A ‘New Direction’ for the County’s Front Royal Golf Club municipal course

An aggressive management proposal for the County-owned Front Royal Golf Club was presented to the Warren County Board of Supervisors under the watchful eyes of the Golf Club Advisory Committee at a January 21 work session. The County took over ownership and management of the course and property from a private management entity in 2005. The land was part of a 63-acre parcel gifted to the community by William Carson Sr. and family in memory of their late son Billy Carson as one of, if not the first, Virginia public golf courses and recreational use areas.

New Direction Golf Management President Mike Byrd took the lead in presenting his company’s three-year management proposal at a cost of $100,000 per year to County officials.

And while a $300,000 commitment to the historic, if money-pit, municipal golf course might seem exorbitant on the surface, there appeared to be multiple positives for the County.

Mike Byrd brought a golfer and management perspective to his presentation on New Direction Golf Management’s plans to turn around the County’s municipal golf course. Royal Examiner Photo/Roger Bianchini. Video by Mark Williams, Royal Examiner.

In response to a question from North River Supervisor Delores Oates, Byrd said that his company would be responsible to cover capital improvement costs for the duration of the management contract. And County Administrator Doug Stanley noted that the County invested $300,000 in the course last year and the New Direction contract would cap the County’s annual investment at $100,000, which has often been in the neighborhood, if not lower than the County’s annual costs to cover club operational expenses.

It was noted that last year’s investment included major upgrades to the condition of the course, which had been allowed to deteriorate over some period of time. “The course is looking better than it has in 15 to 20 years,” Stanley observed of the result of the capital improvement commitment made by the County last year.

From above the Front Royal Golf Club nestled in the arms of the Shenandoah River. Photo/Front Royal Golf Club website

While County officials explored alternate uses for the property in recent years that included abandonment of the golf course as a use, that effort was abandoned in the wake of local attorney Nancie Williams telling the supervisors in 2018 that she would aggressively help the club membership and potentially Carson family heirs, fight such an initiative in the courts.

Despite the positive impact of last year’s course maintenance effort, Byrd indicated that he had ideas for further physical alterations to the course to increase its playability and attractiveness to golfers.

“Greens are the key to course health,” Byrd said. And after playing the course he said the course greens tended to be fast and rolling, raising their difficulty level even for experienced golfers, and being a discouragement factor for new and youth players taking the game up. And with expanding the municipal course’s player and membership base being a key aspect of their plan, Byrd suggested a facelift for the greens would be in order.

Getting to the greens isn’t a primary course problem New Direction’s Mike Byrd said after playing the course, playing those fast, rolling greens is. Courtesy Photo

“Our plan is to attract new golfers and rejuvenate old golfers’ interest in the game,” Byrd said. In response to a question he said existing club memberships would be honored under New Direction management. It was observed that the club’s membership, currently at 146, had been largely faithful in recent years despite the course maintenance issues.

A part of the New Direction plan is bringing a PGA Youth Golf “junior” League into play in the community and at the municipal course. It is a plan the company has a track record with at a Stafford County course near Fredericksburg known as “The Gauntlet”.

Byrd said that introducing a PGA Junior League at The Gauntlet resulted in 300 kids participating last year – “If you have a youth soccer league, you should have a junior golfers league,” he told County officials. And if Stafford and Fredericksburg have a larger population base, around 100,000 to draw from, the numbers are still encouraging when transferred to Warren County’s 40,000 population.

Byrd said the Front Royal Golf Club could also benefit from becoming a sister course to PGA-friendly Gauntlet course about an hour away. County Administrator Doug Stanley told the board that the Stafford County and Fredericksburg City governments “highly recommend” New Direction’s golf course management.

Byrd’s presentation was hypnotically enthusiastic of the potential to turn the Front Royal Golf Club into a successful and profitable enterprise.

While his company is new, founded in January 2018, its directors have 33 years experience in the golfing industry, Byrd said. And he said despite reports of the demise of golf as financially-successful recreational endeavor, he believes the sport “has never been in a better place” for expansion of club’s like the County’s municipal course.

He listed positives and negatives for the club, and cited past management mistakes the County has made in trying to deal with revenue shortfalls. Chief among mistakes was lowering fees to try and attract golfers from the many private courses it competes with locally. On the downside were “108 holes” the Front Royal Golf Club’s nine holes must compete with nearby.

However, he noted that the club’s four-dollar fee to play “tells you something is wrong with the product – and nothing is wrong with the product (at least that can’t be easily fixed like those tough-playing greens)” Byrd enthused over the Front Royal Golf Club’s potential. He said nine-hole courses are more common now than they have been in several decades.

Other pluses he sees are that it is a public course, open to all; the course’s proximity to a nearby commercial area and hotel; its physically beautiful setting at the river’s edge, which also has the downside of the threat of flooding that could jeopardize the health of the course; the hiking or running trail that runs through the property, and even the fact that a train runs through the course.

“And not many courses are on the National Registry of Historical Places,” Stanley added, noting the property was part of the 1864 Civil War Battle of Guard Hill.

“The clubhouse looks good – in 1998,” Byrd joked of another renovation facelift he sees in store for the club.

See Byrd and New Direction Golf Management associate Kayla Weaver’s full pitch of their plan to rejuvenate the Front Royal Golf Club, and County discussion of their plan, in this exclusive Royal Examiner video: