Exclusive QA with Westport Golf Links

Editor’s note: Westport Golf Links (WGL) recently released its 436-page Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS), which is now in the public comment period that concludes on May 23. CEO and President Ryann Day, project manager Mark Merkelbach and consultant United States Army Col. (Ret.) Xander Bullock have been making the rounds drumming up support for a proposed public 18-hole Scottish links golf course and ancillary facilities at Westport Light State Park. Renowned Scottish golf course designer David McLay-Kidd is on board to design the course. The Daily World’s Editorial Board sat down last week with Day, Merkelbach and Bullock for an extended interview.

TDW: What was the genesis of this idea?

Day: I was introduced to the game by my dad. I played golf with him pretty much every Sunday up until I was about 25 years old, so it’s deeply rooted in my history and my relationship with my dad. I’ve been playing golf pretty much my entire life.

We started vacationing (in Westport) when my sons were really quite young. I used to be a runner, I used to run up and down that dune trail, and every time I would look to the east, I’d see this piece of property that looked like every piece of links golf that I’d seen in Scotland and Ireland. It just was so emblematic of what those landscapes look like. I always in the back of my head was like, “God, they got to put a golf course there.”

I got into governance at Sand Point (Sand Point Country Club is in northeast Seattle) and I’m running the greens committee which is in charge of making all the decisions for the golf course. We identified a need to redo our whole bunkers program at Sand Point Country Club and ended up getting a pretty sizable budget approved to do that.

We had some local contractors come in and we were unimpressed by the designs. And we got some inspiration from our pro who turns out he’s from Scotland. Craig Hunter, I thought, “Why wouldn’t we go out and hire someone like David McLay-Kidd?” Chances are they’re going to say no, but they’ll probably know somebody who might be able to come in and do some cool stuff for us.

Out of the blue, we called David McLay-Kidd and he actually picked up the phone and one week later we had him out to Sand Point Country Club. He was like, “Oh my gosh, there’s so much potential here. You know, I’d love to take this on.” I’m on Cloud 9 because this is like royalty, this is the guy that designed Bandon Dunes when he was 26 years old.

But in the back of my mind, I’m thinking about Westport. As we were playing a round of golf, I asked him if he was familiar with Westport. He’s like, “Oh, yeah, I went down there in 2008 with the developers and took a look at that golf course they were trying to build. And it’s a loser. There were tons of wetland issues and we couldn’t figure out how to get it to pencil out. I wouldn’t waste your time with it.”

I was like “Did you know that in the last five years (Washington State) Parks took over that 300 acres and combined it with their existing 300 acres? And now there’s roughly 600 acres of land to choose from.” He literally stopped in his tracks and was like, “That’d be worth kicking the tires on.”

We came up with the idea of golf as a catalyst to both protect and preserve and create some economic opportunities in the region because with his experience at Bandon and how that’s transformed that town and their tourism industry there, he was absolutely convinced that he could replicate that here.

The first meeting that we had in the city of Westport in 2019, he turns to me and he said, “Ryan, I’ve been doing this for 25 years and this Westport project is the biggest no brainer I’ve ever seen.”

Merkelbach: Before this area was selected, the Washington and Oregon coast were canvassed. It was a GIS analysis that looked at land use. It also looked at available public and private lands. For a project of this size, there’s a criteria that needs to be met and one is finding a contiguous parcel of land that’s at least 250 acres.

There really are no land holdings, especially in Washington state or even in Northern Oregon, that met that criteria. Then you add on that it needs to be built on sand and needs close proximity to the coastline, and infrastructure availability, workforce, labor pool and proximity to population centers like Olympia, Seattle, Portland. So those are other factors that were taken into consideration and frankly this was the only site that met those requirements.

TDW: Xander, how did you get involved in this project?

Bullock: Somewhat happenstance, but it happened that my daughter was dating the son of one of the guys involved and I just kind of heard about it. But then I met Ryan and these guys and they were really championing something that I’ve been very passionate about, in and out of the Army.

