Members of the Carson City Municipal Golf Corp. should listen to their best customers and find a way to reinstate an affordable, flexible season pass.
The trick is to do it without going further into the hole, so to speak.
As custodians of the Eagle Valley golf courses, the pride of Carson City golfers long before competitors surrounded the municipal courses, board members are in a tough position as they try to balance financial security with civic obligations.
They can try to do both by following some basic business advice: Hold onto your core customers, while also trying to attract new ones.
The East Course is already the best golfing bargain in town - an easy, enjoyable 18-hole layout familiar to the area's longtime residents.
Those golfers are generally part of the senior set, who are looking for inexpensive golf and the ability to play whenever they want.
They're ready to compromise, we think, because they want Eagle Valley to remain financially stable, in good condition and with readily available tee times.
A walk-up green fee of $22 - an increase of $1 - is certainly reasonable, and isn't really the issue.
For seniors, a 50-round East Course punch card for $400 - the closest thing to replacing a season pass - is still a damn good bargain at $8 a round. But golfers used to paying $490 for unlimited play, some of whom were playing two or three times a week, understandably see it as a huge increase.
Reinstitute the season pass, moderately raise the price on it and go ahead with some of the restrictions (seniors only, Monday through Thursday).
The golf corporation isn't wrong to be raising rates, but it's a bad business move to lay the biggest increases on your most loyal customers.
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