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City golfers, rest easy. Your Social Security numbers are safe.

The Tucson golf department put a new software system in place Jan. 31, unaware that some golfers' Social Security numbers were in the data imported from the old system.

Over the past decade, several thousand holders of city resident identification cards had used their Social Security numbers as their identification numbers to play golf on municipal courses.

When the new system began printing golf receipts for them, Social Security numbers were displayed on the receipts, as reported in the Star Feb. 24.

By Feb. 29, the receipts were printing redacted versions of the member ID numbers, with only the last four digits displayed, said Steve Moors, golf operations superintendent.

"We were able to convince (new software provider) EZLinks that it was a bigger problem than what they had indicated it would be, and they were very good about working with us," Moors said.

Within days, he said, the Chicago-based company issued a patch that causes the software to block out the first five digits of member numbers and replace those digits with asterisks.

The company issued the patch at no cost to the city, said Jeffrey Wright, vice president of marketing for EZLinks.

When the golf department called and said the problem was bigger than anticipated, Wright said, "that's when we went to work to put a fix in, to make sure those numbers weren't showing up anymore. We kind of dropped everything to do it."

The golf department previously was offering to replace, for free, any resident card whose holder wanted a new member number, and that offer remains in place, Moors said.

The department has replaced more than 550 cards, he said.

But not all golfers have an extra 10 to 15 minutes to go through the process, he said.

"We thought issuing a new card was a good solution, but some golfers suggested if we could just block out part of the number, they'd be happy with that," he said.

Golfers who still want a new card with a new member number should stop by the pro shop at any of the five municipal golf courses: Fred Enke, Randolph, Dell Urich, Silverbell or El Rio.