NIAGARA FALLS: Hyde Park proves itself to long-time critics

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Bill Evans of Wheatfield practices his chipping at the Hyde Park Golf Course. Evans, a former critic of the course, is now happy with how it’s run and its condition. He’s not alone, rounds at the course this year increased by about 5,000.

November 16, 2007

By Dan Miner/minerd@gnnewspaper.com The Niagara Gazette Fri Nov 16, 2007, 06:09 PM EST

Management issues may have plagued Hyde Park Golf Course for years, but in the end there’s only one thing golfers cared about — the course itself.

“The course has been a disaster,” said Wayne Coram, a Falls resident and season pass owner at the course for many years. “The bunkers weren’t taken care of, the greens weren’t aerated right and the fertilizer wasn’t done right.”

But this year frequent critics such as Coram have struck a different tone, saying they are impressed with everything from the course’s condition to the clubhouse inside the Greens restaurant.

“They did absolutely 100 percent better this year than they have in the last 15,” said Coram, who also runs a league and several tournaments at the course. “They’re cutting things right and they’ve fertilized the greens, and all the (people working there) did a great job this year.”

Ironically, the city-owned course is doing more with less in terms of managers, since greens keeper Jim Buchalski’s position was cut out of the 2007 budget. The course is now run by a team of city officials spanning different departments, who said the increased focus on maintenance at the course made a big difference. The greens were aerated for the first time in decades, and the city’s horticulturist, Paul Dickinson, worked on improving the greens.

“I think things changed on the golf course, starting from tee to green,” said Marc Stott, coordinator of the golf course and also the city’s and youth and recreation departments. “People started to hear good things and they started coming back.”

The course, which is still open for the season, has been the site of 51,000 rounds this year, compared to 46,000 last year.

“When the word is out that play on the course is good, that’s basically what drew the people in,” said John Caso, Falls parks and neighborhood services director. “To see the course moving forward.”

The course, which has 36 holes, was once one of the best in the state, said Billy Evans, a member of the Hyde Park Men’s Club. But it underwent a well-documented decline, which recently has included a deflated golf dome, a roundly-criticized attempt to sell it to private developers, perpetual rumbling about its inability to generate a profit and a rocky relationship with the Greens’ former owners.

“It was let go and was really run down,” said Evans, who golfs there nearly every day and has been playing there for 40 years. “I saw it and a lot of people saw it. But the course has been really well run this year, and the improvement is absolutely amazing.”

Evans said he played with tourists and Canadian friends this year who were amazed at the turnaround, pointing out that kind of buzz is what makes a course profitable and successful. He mentioned Deerwood Golf Course in North Tonawanda and Brighton Park Golf Course in the Town of Tonawanda as examples of public courses which make money for the cities which run them.

New management at the Greens — Kim Bunce and her son Paul — has also improved the restaurant’s hours and service, Coram said.

“These owners are there the first thing in the morning with breakfast for the golfers, which is an absolute superb thing,” he said. “They’re good people, very polite and nice, and they’ll bend over backwards for you.”

Work still needs to be done on the course, Councilman Chris Robbins said. It has been a good year fiscally, but needs to keep improving to make money, he said.

“We’re definitely moving in the right direction,” he said. “It’s one of the first years in a long time that I got a lot of positive feedback on how the course looked and how it was being run.”

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