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www.HartfordBusiness.com April 13, 2015 • Hartford Business Journal 3 P.O. Box 2468, New Britain, CT 06050 800.969.3837 nteriors.com Summer, Fall, Winter, Spring Keep your exterior colorful and festive year round with our exterior seasonal program! indoor / outdoor plantscapes • holiday decor From Central Connecticut's trusted business news source. It's the up-to-date information you need to do better business! Get local breaking business news daily! Sign up today at HartfordBusiness.com: Click on the 'subscribe' button HBJToday and CT golf courses look to emerge from harsh winter, declining play By Gregory Seay gseay@HartfordBusiness.com C onnecticut's golf industry is trying to avoid a shanked tee shot as it wages a battle to remain financially viable and relevant to a waning customer base. A somber sign of the times is that golf, like other recreation- leisure past-times, must compete directly for golfers' attention and wallets with other live and televised sports, Internet video gaming and other less-expensive avocations, experts say. U.S. golf courses, including some of Connecticut's oldest and best, are scrambling to broaden their offerings beyond the traditionally lengthy and relatively expensive 18-hole round of play. To solicit new members and widen revenue sources, many are pitching access to their out- door swimming pools and tennis courts and indoor dining and banquet/meeting facilities. Some are losing the battle. In Southing- ton, a developer bought North Ridge Golf Club and is transform- ing nine of its holes into houses. In Windsor, The Tradition Golf Club, which opened for play in the '60s, off Pigeon Hill Road, closed several years ago. Others are determined to play through. Berlin's Shuttle Meadow Country Club, one of the state's oldest and most acclaimed private golf clubs, for the first time has hired a marketing director to help the 98-year-old club woo more players. According to the Connecticut State Golf Association, representing some 50,000 ama- teur golfers and public and private courses, the number of rounds played annually has fallen the past decade. The state golf association says that in 2010, amateur players it tracked posted 1,143,503 rounds. But by 2014, only 1,055,977 rounds were posted — an 8 percent decline. But "hardcore" golfers' participation in its adult- amateur tournament play has risen of late, said Brent Paladino, the organization's direc- tor of competitions and communication. "It's not a Connecticut thing. It's a nation- al thing,'' Paladino said of the decline in non-tourney play. "Like any sport, it's cycli- cal. The economy has an impact. So does the weather.'' Winter blues This past winter was especially disrup- tive for courses and players. Extra-heavy snowfall and extended periods of below- freezing temperatures have kept all of the state's courses inaccessible well past the first few weeks of spring. Semi-private Manchester Country Club has postponed its opening for several more weeks until the last snowmelt disappears to allow its four-person maintenance team to inspect the 18-hole course, clean it and Bunker Mentality Continued Learn how one of CT's best golf courses has maintained its competitive edge. PG. 14 P H O T O | P A B L O R O B L E S Hartford's Keney Park Golf Course in the city's North End has been closed during its year-long, $8 million renovation to restore a course deemed "unplayable'' to active status sometime later this year, a city public-works official says.