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As a frequent holiday maker on your island for about six years, and as a regular reader of your weekly paper (including online), I feel I am qualified to express my opinion about the newly proposed golf course. In addition, I feel qualified because I enjoy playing at the Marsa golf club whenever I am in Malta.
As a result, I am well up-to-date concerning the current management of the Marsa golf club, its membership facts and figures, and course maintenance issues. I am equally well aware that the Government has been urged to find new ways of bringing more tourists to the islands, which is unquestionably vital.
However, in my opinion, in order to improve tourism figures, Malta must first deal with some very basic problems: Improvement of the infrastructure and the environment, stamp out littering, bird-hunting and trapping, as well as decreasing pollution, which includes the senseless use of petards during the feasts. All of these problems are visible, audible and can be smelled by tourists. In truth, many of my fellow tourists are put off by these obvious problems – they visit the islands once and never return.
With these conditions tourism can never be improved with the provision of another golf course. A second golf course would be irresponsible and short-sighted. It is like placing a highly expensive bandage on the “wound” of tourism without addressing the basic problems that directly affect tourism. Not only does the idea of a second golf course blatantly disregard long-standing, underlying tourism issues, another golf course in Malta is neither economically nor environmentally viable.
First of all, concerning the economic efficiency of an 18-hole golf course, I was told in Germany that a profitable golf club has to have a minimum of 500 paying members. According to the Marsa golf club member’s handbook, the club has approximately 500 local members and approximately 100 overseas members. This seems to me to be a sound economic basis. The establishment of a new golf course at ix-Xaghra il-Hamra would be an absolute disaster for the investor. A market analysis would prove this beforehand. This golf course would not attract more tourists. Rather it would attract some members from the Marsa golf club who live in the North West of Malta, around Mellieha and St Paul’s Bay. So, there would be a shift of golf players from the Marsa golf club to the new course with the result that the Marsa club would have to raise the cost for membership and green fees due to the loss of members and tourists. In my opinion there are approximately just five to six thousand tourists per year playing in Marsa. Secondly, the new golf course would have a detrimental environmental effect on an area which is, with its garigues, a unique and a precious natural habitat for plants and birds (when they are not shot or trapped). Also this course would be placed on a ridge which experiences very strong winds. Needless to say, golfers avoid gusty conditions – another factor which would keep them away from this planned golf course.
When one considers the above factors, it becomes clear that the existing Marsa course, the Royal Malta Golf club, is more than enough. I am surprised that this club’s wonderful tradition and beauty are hardly ever mentioned in most of the opinion letters on this issue. Playing in Marsa has the luxury of rarely experiencing an overcrowded course. The course may not have the international standard of long and wide fairways with hills and valleys, but that is because it is tailored to the Maltese landscape.
Still, in order to attract more members and tourists and make this course the best it can be, a number of things could and really should be improved. These are: the walkway to the entrance of the Club House, the Pro Shop, the sanitary facilities, the maintenance of the boundary walls and fences, and the general tidiness of the area.
In relation to the grounds there is a matter of some concern, namely the use of the golf course by the Qormi Festa Committee responsible for launching an enormous amount of fireworks and petards from the west side of the golf course area. As a result, for two or three days afterwards a large area cannot be played because loads of debris has fallen on the course. The putting greens, which are the most vulnerable part of a golf course, are then ruined by burning parts of the fireworks and petards. During the day petards are even launched when tourist players are on the course! Here the Club Management Committee is challenged to improve the appearance of the club and to finally tell the Qormi people to move their fireworks launch area to another location.
Bernd Wachter
Berlin, Germany
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