Todd Barranger's company is bringing the award-winning, city-owned Butterfield Trail Golf Course back to life – four months after city officials pronounced it dead.
The 18-hole, East El Paso golf course, owned by El Paso International Airport, is scheduled to reopen Friday at 7 a.m.
It was closed at the end of May by airport officials who said the course’s money loss had to be stopped as the COVID-19 pandemic caused airport traffic and airport revenues to plunge.
The course, which had been losing about $1 million a year, can be profitable, Barranger said.
“Not just one thing, but 100 different things" can be done to make a golf course successful, said Barranger, 51. He's been in the golf course management business for almost 30 years.
Barranger is managing partner of Las Cruces-based Spirit Golf Management Southwest, which recently had a 10-year lease approved by the El Paso City Council to operate the 18-hole golf course.
He and his business partner, Richard Holcomb, plan to increase the course’s revenues by bringing in more golf tournaments and attracting more weddings and other special events to the course’s restaurant, he said.
At the same time, they plan to take measures to decrease costs, especially water consumption — the course's second largest expense behind payroll. The course now employs 19 people and will have 30-35 employees when it becomes fully operational, Barranger said.
One water-saving measure is to stop watering, and in the winter, remove about 10 acres of grass throughout the course that are away from fairways and putting greens, Barranger said. Golfers won't notice, he said.
The company also plans to remove trees and plants growing inside the course's two lakes. Those are consuming about 70,000 to 100,000 gallons of water a day from the lakes, which are used to irrigate the course, he said. The water comes from wells operated by El Paso Water, which bills the course for it.
“The course is probably the number one course in this region,” Barranger said. "It has a lot of value to this community," and permanently closing it would have been a big loss, he said.
Spirt Golf owners previously ran golf courses in Arizona, California
Barranger moved to Las Cruces in 2019 from the Phoenix area with his wife, an Albuquerque native, after he and Holcomb sold Southwest Golf Management, which operated five golf courses in Arizona and California through leases and ownership. They then formed Spirit Golf, which plans to complete the purchase of Las Cruces’ Picacho Hills Country Club Sept. 1.
Spirit Golf has been managing Picacho since March 2019 and took over management of the municipally owned Sierra Del Rio Championship golf course In Elephant Butte, New Mexico, in May.
Both golf courses were losing money before Sprit Golf took control, and now they’re profitable, Barranger said. Holcomb, who lives in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, oversees the Elephant Butte golf course.
Restaurant, alcohol sales important to making Butterfield profitable
Spirit Golf will count heavily on increasing restaurant and concession sales to make Butterfield profitable, Barranger said.
COVID-19 restrictions on the size of events and restaurant customer capacity may reduce revenues.
"I don't think it will prevent us from making a profit. We just have to manage the mandates," Barranger said.
More: El Paso bars get Texas food permits to reopen, sidestep governor's COVID-19 order
Alcohol sales are an important component, and the company is in the process of getting a state liquor license, which likely will take several weeks to get, Barranger said.
The course's restaurant will reopen after the kitchen's range hoods are cleaned next week and a health inspection completed, he said.
Meanwhile, the company has a health permit that allows it to sell packaged foods, water, and sodas as the course reopens, Barranger said.
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Spirit Golf will pay the airport a percentage of its food, alcohol and golfing fees, ranging from 10 to 15 percent. Beginning in 2022 it will have to pay the airport a minimum of $125,000 per year, increasing to $191,000 in 2024.
"We should blow past those numbers pretty easily," Barranger said.
The course will have an introductory golfing rate of $39 per person, including golf cart, which is below the $45 weekday and $60 weekend rate for El Paso residents that had been in place when it was operated by the airport through a management company. Nonresident rates were higher.
The permanent golfing rate hasn't been set yet, but "it will be more competitive in the marketplace" than the previous rates had been, Barringer said.
Butterfield and other El Paso golf courses have struggled in recent years as the number of people playing golf has decreased here and across the country.
More: El Paso city, county golf courses big money losers
Golfing rounds decreased nationally in past years, but have begun to pick up, Barranger said. The COVID-19 pandemic has helped get more families interested in playing golf as a way to get out of the house, he said.
The number of golfers, and number of rounds played in 2019 increased slightly nationally in 2019, according to data on the National Golf Foundation's website. Many golf courses in the United States that remained open in the early months of the pandemic reported large gains in rounds played, the Washington Post reported in May.
License agreement with course designer Tom Fazio ends
The almost 13-year-old Butterfield Trail course, located at 1858 Cottonwoods and Global Reach drives, cost $11 million to build. It was designed by Tom Fazio, a renowned golf-course architect.
The course will no longer be promoted as a Fazio-designed course because it no longer has a license agreement with Fazio — something that added costs through a license fee and labor-intensive turf-care requirements, Barranger said.
The course was ranked the third-best municipal course in the United States for several consecutive years by Golfweek Magazine, and has garnered other top rankings and awards through the years.
"I don't think people look for a course architect" when deciding where to play golf, Barranger said. Players look at the course's condition and how it plays.
"I think we will be as good or better with our changes," he said.
Vic Kolenc may be reached at 546-6421; vkolenc@elpasotimes.com; @vickolenc on Twitter.
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