County Approves Temporary Management of Bay Dunes Golf Course (Dec 17)

Dec. 17, 2014 – Bay County Commissioners have tossed around several ideas with the fate of a county-owned golf course.

Commissioners previously had decided to shut down Bay Dunes GolfCourse on December 8.

This was after the course’s operator Tony Ray failed to pay a bond, which pays for maintenance and repairs to the course.

During Tuesday’s commission meeting, commissioners passed an agreement between the county and Holiday Golf and Racquet Club to temporarily manage the course. After several people came forward asking for an extension on keeping the course open, they decided to change the direction of management.

They’ve decided for Holiday Golf to manage the course over the next three months and see if they can help restore the golf course.

“My hope is once we get some relatively concrete numbers at the same time we can go through the process of putting out a bid request for proposals and maybe some private entities, that would be the best of both worlds,” said Bay County Commissioner Guy Tunnell.

Tunnell said the county no longer wants to be in the golf business, and it’s going to take a tremendous amount of maintenance to get it up to an operational level most golfers would expect.

After three months the county will readdress the issue and decide if they can keep it open as a public course or need to go in an entirely different direction.

Original: http://www.wjhg.com/home/headlines/County-Approves-Temporary-Management-of-Bay-Dunes-Golf-Course-286020561.html