are 100-plus members that play golf in Yoakum.

Other ways the YGA gets funding for their golf course includes benefits, prize drawings, and barbecues.

Once this is in the budget, YGA President Matusek believes this would be finished by late November.