Denver Golf Has a Fix-It List Heading Into the 2024 Season

Golfers will start hitting the fairways at their favorite public courses in Denver soon. And if there’s anyone who has high hopes for the 2024 season, it’s City Auditor Tim O’Brien.

“I want to see the experience for the golfer be elevated,” says O’Brien, a golfer and member of the Wellshire Men’s Golf Club.

So O’Brien is upset by what he’s seen from Denver Golf in the years following a 2021 audit on municipal golf operations that provided improvement recommendations. A follow-up report and letter issued in February by the Denver Auditor’s Office outlined the city’s concerns, which range from disappearing storm shelters and faulty golfer registration systems to more systematic concerns.

“In September 2021, we audited Denver Golf operations and found risks involving strategic planning, policies and procedures, oversight and monitoring, maintenance, and financial management,” O’Brien writes in a letter accompanying the follow-up report.

According to O’Brien, Denver Golf agreed to implement nine of his office’s thirteen recommendations, but so far, only three recommendations have been fully implemented, one has been partially implemented, and five others have not been addressed.

The three fully implemented recommendations include fixing course issues at Kennedy Golf Course, integrating credit-card capability at all Denver courses, and eliminating duplicate and dormant accounts in the golfer database. Kennedy has seen several aesthetic improvements, O’Brien concedes, but the Wellshire and Evergreen courses still need a lot of work.

“Although Denver Golf has made more progress than the number of fully implemented recommendations imply, it did not address all the risks associated with our original findings. Consequently, we may revisit these risk areas in future audits to ensure the city takes appropriate corrective action,” O’Brien adds in his letter.

For O’Brien, it was alarming to see that some of the risks and unattended problems still existed in late 2023 when the followup was conducted, including a failure to address multiple issues at his club course. Some of the problems that stuck out most were dead and downed trees, bridges in bad shape, graffiti, exposed nails and the removal of two storm shelters at the Wellshire Golf Course, which is celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2026.

Evergreen Golf Course still needs repainting and roof maintenance, according to the audit, and the course’s bar and restaurant “now shows signs of possible structural damage,” according to the follow-up report.

“It’s the lack of attention to detail,” O’Brien tells Westword. “I mean, when you’ve got rusty nails sticking out, things like that. Golf courses are frequented by children, [and] they’ve got some great children’s programs. I mean, this First Tee program, to me, looks like a fabulous program. But it still has to be a safe environment for the kids, as well as the rest of the community.”

After the 2021 audit, O’Brien and the auditor’s office recommended that course managers take a big-picture look at addressing these issues over time, possibly through annual reports and the implementation of a “strategic plan.”

But the audit says that Denver Golf, a branch of Denver Parks & Recreation, has not had a strategic plan in place with “documented organizational priorities and goals” since its last one expired in 2019.

“An updated strategy would help proactively plan and shape Golf’s future rather than it being led by reactions to current challenges or problems,” the audit adds.

In his February followup, O’Brien noted that Denver Golf’s continued lack of an updated strategic plan may ultimately prevent it from “proactively shaping the future of its operations and addressing challenges before they arise.” Although he gives some praise to the department for addressing a few issues after the 2021 audit was released, he still believes Denver Golf took too long.

For example, Denver Golf implemented a new point-of-sale and member loyalty system “after the old one was clogging up things for the golfers when they would try to pay for their tee times,” according to O’Brien. This was one recommendation Denver Golf did follow, but when the system was updated, there was a big difference in the number of loyalty accounts, which went from over 53,000 to 8,717.

“We’re delighted with the action that they’ve taken,” O’Brien says. “To go from 53,000 down to 8,000 is quite a reduction. You need to substantiate and evaluate your databases at least on an annual basis, if not more often. So the time that they take to do things is fairly lengthy.”

Golfer Safety Issues

When things do get fixed, O’Brien believes Denver Golf often cuts corners.

“There were some things like storm shelters that were in poor shape, and they mitigated that by just taking them down,” he says. “I don’t know if that’s the best for the golfer’s experience if a storm comes by and you don’t have a shelter.”

Steve Rooney, vice president of the Wellshire Men’s Club, says moves like this make golfers feel unsafe and unheard.

“It’s disappointing,” Rooney says. “I was told by Denver Golf that they were removed because they were rusting out and they were a danger and hazard. … I asked them what the plan was to replace those two shelters, and I was told there is no plan, because they are $50,000 each and they don’t have the money to replace those lightning shelters.”

Rooney can recall numerous times that he and other members of the men’s club used the shelters to escape storms. Now they must fend for themselves, which Rooney and members call a “pure safety hazard.”

