Keeping golf light on the wallet in Utah

Nobody likes paying a lot of money for anything, whether it's a movie, a gallon of gas or a Slurpee at 7-Eleven.

Movies hit the $3 mark in 1979, about the same time gasoline hit a dollar a gallon. Both cost about three times as much these days. Who knows what Slurpees were then, but they did jump 20 cents from last summer.

Then there's golf.

Thirty years ago, golf cost two bucks for nine holes and $4 for 18, and since then, prices have risen between 500 and 1,000 percent.

However, golf prices in Utah have been fairly stable for the past few years and are among the lowest in the Intermountain region, if not the country.

Thomas Pagel, the new executive director of the Utah Golf Association, said, "One of the first things I heard when I first got here, was 'Welcome to the world of affordable golf.' "

Pagel grew up in the Denver area, where it's $40-plus to play 18 holes, and he's been impressed with the quality of Utah courses and the price you can play them for.

"You can play some amazing golf for 20-something dollars," he said. "That's unheard of in Denver."

Talk to almost any professional golfer in town, and they'll tell you how often they'll hear out-of-staters gush about the quality of golf courses here and the price they pay.

Aside from par-3 and executive courses, golf courses along the Wasatch Front range between $10 and $15 per nine and $20 to $30 per 18 holes without carts.

Salt Lake City has held its prices steady for five years, aside from a couple of tweaks for nine-hole rounds at Bonneville and Mountain Dell, which went up $1.50 in 2007, and at Forest Dale, which was bumped a buck the same year. Golfers have been able to play Nibley Park for $10 a nine since 2002.

For a couple of years, Salt Lake City had some of the highest prices in the state, but Salt Lake County courses have passed them up, and the rest of the state has caught up.

Salt Lake County courses — Mick Riley, Meadowbrook, Mountain View and Riverbend — are $14 per nine, and Old Mill is $16. South Mountain is $14, but requires a cart. And the prices are higher on weekends at Riverbend, Old Mill and South Mountain.

Most Davis County courses are still $12 per nine, with higher rates on the weekend at some.

If you go up the canyon to play Wasatch Mountain, Soldier Hollow or The Homestead, you'll pay around $40 with a cart for 18 holes, a little more expensive than Salt Lake, but still remarkably low prices.

A look at neighboring states shows that Utah's prices are lower on the average than cities such as Denver; Boise, Idaho; Albuquerque, N.M.; and Tucson, Ariz. We won't even mention Las Vegas and Phoenix, where most prices are in the $100 range and up, although you can get some decent deals at some courses in the summer if you can stand the 110-degree heat.