Hoping for throngs, golf courses await thaw - Danbury News Times

At Richter Park Golf Course, Brian Gehan is ready to roll with a new golf app that will allow golfers to book tee times and track their game as they drive, pitch and putt their way around the Danbury course. At Sterling Farms Golf Course, Paul Grillo is ready to flip the lights to allow practice on the Stamford course's driving range at night.

For now, both are just waiting for the thaw.

Perhaps more than any other local industry, the weather has a direct impact on the annual results for public golf courses. With record-cold temperatures in February keeping the snow pack intact heading into March, Gehan, Grillo and other public golf course superintendents in the region can only sit back and wait.

Between January and October of 2014, rounds played in Connecticut were down 1 percent compared to a year earlier, according to statistics tracked by the National Golf Course Owners of America and the PGA of America. That statistic camouflages a positive, however -- in the peak summer months, Connecticut's golf rounds surged 5 percent compared to the same stretch in 2013, among the better gains in the country.

While Fairfield County is dotted with private country clubs, it has no shortage of public courses for those unwilling or unable to shell out initiation fees and dues that can amount to thousands of dollars just to reach the tee box on their first round of play as a full-fledged member.

In addition to Sterling Farms, Stamford is home to the E. Gaylord Brennan Golf Course on the city's west side. The greater Bridgeport area boasts Fairchild Wheeler, Smith Richardson Golf Course, Whitney Farms and Tashua Knolls, among others; while the Danbury area has Richardson Golf Course in Ridgefield in addition to Richter Park. Grounds crews at all of them have been waiting out a monthlong winter blitz that mirrored the weather in February 2014, when snowstorms similarly blanketed Fairfield County.

If local snowbirds regularly take golf vacations in the south, Sterling Farms aims for opening every day possible during the calendar year. It's success on that front in the winter "shoulder" seasons has a significant impact on its overall results.

In 2012, Grillo recalls, Sterling Farms stayed open every day of the year save Christmas, with golfers piling up 57,000 rounds that year, coming within striking distance of its golden years in the late 1990s when its annual totals topped 60,000 rounds.

It was a welcome change from 2010 and 2011, when poorer weather and the still-chilled economy conspired to limit action to between 51,000 and 52,000 rounds. With rates ranging between $27 and $45 depending on time of tee off and use of a cart, the lost revenue piled up.

Grillo noted that Sterling Farms was able to squeeze in some days in early January, with snows not shutting down the course until Jan. 10.

"There was one weekend where it was fairly warm," Grillo said. "We had a bunch of people out there."

Richter Park stays buttoned up in the winter, though it keeps its restaurant and grill running year round. Gehan said the course has averaged around 40,000 rounds annually in recent years, citing 45,000 rounds as a good year. He said weather and the economy play a part in the course's annual totals, but also speculates that Tiger Woods at his peak spurred many people to golf, beginners and experienced alike.

Gehan got his own start with the game at Richter Park as an eighth-grader, with his father a longtime engineer with the optics and satellite lab in Danbury now owned by United Technologies and its UTC Aerospace division.

"It definitely took a hit, but it's starting to come back," Gehan said. "It all depends on weather -- when you have bad weather, you are not going to have a great year. When you have good weather, it can be amazing."

Golf courses have few clubs in their figurative bag to shape the trajectory of their financial results, and to a degree are at the mercy of the weather, demands on family time and the game's overall popularity. Grillo noted that the cost of fertilizer and insurance has escalated in recent years; both he and Gehan are hoping for a full-year's benefit of lower fuel prices.

Gehan spent the offseason working with EZLinks Golf to create a mobile app for Richter Park, available for iPhone and Android, allowing golfers to score their game, get distances of shots, post results to Facebook and other functions.

If a fun addition for Richter Park in the coming season, Gehan knows that it is the course experience itself and by extension the appeal of the game that will draw people in -- weather willing. With temperatures still in the teens this past week, he has a little more waiting in store to see how golf fares in 2015.

"I am so ready," Gehan said. "This is the worst offseason in a while."

Alex.Soule@scni.com; 203-964-2236; www.twitter.com/casoulman