Do Cities Have Room For Golf Courses?

"The University of Texas System owns the rolling, timbered land the course has occupied since it opened as a Lions Club course in 1928. Now the Board of Regents is considering other ways to use the valuable property, part of a 500-acre gift nearly a century ago from Col. George Washington Brackenridge.

'You're talking about acres that act as lungs for that neighborhood,' said Save Muny advocate Zack Fleming, a former assistant golf professional at Lions.

The regents retained a New York planning firm in May to create at least two distinct sets of recommendations. Those are due in a year.

The two previous efforts to keep Lions have preserved an affordable place to play golf in a leafy, tranquil setting amid the affluent neighborhood of Tarrytown. But with state financial support in decline as a percentage of UT-Austin's budget and a desire to elevate the university's status even higher among American universities, the regents seem more determined than ever to extract more income out of the so-called Brackenridge tract."