So my name is Andrew Bullock. My second-to-last posting was working as the commander of the Army Corps of Engineers in the Seattle District. In that role and during my final posting as tribal affairs advisor for the chief of staff of the Army, one of the things I was looking at is constantly trying to balance economic development, economic or environmental interests, and then tribal and treaty interests.

We worked very closely with Congressman Kilmer and others on coastal resiliency, trying to put the coast in a position where it’s not so fragile in the face of storms and with a retreating coastline, which is what we currently have in a lot of the Pacific Northwest.

But the difference between the Pacific Northwest and the rest of the country is the amount of federal investment and federal interest. I became very frustrated and I started doing some homework. I realized that per mile, the federal government spends $4,500 in California holding the coastline in place, and about $2,100 a mile in Florida.

Here in my home state, I’m from Snoqualmie, the federal government spends about $300 a mile on a good day, and that’s not over one administration. I became a bit of a patriot of this coastal area that’s one of the most economically disadvantaged coastal areas in the country.

We kind of met by happenstance and I started talking about this and Ryann asked, “What would it take to get the feds to invest in the coastline?” They sure don’t seem to be willing to do it on behalf of the tribes — 87% of this coastline is tribal reservation land.

My passion is for coastal resiliency and for economic prosperity in my home state. When I hear folks in the state government talking about coastal retreat and you can’t hold back the ocean and everyone is just gonna have to move upland? It’s frustrating because it’s not how other states are treated. You can absolutely hold back the ocean. It’s just a matter of what you’re trying to do.

What would drive the federal investment in the coastline is something I became ardent about in 2021, and the answer is private investment. I’ve been in the room with the guys with the green visors. I know the equations. If there is private investment in the Washington state coastline, not only do I think it will drive federal investment, I know how they do their calculus.

What it would take is somebody to put something on the coastline that was valuable, that had economic development and environmental aspects that could be protected. You could put a lot of things on the coastline. You could put a high rise hotel. You could put a big ball bearing factory.

But very few of those things are palatable to the region in character with the kind of environmental activity and focus in the region. A golf course. A walking golf course. No nets, no lights, no carts. Native grasses. Done by a group of thoughtful people who are engaging the environmental issues very seriously and very deliberately, who have engaged and drawn support from the local tribes and are trying to put a recreational facility out there.

I don’t know how you pass that up. I see it as putting a stake in the ground economically in a way that will bolster the rest of the coast by enabling federal investment.

Day: It just seems like the project gets better and better as we move along. It’s become more refined and from a public benefit standpoint and environmental standpoint, this thing has become something I didn’t originally envision, and it’s turned into a generational opportunity for the area and probably a poster child on how to do an environmentally sensitive development and how it should be done and how it can be embraced in a state like Washington.

TDW: Mark, how’d you get involved in this project?

Merkelbach: They reached out to me because Ryann, through some of the original studies, identified that the site contains wetlands and I have quite a bit of experience working on large restoration projects along the West Coast. I’ve been working on wetlands for over two decades and have been working with this group and navigating both the local state and federal permitting process.

TDW: Tell us a little bit about the economic development opportunity and what this project may emulate or compare to.

Day: I mean the easiest is Cannon Beach and Seaside, Oregon. Why don’t we have that experience here in Washington? Ocean Shores and Westport, they’re models of deferred maintenance, deferred investment. It hasn’t really happened in the last 40 or 50 years. Why is that?

A clear eyed comparison to the Oregon coast, which has nearly 10 times the economy of the Washington coast, you gotta ask yourself, “What? Why?” Similar climate, similar region, similar accessibility. What’s going on here?

TDW: How key is it to this project to have somebody like Col. Bullock who knows how to navigate all these hurdles?

Day: It’s a tremendous resource. When this thing started, we didn’t really have much of a concept of what the federal component of it was going to be. The idea of instituting a beach nourishment program, which was attempted and that failed because it didn’t reach the cost benefit ratio analysis.

