Reason Foundation recently identified 221 local governments across the country that reported running public golf courses in their 2020 financial reports. Of those 221 local governments, 155 lost money operating golf courses in the 2020 fiscal year. In the aggregate, these 155 local governments lost $61 million of taxpayers’ money managing golf courses in 2020.
Amongst the 221 entities, 27 are local governments in California. And of those 27 local governments, 24 lost money operating municipal golf courses in 2020. These 24 local governments lost a combined $20 million of taxpayers’ money on their golf-related operations.
The largest operating loss, over $4
