The clubhouse is visible over a water hazard at Bowes Creek Country Club on Elgin's Far West Side. (Ted Schnell • BocaJump)

By Ted Schnell • BocaJump

Elgin is well into the first full season of golf after last year’s completion of development of its two premier courses, and city officials are optimistic about the future, saying the golf fund will be self-sustaining in the coming year.

In a report to the Elgin City Council last week, Parks and Recreation Director Randy Reopelle and Golf Operations Director Mike Lehman touted the golf fund as being largely self-sufficient this year.

Lehman said, the city may capture the final “bits of subsidy” luxury homes developer Toll Brothers agreed to provide for the first years of the Bowes Creek Country Club’s operation, but if good weather conditions continue next year, Bowes Creek and the city’s golf fund should require no subsidies in 2012.

Toll Brothers partnered with the city to develop Bowes Creek Country Club as a city-owned operation, agreeing to provide a subsidy for it in its first years of operation.

Lehman said Toll Brothers, under its contract with the city, was to provide $604,000 as an operations subsidy for Bowes Creek.

He added, however, that based on revenues through mid-August of 2011, Elgin’s golf fund in 2012 would need no subsidy.

Porter’s Pub, whose future was so uncertain just six months ago, is doing very well under new management — Carlucci Hospitality, Lehman said. The pub, whose success is considered a key element to the management of Bowes Creek as a country club, is expected to be entirely funded by its own revenue in 2012, he added.

Lehman said the Parks and Recreation Department will spend the next three to five years fine-tuning the golf operation’s budget as they develop a deeper history of the revenues and expenditures at the city’s golf courses.

That said, Lehman also said the Parks and Recreation Department will ask the City Council to approve a $100,000 contingency for golf operations in 2012. While overall operations are expected to be self-supporting, Lehman said that one rainy weekend could cost the city a lot of revenue a Friday, Saturday and Sunday of golfing lost to rain represents about $90,000 in revenue, which is why the contingency will be requested, “just in case.”

After rocky start in 2010, pub soars

The Aug. 31 meeting was as much the update on golf operations that Mayor David Kaptain requested in the spring as it appeared to be an effort to educate the council to rebut critics who have targeted the city’s golf operations in light of Elgin’s $4.5 million budget deficit.

A budget task force has met weekly over the past month and will meet at least three more times before recommending priorities for the council to consider as it begins its budget deliberations for 2012 and looks at its financial plan for the next several years following.

Kaptain request the update after the council had awarded a new contract for operation of Porter’s Pub, the restaurant and bar at Bowes Creek that had performed poorly under the prior vendor.

Questions raised at the time of the new agreement, which was awarded to Carlucci Hospitality, related to revenue projects for the operation as well as to a shift in terms of the agreement that essentially made Carlucci the manager and the city a partner in the enterprise.

Lehman told the council during the Aug. 31 meeting that Porter’s Pub is proving to be very successful under Carlucci’s management of the facility, with monthly gross revenues hitting $90,000 the past two months.

“It’s always scary when you enter into a new business,” Lehman said of the agreement with Carlucci. “You’re hoping all the numbers turn out, and guess what? They are — they’re turning out like we anticipated, as the business plan showed.”

Golf courses

Lehman said the economy has taken a toll on golfing nationally, with the number of rounds played in decline in recent years. The Chicago region, however, has remained flat in that time. The Highlands of Elgin in 2010 boasted an 8 percent increase in rounds played over 2009. He noted that Bowes Creek has no figures for comparison from last year, since 2010 was the course’s first full year of operation.

As of Aug. 15, he said, the number of round played are down 4 percent at The Highlands, although profits are up 6 percent both three and at Bowes Creek. Further, Lehman said, the number of rounds played at Bowes, as of Aug. 15, were nearly the same as for all of 2010, and that comes despite a number of golfing days lost this spring due to bad weather and the tough economy.

Lehman said about 40 percent of golfers at the city’s courses are Elgin residents. The majority of nonresident golfers in Elgin come from St. Charles, South Elgin, Batavia, Geneva. But the recognition of The Highlands and Bowes Creek as regional golf courses, he said, is boosting use of the facilities from golfers from further away in the region — Chicago and even out of state.

“So we are really drawing a lot of people into our community, as well as serving the local population,” Lehman told the council.

In addition, both Judson University and Elgin Community College call Elgin golf courses home, as do all Elgin’s high schools and St. Charles North High School.