So you put anywhere from $30 to $60 million of what our investments are going to be that gets us well over that cost benefit ratio. That’s not just Westport, it extends to Ocean Shores and on the inland side of Grays Harbor.

It’s a significant foothold in investing in protecting our coastline. That wasn’t our intention when we started this thing, but it’s opportunities that we’ve identified as we’ve progressed through the project.

We commissioned an economic impact analysis. It’s $30 million of economic impact annually in Grays Harbor, over 300 jobs. We get the conversation about the housing issues. We start talking about how we fix this, what needs to be done, what type of housing do you need, what type of opportunities are there in Westport to address these issues?

TDW: So what do you say to the naysayers who either want to put up roadblocks or don’t want the project to go forward at all?

Merkelbach: It frankly is a balancing act and there are a lot of competing interests and I like using the phrase 30 for 30. I mean we are probably going to be using 30% of this site for a $30 million annual stimulus. There are some trade-offs and with that we have a really robust mitigation plan.

Let’s start with the history of the site. A little over 100 years ago, the golf course where it sits now is the Pacific Ocean. All these habitats that you see today are fairly recent. Even in the 1970s the majority of the site was primarily open sand.

With the advent of the Dune Trail, which basically has slowed down a lot of these sand processes, now there’s kind of this westward expansion and these wetland depressional areas have developed.

The former golf course project has created a scar in the landscape and that scar is still visible today and the majority of those disturbed areas are covered with invasive species. And in other areas along the Dune Trail and informal dune trails have led the pathways for invasive species migration.

Our approach is basically repopulating the upland to the maximum practical extent, and then also the areas that were degraded by the failed golf course project. The center portion of the site, those areas will remain intact. They’ll be preserved and basically made available through proper trails that provide east to west, north to south access.

What we’ve heard from the public is that that’s something they want, which is totally separate from golf, but it allows people more access and an immersive experience.

Day: You hear this term bandied around that these are very, extremely rare interdunal wetlands, and so that’s refuting that point. They’re not that rare in the state of Washington,

Merkelbach: The reality is, the pluses outweigh the minuses. We have proposed a robust way to provide a large mitigation area on site, which we call the active mitigation area, and this is an area where we’re going to be using sand from the site to help build up the golf course in order to create playable golf surfaces, the greens and tee boxes.

It will actually be much wetter throughout the year so that will allow for these wet meadows to basically become reestablished and too wet for shore pine to colonize. It’s a unique opportunity to actually help diversify the wetlands that are there.

If nothing were to be done, it would eventually just become a monoculture. Over time if there’s a do nothing mentality portions of these wetland areas would then begin to erode into the Pacific.

So. We look at this as being proactive. We also are proposing a very robust operations and maintenance strategy for invasive species that cover the entire park site currently. Washington State Parks has done very little to no management of invasives throughout the site.

We would be responsible to do that and with the golf course comes the greens crew and they are very adept at maintaining a world class golf experience and we’ll be working the interior to help protect and and maintain these wetland areas.

It’s privately funded. In addition, we’ve identified areas within Grays Harbor South Bay where we see great opportunities for reconnecting former tidal floodplains through making modifications through the former logging roads. Tribes are very supportive of any ways to expand fish habitat, so we see great opportunity.

So I think we have a robust onsite /offsite mitigation package that will improve the quality and diversity of the wetlands.

Day: We’ve consulted with the South Beach Regional Fire Authority and they recognize this as a seasonal fire risk. You’ve got the seasonal winds that come out of the northwest which creates an ember path that goes right over the main residential zone of downtown Westport.

Our golf course provides natural fire breaks for emergency responder access as well as by irrigating its golf course firefighters and first responders will have access to pressurized water should anything like that break out. Doing nothing is basically giving up and losing much of the park.

TDW: A Facebook commenter suggested that instead of building a golf course, why doesn’t somebody do something about the vegetation rather than some kind of development project.

