No, DeKalb's River Heights Golf Course isn't closing. At least, not yet.

DeKALB – A message displayed on a whiteboard at River Heights Golf Course last weekend saying the course was to be closed is not true, DeKalb Park District officials said, although a recommendation to close the course is one of several options that will be reviewed Thursday.

At their meeting at 6 p.m Thursday, at the Ellwood House Visitors Center, 509 N. First St., the district’s Board of Commissioners will hear a consulting firm’s report on the district’s golf courses, although no vote will be taken. The report will include a recommendation that the course close, said Amy Doll, the park district’s executive director, although there’s no immediate plan to close the course, despite what the message in the course’s clubhouse said.

“I’m not sure who wrote it,” Doll said, “but it wasn’t anybody who had authority to write it, because it’s misinformation.”

The sign in the in the golf course’s clubhouse stated that the “objective of director/board is to close River Heights Golf Course for all following seasons. If you would like this course to remain open for your use, please attend meeting to have your voice heard.”

Part of the district's five-year strategic plan includes an evaluation of budget priorities, including updates at the aging Hopkins Pool and taking a hard look at golf numbers.
Virginia-based consulting firm Billy Casper Golf studied the district's two golf courses and golf program, according to a Monday news release from the district.

Thursday’s presentation will include an evaluation of the golf market in and around DeKalb, including both the Buena Vista and River Heights courses, and recommendations for business and operations, a marketing plan and capital improvements, including that the course close because of unsustainable numbers.

The DeKalb Park District’s golf operations do face an uncertain future. Revenue at River Heights, 1020 Sharon Drive, and Buena Vista, the district’s nine-hole course at 131 Buena Vista Drive, has steadily declined, and after adding in overhead maintenance costs, the park district is losing money on golf operations. With the state’s minimum wage expected to increase steadily increase until reaching $15 an hour in 2025, there is a serious risk a course could close in the future, Doll said.

Longtime DeKalb resident Chad Stewart, 43, has been playing the 18-hole course at River Heights at least once every other week because he lives only three blocks away. He said he’d be sad to see the course close.

“It’s the only 18-hole course in town, so if they close this down, it’s kind of tough because there’s no other place to go,” said Stewart, one of only a handful of golfers on the course on a brisk Monday afternoon. “I have three kids who are kind of getting into golf. They do a lot of community things, too.”

Stewart brings his own clubs and rents a cart when he plays the course.

“Prices are pretty reasonable, too,” Stewart said. “Like I just paid $18 for a cart. If I was in Rockford, it would cost me $35. And they usually keep [River Heights] in pretty good condition, too.”

For each round of golf played during fiscal 2020, the district subsidized $6.33 from its general fund to cover the operating deficit, according to the district’s budget for fiscal 2020. Golf operations bring in 9% of the district’s total revenue. For fiscal 2020, the golf fund is expected to be more than $65,000 in the red.

Doll said the numbers in the report, which will be made public Thursday, aren’t surprising.

“I’m not surprised at all,” she said. “I think anybody who has been following golf as an industry nationwide and especially in the Midwest is not surprised. Anybody who has been looking at our golf-course budgets and numbers over the last several years here in DeKalb is not surprised.”

Doll said there’s no specific agenda for the board yet because it’s still too early in the process to decide what the future of golf in DeKalb looks like.

“We’re not even far enough along in the process to be able to talk about what the ideal situation would be,” she said. “We’re not there yet.”