The Tribune-Review reports that with the 2025 U.S. Open coming to Oakmont Country Club, the United States Golf Association (USGA) is planning a $4.8 million expansion of the fabled golf course.
And it wants taxpayers to pick up nearly half the tab.
As the Trib reports it:
“The golf association is in the midst of a $4.8 million expansion of the country club that includes new private roads, staging grounds, shuttle stations and improved admission facilities.
“The USGA recently submitted a grant application to Pennsylvania’s Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program detailing the scope of the project. The national golf group is seeking $2.3 million in grant funding to help pay for the ongoing expansion.”
Just how this dovetails, if at all, with USGA talk three years ago of taxpayers ponying up money, via some kind of dubious “handshake agreement,” to build a new pedestrian walkway across the Pennsylvania Turnpike that bisects the Allegheny Valley Borough site is unclear.
And as Eric Montarti, the Allegheny Institute’s research director, reminds, next year’s U.S. Open event “additionally received money from the state’s gaming economic development fund due to a program created in 2022.”
But what remains clear is that taxpayers should have absolutely no business underwriting yet another very tony private association of sports barons.
Further from the Trib story:
“The USGA expects attendance to increase in 2025 and is hoping improvements at the 200-acre golf course will help reduce congestion on Hulton Road and throughout Oakmont.
“Local roadways were congested during the 2016 tournament thanks to an abundance of shuttles and buses ferrying spectators to and from the country club, said the grant application. …
“Our goal remains focused on transforming our operations to make sure that Oakmont continues to be a viable site to host golf fans at our national championship for years to come while also driving economic development and tourism opportunities for the greater Pittsburgh area,” said Julia Pine, a USGA spokeswoman.
The Trib reports that the “USGA said in its grant application that next year’s U.S. Open is anticipated to bring an estimated $77.4 million in direct consumer spending and $4.9 million in newly generated tax and fee revenue to the region.”
But that’s hardly a defense of it attempting to turn out public pockets. Again, this is not a taxpayer responsibility. Oakmont Country Club is a private club with an initiation fee of $200,000 (as of 2023, according to Yahoo Finance) and you can bet pricey annual dues.
As Jake Haulk, president-emeritus of the Allegheny Institute, reminded three years ago (when the initiation fee was a mere $75,000), neither a financial nor moral (and certainly not a “good-government”) case can be made for using taxpayer dollars to subsidize the uber-rich sport of professional golf at the Oakmont Country Club.
“In sum … there is no reasonable case to be made,” Haulk asserted (in Policy Brief Vol. 21, No. 34).
And neither, still, are there any ancillary “economic development” projects tied to this latest request for Oakmont subsidies.
Back to Haulk’s 2021 assessment:
“Hundreds of millions of dollars were spent on new sports venues in Pittsburgh based on the argument they would spur job growth in the city and county,” Haulk recounts. “Based on the population losses in the city and the very small gains in employment in the city and region over the last 20 years, the claims of a major economic payoff from the taxpayer dollars used ring very hollow.”
Then as now. And his bottom line of then remains as applicable today:
“Since benefits of any construction at [Oakmont] would accrue primarily to the host club and the USGA and are thus private, the associated costs of holding future USGA championships at Pennsylvania courses should also be borne privately.”
That’s a reference to the USGA holding out the carrot of future PGA tour events at Keystone State golf courses – a bribe by any other name to shake down public dollars.
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
