Evesham Township is taking a swing at getting more out-of-town golfers to its municipal-owned Indian Spring Country Club with its new, recently passed Municipal Partners Program.
The program offers residents of other Burlington County townships a $5 discount on a round of golf at the course if their home township meets certain requirements.
The requirements include the outside township agreeing to promote Indian Spring and the discount deal on its township website, promoting Indian Spring on township social media pages four times per year and allowing Evesham and Indian Spring to set up an information table at appropriate township events.
Residents from other towns would then only have to show proof of residence at Indian Spring to receive the discount.
The Municipal Partners Program is the latest action taken by the township council to bring more revenue to Indian Spring, which is both owned and managed by the township.
Indian Spring is currently expected to cost the township a debt service payment of more than $1 million annually for the next several years.
According to Evesham Township Manager Tom Czerniecki, Maple Shade and Tabernacle have already agreed to the
Mayor Randy Brown said there are many municipalities that don’t have a golf course, and so his goal was for Evesham to be the golf course for everybody in South Jersey.
“What we’d really like to do, and I know the goal I have with this municipal partners program, is how do we expose our golf course to more residents of South Jersey?” Brown said. “Having been to our course before, the condition of the golf course is the best that it’s been since I’ve been mayor. So we really want to show it off.”
However, Evesham has also already received a “no” from neighboring Mt. Laurel.
Brown said he believed Mt. Laurel council members were making a mistake when they decided against the deal because they believed it would hurt the Ramblewood Country Club golf course in Mt. Laurel.
Brown said he believed what Mt. Laurel should be doing is promoting Ramblewood and Indian Spring, because it would save residents money and wouldn’t hurt business at either course.
“I’m a golfer, I don’t want to play one course forever,” Brown said. “None of us drive the same car for 30 years. We usually have different cars, different colors and different shapes. It’s the same thing. I play about 10 different courses a year as a golfer.”
Brown said he also believed the price of the discount was fair.
“I think $5 off per person is fine,” Brown said. “If they have a different suggestion, I’d love to hear it, but we only charge $23, so if we start doing $10 soon we’re doing 50 percent off.”
According to Brown, he also would have entered into a similar deal with Mt. Laurel and Ramblewood to promote them on the Evesham website if it would save Evesham residents money.
“If Ramblewood came to Evesham and gave our guys $5 off, I’d put them on our website tomorrow,” Brown said. “I’d put Ramblewood on tomorrow. I’d put any local public course if they were offering deals to us. I think it’d be great.”
Regardless of Mt. Laurel’s decision, Brown said he believed the program would be a success.
“It’s one more way…that we can go ahead and enlarge the amount of rounds that we have,” Brown said. “We want to bring people in.”