“I have spent plenty of time sitting in those lightning shelters, and if it’s not a little mini-squall that rolls across the golf course, which usually involves lightning…it’s hail. And if it’s not hail, it’s insanely hard rain,” he explains. “You’re trying to find a way to take some cover from it. And now those shelters are gone. So either you race back to the halfway house on the backside of the golf course and try to pack into the concession stand so you won’t be hit by lightning, or you race back to the clubhouse.”

The auditor’s office argues that a strategic plan could help Denver Golf better handle these issues, but when the office asked Denver Golf director Scott Rethlake about the strategic plan, he said that “not updating the strategic plan was a management decision.”

“He told us he prefers a more fluid approach to planning, and believes documentation is mostly an unnecessary hindrance,” the audit continues. “In the director’s opinion, frequent conversations are more effective than documented goals or strategies.”

According to Rooney, Rethlake has been asked about a strategic plan before. During an annual conference call last year with Denver Golf and Wellshire’s men’s and women’s clubs, Rethlake allegedly responded to the question from a women’s club member by tapping his head and saying: “We have a strategic plan. We have a ten-year strategic plan. … It’s right here. I have it right here in my head.”

The women’s club could not be reached for comment, but Rooney said he and members of both clubs were shocked by Rethlake’s statement. “My understanding is it’s not supposed to be in your head, it’s supposed to be in writing,” he adds.

Both Rooney and O’Brien say club members at Wellshire are “frustrated” with Denver Golf’s leadership, with grievances including club access to the course, the number of tee times available and the current shape of the course and clubhouse.

“These clubs are providing a fair amount of revenue for Denver Golf, and they don’t feel that they’re treated very well,” O’Brien says. “They’re not happy with the way they’re treated or the way the course is treated.”

Wellshire Golf Course

Rooney says he has expressed concerns about members being hit by tee balls too often because of the course’s layout; he’s been hit, and so have his golf partners. According to O’Brien and Rooney, Wellshire being a Donald Ross-designed course makes it both difficult and dangerous at certain spots.

“A lot of the fairways are narrow and the greens are small,” Rooney explains. “What we’ve asked for is a new safety screen along the 13th tee. Denver Golf and Wellshire does have one in place right now, but it’s too short from a length perspective, and it covers only about half what it needs to cover, and it comes up around two feet off the ground, and it’s a net that has holes in it.”

Men’s club boardmember Dave Weitland calls Wellshire holes three, twelve and sixteen “a brutal stretch” as well as a huge safety liability.

“Sometimes I feel like I should wear a hockey helmet,” Weitland adds.

According to Rooney, at least two people have been hit and seriously hurt at Wellshire Golf Course that he knows of, including a man who broke his orbital socket, displaced four teeth and then had to suffer through multiple oral surgeries and braces as a result.

“And those are the dangerous things on golf courses,” Rooney admits, “but they’re preventable, and we are bringing them forward to the city and saying, ‘We genuinely believe this is a concern that needs to be addressed.'”

O’Brien thinks Wellshire has the potential to be the “crown jewel of the Denver golf courses,” but first “it needs to be taken care of better.”

The auditor believes that implementing a no-show fee could help bring in extra revenue for Denver Golf to better address issues as they come up. Currently, people who don’t show up for tee times aren’t charged anything, O’Brien says.

“You don’t have to pay a cancellation fee. But it looks like that tee time is filled. Somebody else can’t, one, play golf, and two, the city doesn’t get that revenue. Now, it doesn’t have to be a lot of money. It could be a $10 cancellation fee or even a $5 cancellation fee. But I think it would encourage people to be more responsible,” he says.

In response to the audit and Wellshire allegations and auditor’s office 2023 followup, Denver Golf sent Westword a statement explaining that it was still in the process of addressing the issues and rolling out a new no-show system, but it’s still in the “groundwork” phase.

“Denver Parks & Recreation appreciates the Denver Auditor’s recent report on the department’s golf division,” the response says. “Denver Golf continually works to improve the customer experience and remains committed to strengthening internal processes. Since the initial audit, we have addressed many audit findings, which include making capital improvements and installing a new point-of-sale system that resulted in efficiencies in business operations and enhanced user experience. These improvements provide the technological groundwork that will allow Denver Golf to pursue no-show fee functionality. Denver Golf remains committed to being a leader in the golf industry regarding accessibility, diversity, environmental stewardship and building a game for the future.”

O’Brien feels it’s time to do less talking and more doing.

“We look for the work to be done, not planned,” he says. “These are city assets. They belong to the people of Denver, Colorado. And I think the management of Denver Golf, the management of Denver Parks & Recreation, have a duty to care for these the best way they can.”