The Osoyoos Golf Club (OGC) is in the first stages of a $2.1 million irrigation system renewal that it hopes to have completed before the golfing season resumes next spring.
Describing it as an “generational upgrade,” with an expected lifespan of 50-75 years, Osoyoos Golf Club General Manager Doug Robb said the water works involve upgrading and replacing a system that dates back to the golf course’s founding in 1973.
“It’s a bit like root canal, we don’t really want to do it but we don’t really have a choice,” Robb said. “We have to be sure we can deliver water to the property,” he added during an update at a recent Rotary Club of Osoyoos lunch.
The golf course meets its water needs through the use of grey water from the town’s waste treatment ponds which helps dispense with nearly 85 per cent of the town’s grey water.
The irrigation upgrade focuses on the Park Meadows course plus holes 17 and 18 of the Desert Gold course. These two holes were part of the original course and because of the way the system is organized they needed to be included.
The upgrade of the 1970s era equipment will bring benefits from the vastly different technology available, Robb noted.
“Eventually we’ll have to deal with the desert course irrigation in terms of life span, but this upgrade will put us in pretty good stead.”
Infrastructure upgrades are extremely expensive now with prices increasing nearly twofold over the course of the last 48 months, he said. The pump alone has doubled in price he said, adding that shipping costs have gone “off the charts”.
While the pump house is also in the mix, it is not included in the cost of the irrigation project. Pump costs are in the range of $250 – $300,000, he said.
The rising costs factored into the board’s decision because if the club waited for another year or two the price would likely be even higher and as such they determined it was better to proceed now.
“So we’ve secured funds from the bank and are moving forward. We’re hoping that mid-April or the first week of May the project is completed and we can carry on,” Robb said.
The club kicked in $500,000 while the remaining $1.6 million was loaned with a plan to pay it off within 10 years, Robb said.
The project has already seen one minor setback: the prematurely cold and snowy weather just over a week ago temporarily put the brakes on the project.
The inclement weather not only put paid to the golf season, but caught the club flat footed on its pre-winter maintenance.
“We still have maintenance practices that we need to complete so we’re hoping that the weather will soften up so we’re able to get back out there to prepare for winter,” he added.
Like most businesses the pandemic hit the golf club hard and with all the various requirements Robb described it as an “extraordinary exercise,” but as restrictions loosened, golfers were able to return to their outdoor pursuit, and return they did.
The OGC has never been busier in its history, said Robb, with just under 200,000 rounds of golf played in the last three years (including 2022). Some 75,000-80,000 rounds were paid rounds by visitors with the remaining 125,000 being member rounds. “It’s a very active place, it’s a busy facility and we’re struggling obviously with the staffing situation,” he added.
With 80-85 staff – eight of which are full-time – the golf club is one of the top three employers in town. The staffing crunch has hit operations across the board leaving the club operating at only 75 per cent staffing levels. Particularly hard hit was the food and beverage department, forcing it to only open five days a week.
“That’s the biggest challenge in Osoyoos,” he underscored. “People come to work in the grounds department, or in food and beverage or in golf operations and if they’re not senior staff, trying to find places for them to live that’s not going to take up the whole paycheque is a challenge,” and one shared by many businesses in Osoyoos, he acknowledged.
“So we’re trying to be aggressive and get places for people to live so they can come and work seasonally for eight or nine months and still make a decent living and put food on the table.”
These challenges are going to continue for some time, he added. “I don’t see that disappearing over the next year or two.”
Current membership numbers 526, which Robb noted is roughly 10 per cent of the town’s population. “We take that very seriously at the club, I work very closely with the directors in terms of what we do in the community, we’re trying to be community leaders.”
This includes doing their best to employ as many local people as possible. He noted that there is a fair number of young people working at the club, particularly in the summer.
Another challenge the club faces is simply the rising cost of living. “We’re trying to make it affordable for people to join the club, for people to play on a daily basis. Our external costs continue to rise so we have to pay attention to that so that we can give people a product for a reasonable price.”
Current one-time membership fees are $3,000 for an individual and $5,000 for a spousal membership. A bargain perhaps when compared to the Lower Mainland where initiation fees can climb as high as $80,000.
For some the sport still carries an elitist vibe with recent social media threads calling out what some saw as the “privileged” nature of the sport after Osoyoos Council approved the list of not-for-profit enterprises granted an annual tax exemption, which in the case of the golf club amounted to more than $46,000 in 2022.
When asked for his view Robb said he had seen the discussion, and emphasized that the club is both a not-for-profit society and a community-based facility.
“Some of the points that were made there I understand but I think if you look at the big picture I’m pretty sure we’re the number one employer in town and I know that June and September are the biggest group months of the year.
“When you think of that, we’re driving people into the community in the months when the summer season has not started yet or is finished. We’re filling up hotels, restaurants, bars and people are gassing up.”
Robb feels the golf club is a “pretty big part of the town’s landscape” and added they try not to be in direct competition with food and beverage outlets in town as they are only offering a service for golfers.
“The club is bringing a lot to the community. It is a community-based facility and any revenue that is generated on the profit side is put back into the property,” he said.
Going forward, 2023 will see the return of member events and possibly some of the former charity events.
