Path Forward: Walking The Golf Course

It's a good walk spoiled, soiled, and dangerous at Lonnie Poole Golf Course with walking paths in dire need of improvement; NC State University will not help

NOTE: This story is about the awful, dangerous, and unsightly walking paths at Lonnie Poole Golf Course. Watch the video above. To register your thoughts about repairing the paths, read the story below and then contact:

• Rich Berlin, Associate Vice Chancellor, NCSU Campus Enterprises, telephone 919-513-2524; email: rdberlin@ncsu.edu

• Jeff Halliburton, Senior Director, NCSU Campus Enterprises, telephone 919-515-3817; email: jwhallib@ncsu.edu

• LPGC is under their NCSU jurisdiction. Both Rich and Jeff want to hear from you. Read the story and then call or email, sooner than later.

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LPGC is not a walker-friendly golf course

Let’s face it, without hesitation: After playing golf at Lonnie Poole Golf Course (LPGC) on the Centennial campus at NC State University in Raleigh since it opened in 2009, and, after these 15 years, I’ve come to the conclusion LPGC is not a walker-friendly trek. It can be costly and dangerous.

“Trek” is the perfect word to describe walking and playing LPGC. From Dictionary.com, two definitions: 1. To travel or migrate slowly or with difficulty, often through rough or unsettle territory; and, 2. To hike long distances as a recreational activity, especially over rough terrain.

With those definitions, “trek” is the best way to describe walking Lonnie Poole Golf Course if you try to navigate the walking paths, green-to-tee and tee-to-fairway walkways cut through rough terrain that’s a series of washed out red clay and clumps of wild grass.

A stroll through those paths can be nerve-racking routes that require physical and mental recovery once you arrive at your next shot. Most of these paths are up-hill which makes them doubly difficult and unhealthy.

Unfortunately, there is little consideration for repairing the pot-hole, root dominated pathways that are cause for ankle and knee injuries and destruction of push carts, manual and electric, which bounce viciously as you proceed. The expensive golf clubs within golf bags situated on the push carts are in danger of needing repair because of radical bouncing.

Repairing the paths can be a simple process, but the power delegated to University administrators who have no idea how to make real improvements to the golf course, balk at fixing the walking paths.

Fixing walking paths has been on a long-term project list for many years, but those in charge—Rich Berlin, Associate Vice Chancellor, Campus Enterprises, and Jeff Halliburton, Senior Director of Campus Enterprises—hesitate because of cost which they say should include a sprinkler system to make sure the grass planted and sodded for those paths survives.

Note to the administrators: There are a couple of Zosia covered paths that have survived (8-green to 9-tee and 13 green to 14 tee), and flourished without a watering system. How’d that happen? Mother nature?

An immediate fix would be to put a blade on a tractor and scrap the paths, filling in the washed out areas and removing the clumps of grass, then rolling the paths to smoothness. The first heavy rain may wreak havoc on the scraped areas, but it’s a first step. The paths also need to be widened.

It’s not as easy as it sounds, and it might take half a day to convert a path, but it would be a simple solution to what has been made into a complex problem. With a few additional budget dollars, the course superintendent could handle this a few paths at a time, completing the entire walking route in a month. There about 20 paths to fix, some longer and some shorter than the average.

When someone steps up and agrees to pay for it.

Jeff Halliburton, Senior Director of Campus Enterprises and the direct overseer of LPGC, recently told me the walking paths would be repaired when "When someone steps up and agrees to pay for it." Of course that’s simply nonsense, rubbish, and bulls**t. A jerk reaction to a legit question.

Walking is an integral part of golf to many players and should be considered when making improvements to the golf course, a huge asset of NC State University, a facility that prompts visitation to the campus, especially the Centennial Campus with its abundance of public-private partnerships.

Some at NC State—especially in the campus enterprises office of Rich Berlin—feel riding a cart is better for the financial health of LPGC which is supposed to exist on its own revenue. Yes, it does bring in nice revenue, but walking to play golf is best. I walk about 85 percent of my more than 100 rounds a year at LPGC. But, simply put, LPGC is not a walker-friendly golf course, even if you follow the concrete cart paths which are also in need of major repair.

In response to Jeff Halliburton’s answer—"When someone steps up and agrees to pay for it."—that someone should be NC State University, budgeting money to improve the walking paths and other parts of the golf course on a regular schedule, to bring it up to the level it should be as a crown jewel of NC State University and one of the top golf courses in North Carolina.

• To register your comments about the walking paths, contact:

• Rich Berlin, Associate Vice Chancellor, NCSU Campus Enterprises, telephone 919-513-2524; email: rdberlin@ncsu.edu.

• Jeff Halliburton, Senior Director of NCSU Campus Enterprises, telephone 919-515-3817; email: jwhallib@ncsu.edu

• Both Rich and Jeff want to hear from you.

Or “leave a comment” here or send your comments to me.