News broke over the weekend that a lawsuit had been filed to prevent the Trump administration from taking over East Potomac Golf Links on Hains Point, which lies under the 14th Street Bridge and crosses the Potomac River from Northern Virginia into the District of Columbia.
I have crossed that bridge hundreds of times, if not thousands. Each time, I would crane my neck to the right to take a look at the golf course to see how busy it was, and then the other way to see the majestic Jefferson Memorial in either the soft colors of the morning or against the blazing sunset of a hot summer day.
Part of me recoiled at the thought of a presidential controversy over a small municipal golf course that can help us solve many of the problems we face today.
What really caught my attention was the report that debris from the construction of a new grand ballroom at the White House is being dumped on Hains Point — something that made the hair on the back of my former chief of staff neck stand at attention and wonder, “Couldn’t they have found some other place to dump all that sheetrock and broken marble and bricks, especially during an election year?”
After all, the Hains Point golf course has long been associated with civil rights progress of African American citizens in the District of Columbia. East Potomac Golf Links is listed on the National Register of Historic Places for its role in fostering civil rights in our nation’s capital.
Today’s 18-hole rate of $25 per round sounds positively outrageous compared to the $5-$10 weekday rates it cost to play in the late 1980s.
There is fear and trepidation that the entire tiny peninsula will be redeveloped as a high-end championship golf resort. The current course was built when hickory-shafted drivers were in vogue, which makes it difficult to see how it will be large enough to accommodate modern space-age technology in golf equipment. One podcaster speculated that plans were to charge $1,000 per round on the new course so players could have spectacular views of the Washington and Jefferson monuments as they teed off.
Here’s the real problem with abolishing the East Potomac Golf Course and replacing it with some new 21st-century golf resort: The essence, the logos, if you will, of having affordable municipal golf courses in the first place is to allow people of all races, faiths and socio-income brackets to have the opportunity to get exercise in the fresh air, learn to play golf with people they may not know — but most importantly — learn to play a game that teaches and absolutely commands compliance with rules, honor, integrity and sportsmanship.
Wiping out access to any municipal golf course anywhere in the country is cutting off an important outlet where children can learn how to play a game and win with dignity and lose without crying.
Golf is the only game that encourages honesty, such as when a player commits a violation of the rules and calls a penalty on himself. Young golfers learn quickly not to cough or shout during an opponent’s backswing or putting stroke. They also learn quickly not to walk in the line of an opponent’s next putt.
They learn to shake hands after any match and to treat everyone with respect and dignity. Removing any municipal golf course for any reason just drives another nail in the coffin of the proper development and maturation of young people in terms of civility and being a good citizen. There are still great municipal courses around the nation — RGA in Raleigh comes to mind, as well as Hillandale Golf Club in Durham. Hillandale is the home of the innovative SwingPals program, which has been used with great success to build confidence in young students in Durham.
Once East Potomac Golf Links goes, will others follow as well?
What is more important to us as a nation: another $1,000-per-round golf resort or a generation of responsible young people who will be able to keep this nation together based on commonly held values, beliefs and integrity?
The game of golf may not save the Great American Experiment in Democratic Republicanism all by itself — but it sure would be easier to help train up new generations of Americans if low-cost, accessible courses such as the one on Hains Point remain open to the entire public. Perhaps we should be building more muni courses and running every school-aged child through a golf program such as SwingPals.
