Cedar Hills' problem was its location, Watts said. There are two other courses within a few miles. In the case of the South Mountain course, the county took the course off the hands of a private developer.

"I can unequivocally say the majority of municipalities that have recently built golf courses haven't done good reporting," says Scott Whittaker, executive director of the Professional Golf Association of Utah. "Oftentimes cities do what others are doing, but they don't know enough about golf. They go to the wrong people for advice."

In Cedar Hills' case, those questionable advisers included THK and Associates.

THK had done between 30 and 40 feasibility studies in Utah prior to taking on the Cedar Hills project and did about 100 nationally every year. Peter Elzi, a THK principal, said unforeseen factors contributed to the failure of the Cedar Hills course.

"Why things turned out the way they did, I don't know, but whenever something bad happens they all start pointing fingers," Elzi said.

At the same time THK was urging Cedar Hills to build a course, the company's president was telling the Denver Business Journal that the golf business had turned sour.

"Denver, as well as the rest of the country, also finds itself with a huge number of golf courses but a lack of players because the hordes of aging baby boomers who were expected to take to the links haven't," he said.

Sears says THK's study focused on the demand for golf in the area. The study did not take into account that some courses in the area were already losing money, he says.

But that wasn't THK's responsibility, Sears says, it was the city's. And although he knew other courses were losing money, he says he saw no reason to take that into consideration.

"We already knew other cities were subsidizing their courses. We saw ours differently. We saw it as an asset to the community," Sears says. "Even if the course loses money, I don't think it's a mistake.

"When you drive through a city what do you want to see? Do you want to see parks and trees and golf courses? It's an investment, but it's worth it."

Here, in a nutshell, is the argument for publicly subsidized golf. Without municipal courses, many Utahns couldn't afford the sport. And as the state continues to grow, courses become increasingly important as a buffer of green between wall-to-wall concrete and asphalt.