City-owned Maryvale Golf Course is opening January 1under new management-- Grand Canyon University.
The university agreed to lease the course for 30 years and spend $10 million renovating the course and clubhouse.
GCU is hoping the year-long renovations will bring tournaments to the West Valley.
“The bones of the course were good, it just hasn’t been updated," GCU golf coach Jesse Mueller said. "It needed a facelift.”
The course is more than 50 years old and renovations include a new irrigation system, a lengthened course and rebuilt sand bunkers.
The course had been costing Phoenix $250,000 a year. GCU is hoping to bring in 55,000 rounds a year, a 50 percent increase from when the city operated it.
Mueller says the lease is part of GCU’s plan to invest in the West Valley. “It’s definitely a championship-style golf course in the West Side of Phoenix," he said. "And there's no desert and it feels like a park out here so it’s unique,”
GCU will keep the profits from the course until the investment is repaid and after that, the city will get 10 percent of the course’s net revenue.
The course will host the College Football Championship Game golf tournament in early January.
