The recent resignation of the Port Royal Golf Course members’ executive committee, following the board of trustees’ decision to increase membership and green fees, has brought Bermuda’s public golf system to an important moment. The explanation offered is easy enough to understand. Taxpayer money cannot be expected to subsidise low-cost golf indefinitely. Public courses are reportedly being subsidised by more than $2 million a year, operating costs continue to outpace revenue, and after many years without meaningful fee increases, some adjustment was always likely.

Viewed narrowly, the decision can therefore be defended.

The concern is that the discussion has centred almost entirely on price, when the pressures facing public golf appear to run much deeper. A system that has not meaningfully expanded participation, developed stronger pathways into the game or created additional sources of revenue, will eventually fall back on the most immediate tool available: charging more to the people who are already there.

That approach may relieve pressure in the short term, but it does very little to strengthen the foundation underneath it. If participation remains flat, if access becomes harder for younger or newer players, and if the same base is repeatedly asked to carry more of the burden, the underlying weakness remains in place.

This matters because public golf should serve a broader purpose than simply balancing a set of books. It should provide access to the game, help develop young players, support community wellbeing and create opportunities that reach beyond the course itself. Once cost recovery becomes the overwhelming focus, those wider purposes become easier to neglect, and a public asset can gradually become less public in practice.

That would be especially unfortunate in Bermuda, where the ingredients for a stronger golf economy are already present. The island has high-quality courses, international visibility through the Butterfield Bermuda Championship and a golfing reputation that many jurisdictions would envy. What has been less evident is a sufficiently modern growth model beneath that platform — one that builds participation from the ground up, introduces more young people to the game, uses technology to improve development and creates a wider set of ways for golf to generate activity and revenue.

Proposals in that direction have existed for some time. The intention was never to argue for endless subsidy. It was to reduce dependence on subsidy by increasing participation, broadening access and generating new value through coaching, youth development, tourism engagement and more active use of the game as an economic and community asset.

That distinction should remain central to the conversation. A system becomes more resilient when it grows its base and diversifies its opportunities. It becomes more fragile when it relies too heavily on extracting more from a limited and stagnant pool.

Financial responsibility also needs to be accompanied by accountability. If public money is involved, then up-to-date audits, transparent reporting and clear oversight are not optional extras. They are basic requirements. Before the public is asked to accept higher fees as part of a responsible correction, there should be confidence that finances are being properly examined, that inefficiencies are being identified and that decision-making is taking place within a system people can trust.

This concern extends well beyond golf. Across a number of government-funded sectors in Bermuda, poor governance and delayed audits have too often allowed weaknesses to remain in place long after they should have been addressed. When current information is missing, when scrutiny is weak and when accountability is inconsistent, problems are rarely solved early. They are usually left to deepen until the eventual response becomes more disruptive and more expensive.

Golf now risks becoming another example of that pattern.

None of this means the board of trustees is wrong to be concerned about the numbers. It would be irresponsible not to be. But numbers alone do not amount to a plan, and fee increases on their own do not amount to reform. If Bermuda wants public golf to become less dependent on subsidy over time, then the answer has to involve more than asking existing golfers to pay more.

It has to include a serious development strategy, one that protects accessibility, creates stronger junior pathways, connects more deliberately with schools and communities, embraces modern instruction and finds ways to convert Bermuda’s golfing profile into broader participation and broader revenue.

It also has to include a higher standard of governance. Public institutions should not drift along without current audits and then attempt to resolve accumulated pressure through price increases. That approach weakens confidence, narrows the conversation and leaves too much room for the same problems to reappear elsewhere.

The present moment should therefore be treated as more than a disagreement over fees. It is a reminder that public systems become difficult to sustain when growth is neglected and oversight is allowed to lag behind.

Bermuda can still choose a better course. It can treat public golf as a shrinking cost to be managed more tightly, or as an asset that deserves to be developed properly, examined honestly and positioned to grow. Only the second approach offers a credible route towards long-term strength.

Because in the end, higher fees may change the numbers for a while, but they do not resolve the absence of growth, and they cannot compensate for weak accountability. Where those two issues remain unaddressed, the same pressures will keep returning in different forms and usually at greater cost.

If Bermuda is serious about the future of public golf, the conversation should move beyond fees alone and towards growth, access, governance and accountability. Without that broader effort, today’s correction is unlikely to be the last.

• Quinton Sherlock Jr is deputy leader of the Free Democratic Movement, director of instruction at the Golfzon Leadbetter Academy Bermuda and is a former president of the Bermuda Professional Golfers Association