Bill Mann

What to do with all that prime land if we repurpose our golf course? 

I drive by the course virtually every day, and even in the summer, I’m surprised at how few golfers there are. This doesn’t seem sustainable.

I’m always looking for hackers whose swings are even worse than mine was back in the day when I squandered far too many hours flailing away at the little white pill. The nearby pool, on the other hand, is usually so busy we lap swimmers often share lanes. 

Full disclosure: I am NOT anti-golf, but I am pro-pool, especially given that the number of swimmers far outnumber golfers here.

The city is still gathering information, and 76 percent of people in its online survey support alternative uses for the golf course. Parks Director Carrie Hite says the public-input process about the course (and pool) is ongoing. At this writing, walking and hiking trails, as well as habitat restoration, are the biggest vote-getters for alternative uses of the golf course. 

This public-spirited guy feels it is my duty to suggest other alternative, sustainable uses for the nine-hole course. Here are some suggestions: 

• Paintball. 

• Putt-putt course.

• Beer gardens. 

• A croquet pitch. 

• Converting sand traps into kitty comfort stations.

• Expand cemeteries to include, as per Trump, spouses interred on fairways.

• Frisbee golf!

• Skeet shooting. 

• Park benches with ads like those at bus stops, for municipal revenue enhancement. 

• Archery range. 

• Goat-grazing lands.

• Fairways converted to a sod farm (city revenue). 

• A new location for the Kinetic Skulpture Race (with water courses). 

• New bowling alley.

• Batting cages.

• Cornhole boards.

• Shooting location for Golf Channel merchandise testimonials 

• A second local drive-in.

• Pet cemetery.

• Plein air painting.

Painting with words: There are few funnier people in the media than former GOP strategist Rick Wilson. Wilson’s three Trump-bashing books are hilarious, and his Lincoln Project anti-GOP videos are classics of sarcastic, effective political attack. 

Wilson is not on TV as much as he once was. More’s the pity. But If I hear that he’s coming on CNN or MSNBC, I’ll immediately record the show. 

Wilson lives, of all places, in Tallahassee, adjacent to the Redneck Riviera, from where he keeps a jaundiced eye on DeSantis’ dismal domain. 

Here’s how Wilson recently described his nutty home turf: 

“I’m a fifth generation Florida man. My people (as we say down here in the Deepest of the Deep South, ironically the most northern part of Florida) are colorful. We’re some Red Hills, cracker-ass, hog-farming, shark-fishing, citrus-growing, deep-fried weirdos.

“I’m so much of a Florida man you might expect someday to see police helicopter footage of me running naked down a highway median with the family pet alligator over one shoulder as I flee the detonated ruins of the family compound’s meth lab trailer, pursued by my common-law fourth wife, who also happens to be a first cousin, my parole officer, and a Santeria priestess.”

Wilson bemoans and pinpoints The Sunshine State’s growing MAGA population: 

“Steve Bannon plots world revolution (and hides from the law) in Sarasota. Don Jr., Kimberly Guilfoyle, and their independent pharma rep Skeeter moved to Jupiter. Newt Gingrich is down in Naples. Rudy has a place in Palm Beach. Noted former Met Gala non-attendees Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump are building a post-modern pile in Miami. Tucker Carlson lives in and often broadcasts from his home near Gasparilla. Mike Flynn is near the center of Florida’s conspiracy culture in the Tampa Area, as is plagiarist and MAGA scamfluencer Benny Johnson. This list goes on and on and on…”

Really makes you want to move down there, doesn’t it?

— Finally, as the locals say around here this time each year, it’s Get Out of Dodge time. We’re heading down to our warmer former home territory of Sonoma County in Northern California wine country. I’ll report back. I could spend Februarys in worse ways than swimming outdoors in a heated pool. 

(Bill Mann will still be reachable at Newsmann9@gmail.com.)