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Tag: dc golf

  • ‘An incredible place’: Volunteers help spruce up Langston Golf Course on MLK Day – WTOP News

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    Even though the Trump administration terminated the National Links Trust’s lease overseeing D.C.’s public golf courses, Langston Golf Course’s annual MLK Day of Service event went on.

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    Volunteers help spruce up Langston Golf Course on MLK Day

    Even though President Donald Trump’s administration terminated the National Links Trust’s lease overseeing D.C.’s three public golf courses, it did not stop Langston Golf Course from hosting its annual MLK Day of Service event.

    Dozens spent the morning of Martin Luther King Jr. Day pulling invasive plants, grasses and shrubs along the Anacostia River and Kingman Lake.

    Mike McCartin, co-founder of National Links Trust, told WTOP the organization hosts this event every year.

    “It’s always been a very popular, but chilly, time,” McCartin said. “It’s important to the golf course because these buffer zones along the lake and the river are full of invasive plant material.”

    One of invasive species being targeted is the bush honeysuckle. Volunteer Bianca Andre, who has a degree in environmental studies, said it needs to be removed because it’s the favorite food of an invasive insect — the spotted lanternfly.

    “We’re removing some of their habitats so hopefully we have less of an infestation next summer,” Andre said.

    While not everyone is as knowledgeable about invasive plant life as Andre, a lot of the volunteers did understand the importance of Langston Golf Course.

    “Langston is an incredible place with an incredible history. It was where Black golfers who were displaced from a course around the Lincoln Memorial in the 1920s worked for 10 years to get a new course built at a time when D.C. was segregated,” McCartin said.

    Bianca Hill, who was one the volunteers, told WTOP that while she just took up the sport last year, Langston has been part of her family’s life for a long time.

    “My uncles were caddies here. I just appreciate the history of how my people have overcome and have this awesome course and opportunity for not just African Americans, but everybody to have affordable golf,” Hill said.

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    Jimmy Alexander

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  • Free golf lessons, workforce development programs in limbo after DC golf course lease termination – WTOP News

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    Questions are swirling among golfers in the D.C. area about what will happen to D.C.’s three public golf courses, after news Wednesday of President Donald Trump’s administration terminating the National Links Trust’s lease.

    Questions are swirling among golfers in the D.C. area about what will happen to the District’s three public golf courses, after news Wednesday of President Donald Trump’s administration terminating the National Links Trust’s lease to manage the courses.

    Now the National Park Service will manage East Potomac Golf Links, Rock Creek Park Golf and Langston Golf Course.

    National Links Trust is a nonprofit with a stated goal of making golf more accessible to the public.

    “We were formed because we want to make sure that there are affordable golf options for our community,” Executive Director Damian Cosby told WTOP. “Especially in the municipal space, it’s our duty to make sure our facilities are affordable and accessible. Golf in general has become very, very expensive.”

    That mission includes management of the courses and community programming at the courses, including Free Lesson Friday, a series of free golf clinics at East Potomac and Langston to golfers of all ages. The organization also runs a workforce development program, providing intern and caddie positions at Langston.

    Rock Creek is closed for a renovation that was just about to begin, but has now been halted. While East Potomac and Langston remain open, all the programming offered at those courses is now in limbo, Cosby said.

    WTOP spoke to a student golfer who credited National Links Trust for what she called incredible opportunities.

    “I was the first female golfer on the East Coast to play at Pebble Beach through the Tiger Woods Junior Invitational,” Aaliyah Shabazz said. “I wouldn’t have been presented with that if I never came here to Langston and if National Links Trust wasn’t here to support me.”

    The 17-year-old Dunbar High School student is one of the caddies at Langston, and completed a summer internship through the program.

    “Where we learn workforce development skills that we can use on and off the golf course,” Shabazz said.

    One of the mangers at Langston Golf Course, Melchior George, came outside to greet Shabazz and her mother.

    “Young ladies like Aaliyah have been like young roses that we’ve watched blossom here at Langston,” George said. “There’s a rich history of that and hopefully we’ll find a way to continue to do that.”

    According to George, there are between 20 and 30 student athletes who are involved with the program every year at Langston, and he said the goal is to teach them the career opportunities within golf.

    “Managing brands, growing and being creative to be able to do what it is that they have their eyes and their hearts set on,” George said.

    Langston Golf Course is near and dear to George’s heart.

    “I’ve been here all my life, since I was 5 years old, sitting on the porch there since I was 5 years old,” George said.

    Not only did George’s father attend school across the street from Langston, but his grandfather lived two miles away.

    “We are deeply entrenched in this community, and how it’s impacted people of underserved communities, African American, Hispanic, and we want to continue to find ways to reach out to our young people,” George said.

    Langston Golf Course dates back to 1939 and was the second racially desegregated golf course in D.C.

    The course was named after John Mercer Langston, the founding dean of law at Howard University and the first African American elected to Congress in Virginia.

    “Being a steward of a municipal golf facility, it’s our duty to be an on-ramp for golfers that don’t have means, or are new to the game, or are on a fixed income. We are the places where they can go to play, to feel welcomed and to be able to afford to play,” Cosby, executive director of the National Links Trust, said.

    WTOP’s Nick Iannelli and Thomas Robertson contributed to this report.

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    Jimmy Alexander

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  • Trump administration terminates lease for Washington’s 3 public golf courses – WTOP News

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    The National Links Trust, the nonprofit that has operated Washington’s three public courses on federal land for the last five years, said Wednesday that the Department of the Interior had terminated its 50-year lease agreement.

    Washington, DC USA – March 23, 2016: East Potomac Park Golf Center sign in view of the Potomac Grille at East Potomac Park in Washington, DC(Getty Images/eurobanks)

    WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration has ended the lease agreement for three public golf courses in Washington, a move that offers President Donald Trump an additional opportunity to put his stamp on another piece of the nation’s capital.

    The National Links Trust, the nonprofit that has operated Washington’s three public courses on federal land for the last five years, said Wednesday that the Department of the Interior had terminated its 50-year lease agreement. The Interior Department said it was terminating the lease because the nonprofit had not implemented required capital improvements and failed to meet the terms of the lease.

    While it was unclear what the Trump administration’s plans are for the golf courses, the move gives Trump, whose private company has developed numerous golf courses in the U.S. and abroad, the chance to remake links overlooking the Potomac River and in Rock Creek Park and a site that is part of Black golf history.

    Officials for the National Links Trust said in a statement that they were “devastated” by the decision to terminate the lease and defended their management of the courses. They said $8.5 million had gone toward capital improvements at the courses and that rounds played and revenue had more than doubled in their tenure managing the courses. The nonprofit has agreed to keep managing the courses for the time being, but long-term renovations will stop.

    “While this termination is a major setback, we remain stubbornly hopeful that a path forward can be found that preserves affordable and accessible public golf in the nation’s capital for generations to come,” the officials added.

    The Department of the Interior’s decision comes as Trump rebrands civic spaces in Washington and deploys National Guard members to the streets for public safety. The Kennedy Center added Trump’s name this month after the center’s board of trustees — made up of Trump appointees — voted to change the name of the performing arts space designated by Congress as a memorial to John F. Kennedy. Trump is also in the midst of a construction project to build a ballroom on the White House’s East Wing, and he has put his name on the U.S. Institute of Peace.

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    WTOP Staff

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