Day: It’s a good question. Who’s going to pay for it? That’s the beauty of our project, it’s a self-sustaining in perpetuity partnership and who’s better than a golf course that has a staff that has the capacity and ability to manage these types of projects. We already have all the equipment to do it.

Bullock: And you don’t get a partner or the economic catalyst and what that brings to the community. If you just go in and clean it up, that doesn’t do anything for your cost benefit analysis and federal support for keeping the beach that can still erode away.

I don’t think that there’s a straight faced environmental argument to do nothing. In rural communities there’s a lot of fear of change. You’ve got a precious interdunal wetland that is covered in scrub pine and Scotch broom and is completely mutated from what it was ever supposed to be or could have been naturally.

So you don’t have good stewardship. You don’t have preservation now and you don’t have conservation now. The strategy of garnering preservation and conservation by putting a private entity in public, private cooperation with the lease with the state that then can take responsibility for that preservation of conservation is your best strategy to preserve that land.

You could say what if we found a private donor who could put together $100 million and return this spot to its natural state of interdunal wetland dunes and puddles?

Let’s talk about the future a little bit. In my last job, I was working as a tribal advisor and the Salish tribes talked about a seven-generation view. What does this look like in seven generations? What does it look like to have more people come and play golf? What does economic development look like? What does it look like for the environment? All those things are good questions.

If our science and understanding holds true, you could invest $100 million in returning it to interdunal wetland and somewhere between now and 100 years from now, it’s the Pacific Ocean. You preserve nothing. There’s no driver for federal action to protect that area.

TDW: An argument has been raised regarding an adverse impact on property taxes in the region.

Bullock: You have folks out here on fixed incomes and they’re worried. I think that also is very short sighted. This is the part I’m talking about. The future. That’s a very short sighted way of looking at it. Never have I anywhere in my life seen folks champion poverty in order to keep their taxes low.

The question is, do you want your grandkids to visit and do you want economic prosperity of your town, or do you want to support a retirement community and never have your taxes go up by keeping the entire town poor.

Day: The proposed Westport Golf Links project is anticipated to significantly influence local property taxes and the broader economy in Grays Harbor County. While property values may rise due to increased demand and development, this doesn’t directly equate to higher taxes for individual homeowners.

Washington state’s 1% property tax levy limit ensures that taxing districts can only increase their total levy by 1% annually, excluding new construction and voter approved measures. This means that as the tax base expands with new developments like Westport Golf Links, the tax burden is distributed across more properties, potentially stabilizing and even reducing individual tax rates.

This is probably going to have very little impact on the heart of Westport and probably more on the Ocean Beach residential properties. Potentially some folks could actually experience decreased property taxes.

Property taxes and property values have been going up over the last five years. It’s a statewide phenomenon. By bringing investment of a world class nature like this is going to bring back opportunities, hope and pride in a community.

People from around the country will know where Westport, Washington, is because of this golf course because it is so unique and because of the caliber of architect that we’ve hired to do this project. You’re going to see people choosing not just to move here, but to stay here.

TDW: What’s the tourism draw? What types of events do you anticipate?

Day: We draw from “sister” type properties, Gamble Sands (golf course) is a good example in Brewster and what that’s done to bolster that community and put that place on the map. They get a six-month golf season, 25,000 people come to play that golf course and they don’t have adequate lodging to support it.

There are definitely opportunities for tournaments. We need to be very conscientious of the impacts that we’re going to have in the area. So it’s not being designed as a tournament golf course. Now, that being said, I’ve talked to many people at the Washington Junior Golf Association and told them I can’t wait to host a state championship at Westport Golf Links.

We talked to the First Tee and the First Green initiatives about doing youth programs on site. We’ve engaged with and have support from the Evans caddy scholarship folks and it’s an opportunity for disadvantaged youth to be introduced to the game, pick up valuable life skills and get their college paper.

The fact that we get to have this on our coast two-and-a-half hours from downtown Seattle, a little over an hour from Olympia and three hours from Portland is a game changer.

