ASK LOIS: Shouldn’t locals get tee-time priority on Palm Beach County’s golf courses?

Q: Why doesn’t Palm Beach County give priority to its residents vs. nonresidents when making tee times at the county’s golf courses? Don’t our tax dollars pay for the courses? Nonresidents get the same privileges as residents for a fee of $84 more a year. Unfair. — Don Lachs, Boynton Beach

A: Don, getting a morning tee time at a Palm Beach County-owned golf course has become nearly as hard as landing a Taylor Swift ticket. They are almost impossible to obtain, but if you find one, you feel like you’re the luckiest lottery winner.

I know this because I’ve been watching my husband struggle with getting an early tee time for the past few years. He logs in at 6 a.m. 10 days before the desired time, as permitted under the system, only to find the morning slots are already taken by 6:01.

Golf underwent a boom across the country during the COVID-19 pandemic , and the sport remains popular here in South Florida. Jennifer Cirillo, Palm Beach County’s parks and recreation director, said her department is super-aware of the squeeze at its four public courses and plans to examine alternatives that make access easier and prioritize county residents.

“We are looking at whether to make it a residents-only program,” Cirillo said. “But even if we do that, there will still be a limited number of prime tee times on a Saturday morning, and they are still going to go quickly.”

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It seems easy to blame the problem on people who don’t live in the county, but Cirillo said fewer than 10% of total tee times are booked by nonresidents. You are correct that they do have to pay a higher rate to purchase the county’s Frequent Player Card, $210, compared with $126 for county residents.

Among the people who have purchased the card, which offers discounts and rewards to golfers, Cirillo said 7,738 are Palm Beach County residents (defined as any person who pays property taxes or rents property in the county for more than six months in a year). Nonresidents comprise only 716 card holders.

The county does recognize that residents who play year-round should get some extra incentives, so they also created a Gold Program that provides discounts on golf fees throughout the year and special card-holder rate days during the summer.

It hasn’t helped the local crush that several South Florida courses have closed in the past few years or are being renovated. More than a dozen Palm Beach County golf courses have either been converted or will be converted in the coming years to housing and other kinds of development. In Broward County, six golf courses were turned into housing between 2017 and 2022 or are in the process of being refashioned into housing developments or parks.

Pompano Beach’s popular public Pines Golf Course has been closed for almost a year, and that has forced some Broward players to seek times at Palm Beach County courses. The Pines course is scheduled to reopen on Tuesday, April 2 .

Hopefully its reopening will provide some relief to Palm Beach County’s courses. In the meantime, you and my husband can commiserate tomorrow at 6 a.m.

Got a question about life in South Florida? Send it to reporter Lois K. Solomon at AskLois@sunsentinel.com .