Senate Majority Leader Scott Jenkins got a mulligan Tuesday.

Jenkins had a curiously titled bill up in the Senate Government Operations Committee on Tuesday entitled: “Sales and Use Tax Exemptions for Public Golf Courses.”

The bill, as it was written, would exempt green fees on public courses from sales tax. It would be a pretty remarkable proposition from a guy whose party chafes at the entire concept of public golf courses, which they see as providing unfair competition with privately owned golf courses.

Indeed, there is legislation pending this session that would sell off public courses to private entities. So what was Jenkins thinking?

Turns out he shanked the original bill, badly.

Because of a drafting error, the bill got flipped on its head and, giving the break to public courses instead of those private courses competing against state and municipally run courses.

The bill got swapped out in committee and the new bill gives the tax exemption for green fees “except for a golf course owned by the state or a political subdivision of the state.”

The mistake got cleaned up during the committee.

-- Robert Gehrke
Twitter: @RobertGehrke