Dunedin is missing out on part of a $300 million golf tourism industry, former professional golfer Greg Turner says.
Mr Turner has called for the Chisholm Links course in Dunedin to become the city's destination course for golf tourism, and wants the Dunedin City Council to help with water rates relief.
He said a recent visit to the course left him "with a heavy heart''.
The club was doing a good job within its financial constraints, but the course was a lost opportunity.
Links courses held a special place in the hearts of golfers worldwide, and could help Dunedin get a part of $300million spent annually in New Zealand by international golf tourism, he said.
Plenty of that went to courses in the Queenstown area, but "precious few'' golfers came to Dunedin.
Mr Turner, who was appointed by Tourism New Zealand to lead a working group that produced a 2013 report on the potential of golfing tourism in New Zealand, said if the club was given relief from Dunedin City Council water rates, the city could benefit from a greater return from tourism.
Council chief executive Dr Sue Bidrose said she and Mayor Dave Cull had met Mr Turner a year ago.
She was yet to see any submissions on the issue, but would be happy to receive them.
Mr Cull said the council needed to see a good business case from both Chisholm Links and Mr Turner to get an idea of benefits to ratepayers of such a move.
Other Dunedin clubs have broadly supported Mr Turner's call for more efforts to attract golf tourism, although they, too, have to deal with water rates.
Mr Turner made his comments in a letter to the editor of the Otago Daily Times.
He said to bring it to a standard to attract golf tourism, the course needed work and a modified governance structure.
The cost of water, which the club said was about $45,000 a year, meant that was beyond its means.
A tourism asset needed to be operated differently from a golf club, Mr Turner said.
The investment needed was relatively small.
"I don't think it would be any more than the money that is currently being paid in the form of water rates and ground rates.''
That would go towards maintenance machinery, another greenkeeper and expertise to run the operation as a tourism asset.
"The [Dunedin City Council] is probably in the best place to lead this process.''
While he had met Mr Cull and Dr Bidrose, nobody had taken on the role of preparing a submission.
While such an action by the city would benefit Chisholm Links, he said if 5000 golf-specific visitors came to the city who were not coming now, "inevitably a number of them are going to want to play more than one course''.
As well, golf tourists were more inclined than other tourists to visit tourism hot spots while they were in the city.
"Everybody would win.''
Otago Golf Club general manager John Molyneux said golf tourists were lured to the city by the "dramatic'' photos of courses on websites.
"If anything can happen to make that even better, then I'm all for it.''
Mr Molyneux said his club regularly hosted teams of up to eight or 12 people from Australia, the United States or Asia, who loved the quality and nostalgia of the course.
If more people were to come to Dunedin for golf "of course I'm for it''.
St Clair Golf Club board chairman Peter Lee said Mr Turner was correct in saying Dunedin was missing out on golf tourism.
There were "four great golf courses'' in Dunedin: St Clair; Chisholm; Otago and Taieri Lakes Golf Course, all of which should be marketed.
"All our golf courses would benefit from the council giving rates relief.''
Chisholm Links board chairman Dave Watson said his club had requested water rates relief from Dr Bidrose before Christmas, to help extra watering for an over-40 national tournament later this year, but had been turned down.
In the long term, the club was hoping to use grey water from the Tahuna plant, and was trying to get funding to do a feasibility study.
"If we were able to access that water, then we would be able to turn the course into one which would be able to attract visitors to Dunedin."
Enterprise Dunedin director John Christie said a push to attract golf tourism in Dunedin would have to come from the golfing community.
His organisation had not done a lot of work on golf tourism in Dunedin to date.
It was, however an area he would like to see developed.
