It happened as of Jan. 1 — or Jan 4 precisely — when Albuquerque Chief Administrative Officer David Campbell signed off on new 2010 greens fees for Albuquerque’s municipal golf courses.
Increases range between 25 cents and $3.50. The changes were effective immediately, according to records of the City Golf Advisory Board. Here are the fees you’ll see when the weather warms up (increase in parentheses):
Two Albuquerque West Side courses long viewed as the scruffiest in the Metro Area have begun to shine once again.
Ladera Golf Course and Chamisa Hills Country Club, once written off as better suited to growing weeds than grass, have made comebacks so startling it’s worth seeing yourself.
Here is a link to Chamisa Hills Country Club website . Ladera’s phone number is (505) 836-4446.
Ladera, especially, was a tragic tale, its fairways indistinguishable from surrounding desert. Chamisa, thanks to a heavy reliance on effluent, had even more serious soil-chemistry problems. Weeds flourished but grass wouldn’t.
Poor soil chemistry at Chamisa and Ladera remains a longer-term issue, but the point of this report is: The fairways at both courses are back. If you put the ball in the fairway you’ll find a fair lie in grass; if you put it off the fairway, you may or may not.
And that’s the point at any course, isn’t it? Bad shots should be punished, whether by deep blue-grass rough or hardpan.
On the business side, Chamisa owner Harry Apadaca continues to grow the club’s membership through smokin’ hot membership deals, and Director of Golf Erik Harp and his golf-shop staff are building a reputation for friendliness found at only a few Albuquerque courses.
At Ladera, Steve Higgins and Molly Gallegos, two top city maintenance people, are working overtime to prove that Ladera deserves a $1.5 million upgrade to its leaky 30-year-old irrigation system — which could happen if Albuquerque voters approve a package of park bonds in October.
If Ladera continues to shine between now and October and makes a quantum leap forward after the irrigation upgrade next year — that success story could lead to water-saving irrigation improvements for the city’s other three municipal courses over the next few years.
Multiple winner of the Albuquerque City Women’s Championship Maggie Ramirez, 25, is back in Albuquerque, working for Sam and Wright Zimmerly, concessionaires at Ladera Golf Course.
“It’s like going home to family,” Ramirez, 25, said of her part-time work as a teacher at the West Side golf course. Ramirez is a “non-amateur,” meaning, she’s turned professional but has not affiliated with the PGA of America.
Ramirez also is working with the Sawmill Advisory Council, a non-profit dedicated to providing educational programs for children and adults in that Albuquerque inner-city neighborhood.
Ramirez graduated from New Mexico State University in 2006 with a bachelor’s degree in government and followed that up with a master’s in public administration.
She graduated from Valley High School in 2002. At NMSU, she was a standout with NMSU’s Aggie golf team. As a teacher at Ladera Ramirez is mostly teaching children and women. “I like working with kids,” Ramirez said.
In that regard, she’s not far from the career track mapped out by January Romero, against whom Ramirez competed as a prep player. For an update on Romero, click here.
Albuquerque City Councilor Debbie O’Malley says Ladera Golf Course’s improvements are part of the compromise general-obligation bond package hammered out between the council and the mayor, so the $1.5 million project will go to city voters in October after all.
The North Valley councilor also said the idea of saving water by fixing aging irrigation systems at all city courses over time has merit. It’s possible that every two years, anothercity-owned golf course could see its leaky system replaced — saving hundreds of millions of gallons of wasted water — and improving playing conditions at the same time.
Mayor Martin Chavez’s budget-cutting keeps Ladera’s proposed new irrigation system in limbo as the mayor and City Council begin a new round of horse trading.
Ladera’s $1.5 million in new funding, set for inclusion on the October General Obligation bond ballot, is now at risk as both annual operating funds and capital funds are thrown on the negotiating table as Chavez and the council struggle for control of city spending.
The mayor wants a larger share of city property taxes to go toward stemming red ink in the nearly half-billion-dollar city operating budget — which would leave less for public works projects, like roads and parks.
If that happens, the $160 million GO bond package the council proposed be sent to voters in October would shrink to $120 million, leaving little likelihood Ladera’s needs would be included, regardless of how much water a new irrigation system would save.
