The following is the fourth in a series of articles about the Town of Westport’s finances. Written by ex-Board of Finance Chairman Brian Stern, this piece looks at the finances behind the Longshore Golf Course.
Westport Journal presents these pieces of news and analysis to help readers better understand town finance: the dynamics that create the town’s revenue, how that revenue is spent, the major drivers of town budget increases and how the town manages capital and infrastructure expenses. We plan to also put the decisions made by the Board of Finance and the Finance Department into the larger context of continuing to secure a safe and predictable long-term future for the town.
By Brian Stern
WESTPORT–The Asset: The Longshore Golf Course, one of Westport’s gems, elevates the town’s image while paying for itself with fees and cart rentals – but not without its challenges.
Along with the Westport Library, the Levitt Pavilion, Earthplace and Wakeman Town Farm, the 18-hole course helps define the “Westport Brand.”
Beresford Research surveyed 1,200 Westport residents and found that golf is quite popular. When asked what town-managed features lured them to living here, to some or great extent, Longshore (golf/tennis/sailing) scored 80%, number three behind only Compo Beach (98%) and the schools (82%).
And, Parks and Rec sells golf handpasses to more than 2,000 Westporters every year.
Each year, golfers play about 40,000 rounds at Longshore from May through October in a season bracketed by cold and snowy New England winters.
This far exceeds nearby private clubs, such as the Shorehaven Golf Club in Norwalk, with 21,000 annual rounds, and the Birchwood Country Club in Westport, with 12,000.
The intensive usage at Longshore heightens the importance of reliable, professional maintenance.
Financials: Golfers pay “greens fees” to use the course, with lower fees for seniors and juniors – golfers over 61 and under 18 – on weekdays. On average, greens fees plus a riding cart fee add up to $45 per round. Almost one in four players are guests or non-residents, who pay a 40% premium.
A chart of all 2026 fees can be found here.
Total course revenue for FY 2026 was approximately $1,650,000.
Most of that – $1,100,000 annually – goes to BrightView, the town’s golf course maintenance contractor. With the expenses for professional staff, supplies and for the town to lease the carts it rents to golfers, the operating cost in FY 2026 was $1,450,000.
Other expenses – insurance, employee benefits, capital expenses and overhead – is taken from the remaining $200,000 or so.
The Future: Now comes the difficult part. The course is a living thing. First opened in 1920, it is more than a century old, although it was remodeled in recent decades by golf course architect John Harvey.
Its heavy use and exposure to the extremes of weather make meeting players’ high expectations for high-quality playing surfaces a costly endeavor. Tee boxes, traps, greens and esthetic areas all need continual care and investment. As all gardeners know, “if you delay or ignore, the garden dies.”
Some tee boxes are being reconstructed this year in a $250,000 project. Irrigation systems and the sand traps will need restoration in the near future. For members of a private club, these course investments typically come as an assessment. For the Town-owned course, it is a subject of debate over funding priorities.
The Parks and Recreation Department relies on the golf course’s revenue to pay for its own capital improvements. This ensures that golfers do not compete for scarce resources with the Police Department, the Fire Department, the Westport Library and those who plow the streets, rake the beach and educate Westport’s children.
Next week the Westport Journal will publish an opinion piece that outlines a new approach for solving the long-term funding of golf in Westport.Thanks: Westport Journal thanks Erik Barbieri, John Janik, Michael Giunta and Sean Charles from Brightview for their time taken to describe the situation and opportunities at Longshore Golf.
Brian Stern
Brian Stern spent 40 years at the Xerox Corporation in a variety of executive capacities. He earned an MBA from the Harvard University Graduate School of Business Administration. He spent 14 years on Westport’s Board of Finance, eight of them as Chairman.