Englewood officials and course staff unveil master plan for Broken Tee improvements

Englewood — City staff and a golf‑course consultant laid out a multi‑year master plan for Broken Tee on Monday, describing a set of improvements intended to address chronic turf and drainage problems, modernize bunkers and cart paths, expand practice facilities and stabilize pond banks.

The plan will serve as “a guidebook and it’s a budgeting tool and nothing more,” said Rick Phelps, a presenter at the session. “It’s not a construction drawing, nothing’s gonna be built from this drawing.” The work is intended to be planned and staged over the next five to 15 years depending on funding and playing trends.

Why it matters: Broken Tee is an active public golf facility that operates as an enterprise fund; revenues from play must cover capital work. Staff said the course shows persistent agronomic problems driven by poor soils and legacy landfill and fly‑ash deposits, failing drainage lines, heavy play that stresses turf, and aging irrigation equipment. Those factors, staff and the consultant said, limit playability and increase maintenance costs.

Rick Phelps led the presentation and described a facility inventory completed in late 2023 that informed the master plan. Phelps said the inventory identified priority project categories: drainage and soil replacement in problem zones; bunker reshaping and size adjustments to create a cohesive bunker style; replacement or staged repair of asphalt cart paths; expanded and reconfigured practice facilities including a leveled turf tee and a potential indoor/outdoor teaching building; and shoreline stabilization at several ponds.

Jeremiah Stumpf, golf course superintendent at Broken Tee, outlined immediate and near‑term steps the operation is taking. Stumpf said staff have purchased 71 catch basins to begin rebuilding front‑nine drainage and have already added seven catch basins at Hole 6 and two at Hole 3. He said the city will begin replacing irrigation heads around greens on the east side of the river and that the older irrigation system there is more than 15 years old.

The plan includes specific short‑term measures for water quality in the course ponds. Phelps said, “we’re gonna invest about $20,000 this year into — we’re gonna put, aerators in them, so the bubblers that'll help oxygenate the ponds.” Staff said those aerators and biological treatments will target irrigation ponds between Holes 1 and 6, near Holes 12–13 and Hole 14.

On turf and soils, Phelps said large areas sit on legacy landfill or former fly‑ash deposit sites that leave the root zone “hydrophobic” and anaerobic; the master plan proposes removing poor soil in targeted areas and replacing it with higher‑quality root zone mix or topsoil in zones where drainage and soil health limit turf survival. At one part of the course Phelps said contractors would remove and replace the existing soil and install new drainage conduits and French drains to reduce midsummer mud and dead spots.

Playability changes proposed include building more forward tees and selectively adding back tees to preserve challenge for better players while improving access for higher handicaps. Phelps said the design goal is to keep the course flexible for a wide range of players and to move some hazards slightly so they remain in play given modern hitting distances.

Practice‑facility proposals include leveling the upper driving‑range tiers into a larger grass tee, installing higher‑quality artificial mats for shoulder seasons, and a new indoor/outdoor five‑bay teaching building that could later be expanded to a second story. The plan also shows an 18‑hole style putting course and expanded short‑game areas with reoriented bunker faces to avoid south‑facing slopes that “get cooked” in winter sun.

Staff also flagged non‑playing amenities and capital items. The plan lists potential restroom replacements using fabricated buildings; staff estimated a single restroom building could cost about $375,000. Phelps and Stumpf said cart‑path replacement across the course is expensive and will be staged, and they expect some cart paths to remain where turf durability and routing require them.

Financial and program context: Shannon Buccio, golf manager at Broken Tee, reminded the audience that the golf course operates as an enterprise fund. “The golf course is an enterprise fund, so we do not get any assistance from the general fund with the City of Inglewood,” Buccio said, noting that revenues from course operations will determine how many projects can be completed and when. Phelps and Stumpf said the plan allows the city to budget and prioritize projects; they published an initial list of projected 2025 projects on the course website and via QR code at the meeting.

What’s next: presenters said the master plan will be used for budgeting and more detailed design work; individual projects will move forward after engineering, cost estimates and funding clearance. Staff said some drainage and irrigation head work is already underway for 2025, and aerators and pond treatments are scheduled this year. The consultant and staff held an extended question‑and‑answer session after the presentation and invited members of the public to review plan materials on the course website and provide feedback.

Audience members asked about specific holes, cart‑path placement, turf‑reduction areas to conserve water, and the timeline for a planned point‑of‑sale upgrade. Phelps and Stumpf addressed hole‑by‑hole questions, and Stumpf said the point‑of‑sale system was expected to go live around March 1, subject to minor delays.

The master plan presentation combined operational clarifications, staged capital priorities and conceptual design sketches; presenters emphasized it is a planning tool rather than a construction set and that many of the larger projects depend on future funding and further design work.