City of Moulton needs to up its game
MOULTON – Municipal golf courses can get away with not being pristine.
Generally speaking, give muni golfers decent tees, fairways and greens and they’ll overlook a course’s shortcomings like slow play, rough cart paths and scruffiness along the edges. Muni courses don’t need multi-million dollar clubhouses, extravagant locker rooms and five-star dining options. Just give golfers some nice turf and smooth rolling greens, a good hotdog and beer, and they’ll gladly plunk down their money.
Sadly, Deer Run Golf Course is missing the main ingredient for keeping its clientele happy. A Labor Day visit to the course that is owned and operated by the City of Moulton sadly is lacking when it comes to giving golfers a good greens experience, even for its value price point.
I’ve been playing Deer Run for more than 30 years and I’ve never seen the greens and surrounds in such bad shape. Most of Deer Run’s 18 greens are a mix of bentgrass infiltrated by crabgrass. The 18th green seems to be mostly mowed-down Bermuda grass more commonly found in Florida and other coastal areas. And there were bare spots, aplenty.
In short, the Deer Run Golf Course I encountered recently didn’t much resemble the course I have played and enjoyed for the past three decades.
And that’s a shame, because Deer Run always has provided good bang for its buck. For the record, I paid $126 for myself, my nephew and his son for a Labor Day visit.
The course is fun to play – it has a mix of some interesting holes and not so interesting holes. Hit it well and you can shoot a good score. It’s not a course that will beat you up if you don’t play well. The fairways were good. Tee boxes that aren’t shrouded in shade were fine. Bunkers were OK.
But the greens were – to put it mildly – disappointing, as were many of the fringes. And that’s unacceptable for the paying public.
To the credit of Superintendent Myron Bohannon, at least the greens were mowed short enough so that you could get a semi-decent roll. However, because of the poor conditions, the large greens had few locations in which to set pins. That’s an issue because Deer Run gets a good amount of local play.
With five sets of tees – the scorecard only lists four but there’s also a gold set – Deer Run Golf Course tips out at 6,745 yards (74.1/119) and from the red marker it plays 5,457 yards (70.8/122). The white tees are listed at 6,121 yards (113/72.0).
Deer Run Golf Course sits in a valley and is nestled up against the Bankhead National Forest. It has a variety of tree-lined holes, five ponds and enough bunkers to keep approach shots interesting. The Earl Stone design opened in 1980 with nine holes. It later expanded to its current 18 holes.
The Good about Deer Run Golf Course
Deer Run Golf Course has some very good holes. No. 2 is a 376-yard par 4 which requires a thread-the-needle drive and an approach to a green shaped like an upside-down, backward “L.” A well-positioned bunker guards the right side of the green. No. 10 is another good par 4 that plays 375 from the white tees. It doglegs to the right with a fairway bunker at the turn. The green is elevated and slopes from back to front. No. 11 is the best par 3 on the course, playing 155 yards and cut through trees to a narrow green that slopes hard from left to right. A bunker guards the right side.
Two of the par 5s are nice risk-reward options that can result in an eagle or double bogey (or worse). The green on the dogleg left No. 5 has a pond in the front and a pond to the right. Also, a bunker makes the approach to a back-left pin more difficult. Cut off enough of the dogleg left No. 12 on the drive and you can have a mid- or short-iron approach to a green with a bunker protecting the front left.
The Bad about Deer Run Golf Course
The greens need to be dug up and redone with either a new type of bentgrass or they should be changed over to Bermuda grass. Either way, protective bands need to be placed around each green to prevent invasive grass from taking over. Several tee boxes need to be redone because it doesn’t appear they get enough sun or airflow. A selective tree removal plan would help in several areas at Deer Run.
I don’t know this for fact, but I’m pretty sure an upgraded irrigation system and improved drainage would also help Deer Run thrive. Cart paths need updating.
The course needs marshals to monitor not only pace of play, but to deter golfers from driving their carts extremely close to the greens. Way too many players take advantage of that lack of supervision to drive their golf carts anywhere.
The Solution
If the City of Moulton wants to be in the golf business, it needs to provide adequate funding and staffing. That doesn’t seem to be the case with Deer Run. Apparently, city leaders haven’t noticed that golf is thriving right now and can generate revenue. Tee sheets are filled, even at a rural course like Deer Run Golf Course. A good municipal golf course is an asset that shouldn’t be taken for granted.
Gregg Dewalt is the editor of Alabama Golf News
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Featured image of poor conditions on and near the No. 10 green at Deer Run Golf Course by Gregg Dewalt
