Golfers bid final farewell to Clapp Golf Course. What comes next is unclear
It rained hard on Friday morning at Clapp Golf Course, but nobody who played there in the afternoon worried much about replacing their divots or fixing ball marks on the soggy greens.
Friday’s final round, a sold out, shotgun-start all-comers’ tournament, was the last official golf that will be played at the course, which has been part of the city golf system for 65 years.
“I blame corporate America and kids just playing video games,” said golfer Rick Drees. “What they’re doing to us is un-American.”
Drees came to bid farewell to the course where he played his first round as a 17-year-old beginner 31 years ago.
Back then, it was an affordable activity for a teenager at $2.50 a round if he walked the course, Drees said. Now, greens fees are 10 times that and it’s kept many in the younger generation from taking up the game, he said.
City officials decided to close Clapp after several years of shortfalls in what they say is an oversaturated golf market.
Much of the course’s financial travail traced to its city water bill. Although a creek ran through Clapp, there were no lakes or ponds to be pumped, so it was watered entirely with expensive city drinking water.
It’s the second public course in Wichita to close in the last five years. Wichita State University shut down Braeburn Golf Course to make way for the Innovation Campus, a mix of educational and private business ventures at the east end of the university’s property in northeast Wichita.
Drees’ playing partner, Tony Salazar, said he’s been a regular at Clapp for 13 years.
“Since I retired, which has been six years ago, I play about three times a week,” Salazar said. “I live close by so I like this place. I’m sorry that it’s closing up. I wish they’d make it a nine-holer instead of tearing it all down.”
“It’s a sad day, it’s a bittersweet day, actually,” said James Clendenin, the City Council member representing the area.
“It’s bitter because we’re losing a golf course, but it’s kind of sweet because the lemonade is we’re going to create a public space for the whole community to enjoy,” he said.
The annual budget is expected to include money to master plan the conversion of Clapp into a park, he said.
Friday’s farewell to Clapp as a golf course was as festive as the staff could make it, with a cookout lunch and contest to hit tennis balls with a plastic club into the mouth of an inflatable hippo called “Golfopotamus.”
Golf system director Troy Hendricks said no employees are expected to lose their jobs with the course closing.
The workers hired for the peak summer period will be farmed out to the remaining four city courses and finish out the season, he said.
Full-time maintenance workers have about two months work to do to shut down Clapp completely, after which they’ll be given the opportunity to bid for other city jobs that they qualify for, Hendricks said.
Although Friday was the last business day at Clapp, there may still be some folks golfing there before the grass grows to unplayable levels, Hendricks said.
He said he expects the next few days to be like Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day, when the city courses are closed but golfers sneak on for free rounds.
John Aubert, assistant manager of the pro shop at Derby Golf and Country Club, said he worked at Clapp from 2002 to 2012, and played “probably 1,000 rounds of golf” there.
“During that 10 years they talked about closing the course at least 10 times,” he said.
On Friday, he said he was disappointed, but added “I think it’s time for them to move on.”
“Hopefully they can come up with something good for the neighborhood and the community so that more people other than just golfers can get some use out of it,” he said.
Clapp was originally supposed to close Sept. 30 of last year. But it stayed open during the first step of a planning process for what comes next.
A citizens’ task force came up with a long wish list of possible amenities for the site. Among those were a sky trail/rope course, picnic areas with firepits, an outdoor amphitheater and pickleball courts.
One possibility raised in the planning process is that the new park could be anchored by a private business called Bar-K, a dog-friendly bar and restaurant concept that has been successful in Kansas City.
At Bar-K, customers pay admission and the business provides supervision and space for dogs to romp while the humans eat, drink and socialize.
Also, up to 40 percent of the new park could be water, with boat rentals available to paddle around and fish ponds.
Another business possibility could be to use the dirt excavated from the ponds to build a grassy mound that could be covered with artificial snow and used for winter sledding.
The hope is those private-sector business ventures would generate some revenue to support public recreational amenities, Clendenin said.
This story was originally published August 2, 2019 at 4:08 PM.