TDW: What do you hope to offer to the public?

Day: It was always going to be a public golf course. The genesis of it is Saint Andrews in Scotland, which is owned by the city of Saint Andrews and it is a public park. It’s owned by the Saint Andrews Trust.

Merkelbach: I wanted to address this comment that’s come out that this project is going to be restricting access to the public and it couldn’t be further from the truth.

The Dune Trail will remain as it is and with unrestricted access for bike and pedestrians as it is today. It actually will be two feet wider. The reason for that is to provide better access to emergency responders. We’re going to widen it to 12 feet. The Dune Trail is roughly a mile in length. We are now proposing three miles of additional trails. That’s a game changer, all non-golf related, all open to the public.

From the original scoping meeting there was a resounding favor of more trails and getting people to the park. Other public benefits are expansion of the parking lot that is a nightmare during the prime summer months. We’ve even heard issues with emergency responders not even being able to get in there because of congested parking. We’ve been looking at how everyone can benefit and how we can add more access.

Day: Obviously we’re gonna have the 18-hole championship golf course but another popular feature is the short course, which is a much softer entry point for people of all skill levels. Four to eight to 10 people can play in the same group in flip flops with a couple of wedges but it looks and feels just like the big one, and it’s at a price point that is very, very affordable.

And then there will be a Top Golf sort of experience with a bar and restaurant feel and virtual driving range experiences. Why not have some outdoor events? There’s opportunities for fire pits and public gathering areas and concerts. There are going to be opportunities to do things in a different way and to be able to think outside the box in ways that haven’t been done.

TDW: Will you have people on staff who can teach the game of golf?

Day: Absolutely. I see a future where there would be some sort of a golf academy with tons of youth programs. There are golf leagues all over the state.

In fact, you know, I’m going to Spokane, both of my boys are playing in a tournament over there and so you get 150 families that come down with their kids to play in a big statewide event.

From what I understand, Grays Harbor College has a pretty good golf team. When we have a golf experience like this in Westport, it’s not going to take long until we have kids who are growing up around us and this has become part of their culture. We’re going to see kids getting scholarships to Division I schools, and we’re going to see one of these kids from Grays Harbor playing professional golf.

Kids are going to have the best golf course in the state to play their golf on and that’s how I was introduced to the game. I used to get dropped off at the Bellevue Municipal growing up as a kid during the summers, my mom would drop me off at 8 and pick me up at 8. Here’s 15 bucks. Get a sandwich. Play golf all day. What a great way for kids to spend their days. You got the driving range, the short course, the big course, they can go out and caddy. Heck, they can make $100 caddying.

The other thing we need to address is the talk about parking and how that’s going to affect the West Haven entrance. All of that parking is going to be encapsulated off site, so it’ll have no impact on the existing marina or jetty. We want to keep that access and the experience inside West Haven, we’re trying to improve that experience.

Merkelbach: There are issues that have been raised by a variety of groups specific to water consumption. A Scottish links style course uses far less water than typical golf courses, even to the point where the course is allowed to brown out during the summer months.

This is a much different golf experience. Mainly water will be used to irrigate the tee boxes and greens, but then it’s a very low fertilizer and a low irrigation environment for these local fescue grass turfs that will be growing.

Secondly, we’re going to be working with the city to get their North well field online. Currently that well field is not used. It’s not part of the potable water supply. So we will initially be using that well water for the first one to two years.

We’ll also be working with the city and the wastewater treatment plant to get the upgrades necessary to reuse non-potable water which would be the primary source of irrigation moving forward. Water that’s treated from the plant gets discharged directly to Grays Harbor. We would redirect that water and use that as a primary irrigation source.

Tsunamis are a real thing. The clubhouse is situated on some of the highest land within the city and there’s an area that we’ll be clearing which we’re calling the putting green. These areas at the higher elevations, and the clubhouse second deck, will be available to the public as a tsunami gathering point.

There has been a lot of misinformation about consistency with park values or consistency with the state parks concession program. I just wanted to correct the record.

