Cedar Rapids abandons proposal to reduce Jones Golf Course to nine holes

Jones Golf Course will remain an 18-hole course with its flood-prone back nine intact.

Sven Leff, the city's parks and recreation director, on Monday said the city for now has set aside its proposal aired in July to transform the course into a nine-hole one with a driving range and four holes for instruction.

In the end, Leff said the public divided about 60 percent to 40 percent to keep the course as is during input at city open houses and through emails to the city and participation in the city's web site, CRTalks.com.

“Many who prefer 18 holes conceded that nine holes is still better than no holes, but they'd like to see 18 if it's possible,” Leff said.

The flood-prone back nine on the course is out of commission and has been much of this golf season after three round of flooding this year on Prairie Creek, which runs next to the course before the creek flows into the Cedar River.

At last month's open houses, Leff and Lisa Miller, the city's golf superintendent, reported that flood water had closed a part of the course 19 times since it was converted from a nine-hole course to an 18-hole one in 2001. Seven times the entire course had to be closed, and each time, the city has paid to fix damage, they reported.

Leff and Miller had proposed keeping the course's front nine and then converting the other nine holes into a driving range, a three-hole par-three course for golf students and others and a fourth instructional hole.

Leff said the public input raised a number of questions and concerns, among them the question of the domino effect that changes at Jones Golf Course could have on the city's three other 18-hole courses.

Golfers, he said, also want the city to again ask the Iowa Department of Natural Resources and the Army Corps of Engineers if there is any way to build additional berms at the course that might reduce the times when the course takes on water.

Leff said the city will ask, but in the past the city has not gotten approval for such construction. Additional berms on the course could exacerbate flooding on the other side of the creek or downstream and, in any event, additional berms might not keep the water table that is tied to the course's ponds from flooding the ponds, he said.

Golfers at Jones Golf Course will be seeing maintenance crews clearing debris and aerating or tilling soil in preparation to seed the flood-damaged parts of the course the week of Aug. 26, Leff said.

The plan is to open all 18 holes in the spring of 2014 if there is no more flooding and if there is no change in the city's golf operation plan.

“We hope to have a great recovery by next year,” he said.

Leff, who took over the city's Parks and Recreation Department in April, said the input from the public about the city's proposal for the Jones Golf Course worked as he had hoped.

“It was really good dialogue, really good ideas came up,” he said. “People were thoughtful. For good reason, we're taking our time to do more analysis and think through our options because of their input.”

Golfers who use Cedar Rapids' four city courses, Jones, Ellis, Twin Pines and Gardner, haven't been afraid to weigh in on the city's plans for change in the past.

Back in 2007, the city floated the idea of selling 20 acres of the Twin Pines Golf Course for commercial development.  That idea prompted protest, and the idea was set aside.