NOTYears after its owner closed it, the Ahwatukee Lakes golf course partially reopened last week even as the next step in the long legal battle for its restoration remains unclear.
Handfuls of happy duffers roamed the restored nine holes and elongated driving range that reopened Feb. 1.
“It was awesome,” said Terry Duggan, president of Ahwatukee Golf Properties and a key assistant to Wilson Gee, a manager of the ALCR course owner.
“We average about 70 players,” Duggan said Sunday.
Players were partly lured by the price – $20 for the first nine-hole round and $10 for a second round. The cost of the driving range varies depending on the number of balls played by a golfer.
Duggan said the reaction has been largely favorable, although “some people say it’s not as good as it used to be”.
“They don’t understand,” he added. “We just overseeded and we have to go back and put in all the Bermuda grass in the summer, then the rye, then all open in September. So we still have a lot of work to do. We’re not even close to finishing.
Although the crowd was slightly young, he added, as no golf karts are allowed, Duggan said: “There are also older golfers, those who like to walk.”
Gee was eager to reopen and start recouping an investment he put in at around $800,000 – well short of the $5-6 million a golf expert testified in a 2018 trial was needed to restore the course and well below the $12 million that former semi-owner The True Lakes Company estimated reopening would cost.
Yet even as cries of “fore” echoed across the course, barren stretches of terrain bore witness to Duggan’s explanation that there was still a lot of work to be done.
They also recalled that the lawsuit filed by landlords Eileen Breslin and Linda Swain in 2014 is still ongoing after Superior Court Judge Sara Agne ordered Gee to deposit $500,000 with the court so that a special master may be paid to oversee restoration.
On February 10, Agne rejected the ALCR’s attempt to evade the $500,000 penalty and decided the company had to post it within 10 business days so the money could be used to hire a special master who will oversee the restoration of the course. The special master must be mutually agreeable to both parties or the judge will make the choice and it must be an individual
“who designs, builds or manages golf courses.”
Agne’s initial order last month came after owners’ attorney Tim Barnes persuaded the judge that the ALCR had breached the first of three deadlines another judge set in November 2020 after he ruled that the ALCR had disregarded another judge’s order to reinstate the executive course.
Barnes had alleged a host of shortcomings in the restoration work – including an insufficient number of trees, an unfilled lake only a semblance of a clubhouse that will not serve drinks or food – to claim that Gee had violated the directive from Judge Theodore Campagnolo to have a restoration plan in place by May 2021.
Campagnolo’s three delays carry stiff penalties — none of which go to the plaintiffs in the litigation.
It set a penalty of $500,000 if a restoration plan was not in place by May 2021; a $1.5 million penalty if work had not started by September 2021; and a $2 million fee if the course is not fully operational by September 2022.
Last summer, Gee proudly noted that he had already started work ahead of Campagnolo’s second deadline and would be heading ahead.
of schedule.
Gee also continues to claim, as he did under oath, that he did not need a formal restoration plan – a claim Barnes disputes.
While bypassing most of Barnes’ specific complaints, Agne’s order last month was suspended on the ALCR’s failure to obtain a leveling permit from the city of Phoenix.
Both Duggan and Gee testified that planners told them they did not need a permit, but Agne’s Feb. 10 ruling rejected their claim that a permit was not required.
They cannot directly appeal the decision to a higher court, although they can seek special action on behalf of the Arizona Court of Appeals, which does not have to review it.
Gee said so far he only has a soft reopening of the course and will do something big and special once all 18 holes are ready to play in September.
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