The Walker Lake Golf Course was days, maybe hours, from completely being done for good. The ground was barren and brown, the property sitting vacant for the entire summer. And then in its last moments, the Mineral County community and local government officials saved it.
The golf course had been around for decades and provided the town a resource for fundraisers and events. And then in July of 2022 it suddenly closed, its staff instructed to go home, and the fate of what was once called “the jewel of the desert” became uncertain.
The golf course was originally built by the U.S. Navy on its military base and then its management changed hands in 1979 when the Army took over the base. The Corps of Engineers held the lease but needed someone else to manage it. Private contractor SOC continued running it under the provision that it would be no cost to the U.S. government.
However, earlier this year Amentum took over the U.S. Army Contracting Command agreement which went into effect in mid-January. It seems that in the transition the Walker Lake Golf Course fell through the cracks, causing its abrupt closure. And as the course continued to fall into disarray, there was a lag in anyone stepping up to take it over.
During the time that the golf course was going down, Mineral County Parks and Recreation’s Kyle Isom began getting calls about the future of the golf course. He began looking into it, and had rounds of meetings with Amentum, the Corps of Engineers, and the U.S. government about what could be done. And even though he doesn’t play golf, his friend Rob Matthias encouraged him to pursue the issue. They drove out to golf course and the terrible state of the property broke Isom’s heart.
“It was sad, you could play taps out there,” he says. Isom was born and raised in Hawthorne and when he moved back in 2013, he was discouraged to see some of his other beloved open spaces start to decline.
Seeing how terrible the course looked, Isom knew that if all the grass completely died then whoever took it over next would have to pump around $400,000 into it to revive it (as a golf course), and that they had a small window of time to save the greens before it was too late. Therefore, they started sending water trucks out there.
“We thought, let’s just save the greens, get the county involved down the road, and then fix the fairways,” Isom recalls. As the parks and rec department sent water trucks out to the thirsty course, MC District Attorney Jaren Stanton called an emergency meeting with the county commissioners to discuss their next steps in saving it.
It was decided at the meeting that the DA, Isom, and Amentum would sign an MoU clarifying that Mineral County would control the golf course’s water/irrigation system.
“I’m literally out here right now watching the greens come back to life,” Isom says. “I was just at the right place at the right time to be able to figure this out, but it was really a team of people who made this happen. The government staff has been incredible, Amentum has been incredible, as well as the commissioners and community volunteers. Courteney Isom and Larry Cruz with the government staff were also crucial and critical with everything going forward with this. So many things had to take place for this to be able to happen.”
He believed early on that if they ripped the golf course out that the town was going to suffer, so everyone came together to save the course. And now that the county is more invested in its success, former golf course employees/operations managers such as Pete Summerbell, Rob Mattias, Gerald Reeves, and Bud Gazaway have been dedicating countless hours to get the course back to where it needs to be to reopen to the public.
Isom is grateful to Amentum for donating all the golf carts and equipment to them, and the Sportsmen’s Club for donating thousands of dollars in sandbags for the traps. And now the county is moving forward, trying to figure out a budget for continued maintenance of the course and its reopening. Isom says they hope to reopen to the public next June, and host golf tournaments and develop men’s and women’s golf leagues to offset the costs. They also just ordered 10 nets for disc golf, which they hope to open in the next few months (the disc golf course will not affect the main golf course in any way).
“I would really like to thank Eric Hamrey [Public Works] at the county, Rob Ralston at Amentum who helped us out a ton with donating the equipment, Jaren [Stanton] for calling that emergency meeting, and the commissioners for signing the agreement. This was definitely a whole team effort,” Isom says.
“I’m not a golfer but I’m going to be now,” he chuckles.
For anyone interested in Walker Lake Golf Course’s future operations, Isom encourages them to attend a Mineral County Commissioners meeting or call the Parks and Recreation Department.