Golf is not new to Washington State Parks. They currently manage five golf courses on State Park lands. What we’re proposing is a single use park because this recreational element would take over a larger footprint. Granted, the trails provide additional recreation, but if we were to call this site a single use park, there are plenty of examples.

The issue with commercial concession areas, they currently have 11 concession agreements with parks right now, big and small. There is a lot of consistency with public golf on public lands and plenty of examples of single use State Parks and the project we’re proposing is consistent with other concession agreements.

TDW: Why visit The Daily World offices today?

Day: We’re looking for support. We’re looking for editorial support from The Daily World and we think you have a very powerful voice in the community and I know so because anytime you guys print an article, I get it emailed to me by 15 different sources.

We wanted to come out and tell the story and the evolution of this project and the massive amount of public benefit that we’ve identified. It’s just going to be a really unique and fantastic experience and we’re just tremendously excited to bring this to the community.

We have been listening over the last five-six years since we first brought this project forward. I think we’ve done a really good job of including the wants and needs of the community and addressing the concerns and minimizing those concerns and maximizing access and benefit.

When you look at the DEIS that we just put out you can see that we’ve been listening and we want to be a community partner. We’ve been talking to the city and how to embrace Westport and Gray Harbor’s image and bring in a Coast Guard feel, and embrace the tribes. We’re trying to partner with the city and keep the city’s identity intact.

I’ve got the local support. Many of the folks that are backing us live in Grays Harbor or have Grays Harbor roots, and then I’ve got people outside of the community who recognize that this is a once in a generation opportunity.

This is such a unique piece of property and opportunity to do something like no other golf course in the state and it’s going to be celebrated not just in our state, but nationwide and potentially internationally.

TDW: Do you anticipate doing things like charity golf tournaments?

Day: Absolutely. I would fully anticipate that we’d have many charity events at Westport. Golf is a great way to raise money. Just think about a full field of 144 players with 144 caddies and the amount of economic activity associated with celebrities playing.

You’ll have people flying in from all over the country to play this golf course. You’re gonna get more people driving through Aberdeen and Hoquiam and those economies are going to benefit from that as well. There’s going to be a desire to build some other golf courses in the region once this thing goes.

TDW: How important has transparency been in trying to get this project off the ground?

Day: We have nothing to hide. There’s nothing you can hide in this thing. It has to be all out in the public, and that’s part of the reason we’ve gotten so many public comments.

We’ve been able to refine the project over time. This is a public project. This whole thing has been figuring out what’s doable, what’s not doable, what do we need to add, what do we need to take out, what do we need to avoid. And I absolutely accept that there are things that we haven’t considered yet.

Bullock: That’s the point, right? It’s evolving and it’s accretive. The point of going from a draft EIS to a final is that feedback. You want to put yourself in a place where you’re there to learn from the input and then evolve the project. That’s how you’ve gotten as many answers as you’ve gotten over the last five years by being very open eyed and open minded and open hearted to to take in that feedback and truly seeing feedback as a gift.

If you wish to comment:

Comments are now open and the DEIS is posted on the city of Westport’s website at http://www.ezview.wa.gov/site/alia_2007/37863/kibrary.aspx.

A printed copy of the DEIS is available for review at city hall and the Westport Timberland Library. Written comments, either by email or mail, will be accepted through May 23.

Email: wgl.wlsp.deis.comments@gmail.com

Mail: City of Westport, attention Tom Cappa, SEPA Responsible Official, P.O. Box 505, Westport, WA 98595

Comments on the DEIS will be answered with possible mitigation solutions, and included in the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS). The city of Westport may approve, condition or deny project permits, starting with a required Shoreline permit.

Once the FEIS is issued, Westport’s Shoreline Administrator will prepare a detailed staff report to submit to the city’s Hearing Examiner. Next, a public meeting will be scheduled with the Hearings Examiner for decision making on the Shoreline permit application, and to consider any appeal of the FEIS.