Brick Company Selected to Manage Wall Golf Course

The state has found a new manager for Spring Meadow Golf course and will give up running the day-to-day operations of the public course next month, according to a release.

The state Department of Environmental Protection, which owns the 18-hole course on Atlantic Avenue, announced Wednesday that a joint venture between a Shewsbury Borough and a Brick Township company will take over the operations of the course, according to a release from DEP Commissioner Bob Martin.

Linx Golf Management of Shrewsbury and H&L Golf Course Maintenance Co. of Brick will take over the management of the course in April, the release says.

, partially to free up DEP personnel for assignments in state parks, the department has said.

"Putting Spring Meadow in the hands of golf professionals to run it and market the operation is a common sense decision,'' Martin said in the release. "It allows us to better use our fiscal resources and personnel to deal with forestry, fish, and wildlife issues in our parks and natural areas, and to be able to afford to keep all of our State Parks and natural areas open.''

Under terms of the five-year deal, Linx/H&R will pay the state $130,000 annually,  a fee that will increase 3 percent each year. The joint venture also must it must pay 15 percent of total gross revenues exceeding $1 million annually to the DEP, according to the release.

The company will be responsible for future marketing and commercial development of the golf course. The deal has an option for a 5-year renewal, the release says.

Spring Meadow is the only one of four golf courses on DEP land that is also run by the department. In Monmouth County, the DEP also owns Cream Ridge Golf Course in Upper Freehold.

The Governor's Privatization Task Force in May specifically targeted Spring Meadow for privatization. It suggested that outsourcing government golf management in New Jersey, through long-term leases of these taxpayer owned properties, could generate needed revenues to help finance the State's park system, the department has said.

Spring Meadow Golf Course and driving range was acquired by the DEP in the 1970s through the Green Acres Program and has been operated by the state since then, the department has said.