In the dark of the night last month, a thief broke into the Crooked Tree Golf Course clubhouse and stole a bunch of stuff — including Rich Mueller’s golf clubs.
This was especially dispiriting because Mueller, a former touring pro, had among his clubs a treasured 1980s Ping Anser putter, his go-to club for 35 years.
At any other time, the theft of Mueller’s clubs and a middle-of-the-night break-in might’ve ruined your day. But the events of the last two months have been so consuming that Mueller, vice president and managing partner of Crooked Tree Golf Club, only mentions the loss of his putter in passing.
On March 18, Mueller became the first golf course operator in Southern Arizona to yield to the COVID-19 pandemic and close a facility. Of the 42 golf courses in the greater Tucson area, only Casino del Sol’s Sewailo Golf Club followed Mueller’s lead and closed; Sewailo reopened April 21.
No one ordered Mueller to close Crooked Tree. Not Pima County, which leased the course to Wildcat Golf Partners LLC in 2003. Not his partners. Nobody.
“It was the right thing to do,” Mueller said Thursday, a day before he ended a 44-day shutdown. “I wanted to do what we could to keep our golfers safe. I wanted to learn how to run a golf course responsibly in this unexpected situation.”
The cost of closing Crooked Tree during golf’s peak season was extreme.
In mid-March, Crooked Tree was getting as many as 200 or more players a day; the large driving range was processing about 100 golfers a day, sometimes more.
If you estimate that Crooked Tree lost the green fees of, say, 160 golfers per day over 44 days, at about $45-$50 per round, that’s well over $300,000
. There was no income from the driving range. No sales of golf balls, gloves, hats. No income from sales of soft drinks, hot dogs, beer, you name it.
Yet Mueller continued to pay 12 of his employees. He insisted the grass be watered and mowed, the greens manicured, his valued front-of-the-house managers, Brian Stevens and Bryan Arsaga, kept on payroll.
Let me pause to nominate Rich Mueller as the Man of the Year in Tucson sports.
“Rich did the right thing,” said Arsaga, who has worked at the course for 17 years. “Much of our clientele are senior citizens. You don’t want to put them in harm’s way. We’ve gotten to know all these people — our women’s clubs and men’s clubs — and Rich chose to think about them and not the bottom line.”
When Crooked Tree reopened Friday morning, the parking lot was again crowded, but it’s no longer the high season of Tucson golf — daily fee rates have dropped at almost all courses — and the financial reality isn’t difficult to determine.
“There are still bills to pay. Nothing stops,” said Mueller, who isn’t looking for anyone’s sympathy. “We’ll have to dip into our reserve fund, but we’ll be OK.”
Not only that, but Mueller’s bid to continue operating Crooked Tree — renewed at Pima County’s choice — is unsettled. He is in negotiations in hopes of being allowed to continue the course’s operation beyond June 30.
There’s not much of a chance that Crooked Tree’s revenue will match those of the day he closed, March 18.
There’s little chance Mueller can recoup much (if any) of the money not realized.
Crooked Tree has 80 carts in its fleet. Mueller’s new policy is that only one golfer ride in a cart. That means, on a busy weekend, Crooked Tree is apt to run out of carts by late morning.
Some of those booked for tee times about 11 a.m., will probably have to wait for early morning golfers to finish their round and return their carts.
Crooked Tree’s staff will then sanitize each cart before allowing them to be used. It’s the same issue the staff at the Randolph Golf Course has experienced the last seven weeks.
But a tardy tee time is a small price to pay to make sure golf can continue to be played safely in Southern Arizona.
Golfers on Tucson’s northwest side have been eager to get back on the Crooked Tree facility, one of the three or four busiest in Southern Arizona.
“One day I was sitting in my office and I saw some guys walk to the No. 1 tee and hit their tee shots,” Mueller said. “I walked out and said, ‘guys, you’re standing next to a ‘closed’ sign. I’m sorry, but I can’t let you play.”
The men offered to pay. Mueller declined.
On Friday, Steve Galassi, who recently retired as president of Tucson’s Thermal Engineering company, was among the first to tee off at Crooked Tree’s reopening.
“The fairways and greens are perfect,” he said. “When we made the turn at No. 10, there was a steady stream of players.”
Galassi made a tee time for next Friday, too.
