MIDLAND COUNTY, Texas — It’s been a summer of patience for Midland County’s potential new golf course efforts.
After hiring THK Associates back in May to perform a feasibility study on whether a new golf course would work in the region, county commissioners heard a presentation Tuesday on the results from it.
Any doubts over the need for more golf in Midland County have been put to rest.
“We’ve done more than 700 of these in my 50-year career," said Dan Conway, president of THK Associates. "This is probably one of the greatest needs I’ve seen in a market. Usually, you might see the potential for one or two golf courses, but this one suggesting today it needs about four to four-and-a-half new 18-hole facilities.”
THK Associates is a golf course consulting firm that looked at the market in a four-county radius, consisting of Midland, Ector, Andrews and Martin counties.
“In the first year of operation we’d play about 35,000 18-hole rounds of golf and then by the end of the decade we’ll be playing close to 60,000 rounds on the 27-hole facility that we recommended," Conway said.
The 27-hole facility would include a 12,000-square-foot clubhouse, as well as additional space for banquets and events.
The county’s proposed site for the golf course is on part of 234 acres in southeast Midland County. A proposed 25 acres of that are also for a water treatment plant.
While there is enough water, Precinct 2 Midland County Commissioner Jeff Somers said water treatment is key.
“The next step that I think we need to take care of is make sure we have a line of sight on how we’re going to bring water – a good, quality water source – to a facility like this, to a golf course like this because obviously you don’t want to start planting grass until you got something to water it with," Somers said.
Somers believes they can continue to tee off on this project with both the focus on water and the budgeting process at the same time.
“The feasibility study was the first part of that, the next part would be an architectural study to give us a design of the golf course and then the next part of our budgeting process would be the actual building and construction of the golf course," Somers said.
The timeline Somers predicts for all of that is years -- two to three budget cycles to be exact.