Operations, may 17, 2013

     Sequoia Golf Group has made a major move into Chicagoland. The firm has been hired to manage four suburban properties owned by Royal Golf Group, among them Royal Fox Country Club in St. Charles, Grove Country Club in Long Grove, and Klein Creek Golf Club in Winfield. According to a press release, Sequoia plans to create “a proactive, long-term agronomic plan that will improve course conditions.” Sequoia previously had no presence in Illinois, although its fast-growing portfolio included properties in Georgia, Texas, California, Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, and Mississippi. “We see this partnership as an opportunity to extend the Sequoia network of membership benefits to a whole new market of golf enthusiasts,” said the company’s CEO, Joe Guerra. Royal Golf, an entity led by John Weiss, conducted a two-year search before it settled on Sequoia as its operator. It believes Sequoia is well-suited to “leverage its existing infrastructure for future expansion.”

     ClubCorp, a penny-pincher in recent years, appears to be willing to spend money again. Specifically, the Dallas-based management titan plans to spend $1 million on upgrades to the 25-year-old clubhouse at Ipswich Country Club in Massachusetts. The money is available because in 2012 ClubCorp “finally had a year in which we overachieved,” General Manager Tom Carter told the Ipswich Chronicle. What’s more, the newspaper says, ClubCorp “sees the region as an area that needs more golf courses and has an economy that can support them.” On this issue, ClubCorp may know something the rest of us don’t.

     Troon Golf has signed its fourth management contract in Spain, and its second on the Costa del Sol. Troon now operates La Reserva Club de Golf, one of the five golf venues at Sotogrande, a popular, eight-square-mile resort enclave in Andalucia. (Sotogrande’s flagship golf property is Valderrama Golf Club.) La Reserva features one of the nation’s top courses, a nine-year-old Cabell Robinson design. It complements Troon’s other properties in Spain -- the nearby Club de Campo de la Zagaleta, Lumine Golf Club in Tarragona, and Las Colinas Golf & Country Club in Valencia -- and, if one trusts the company’s director of international sales and marketing, “establishes us as the clear market leader in Spain for the management of top-quality golf clubs and resorts.” La Reserva’s owner, CN Hotels, also owns a high-profile golf destination in Italy, Donnafugata Golf Resort in Ragusa.

     Elected officials in East Hartford, Connecticut will seek new private-sector managers for their money-losing Long Hill Country Club. Nowadays the course sees only about 20,000 rounds a year, reports the Hartford Courant, a drastic reduction from the 60,000 it attracted in the 1970s. The town was hoping for better in 2008, when it turned the 18-hole track over to MDM Golf. Now the town has decided to end its relationship with MDM, due to the firm’s failure to meet contractual agreements, chief among them payments on its lease. “We need to cut ties and we need to move on, and we need to go out and see what the market will provide us with,” the council chairman noted. MDM has agreed to stay on board until the town finds another operator.

     One of the oldest country clubs in Illinois hopes KemperSports Management can help it attract members with interests beyond golf. Kemper’s plan for Rockford Country Club, which opened in 1899, will involve scheduling events that involve entire families -- things like cooking classes, wine tastings, swimming lessons, and activities for kids. “In the old days, it was all about men and it was all about golf,” Kemper’s president told the Rockford Register Star. “We’re making the club the social hub of the community.” RCC, which has of late considered merging with other local clubs, hopes the reinvention is its ticket to financial stability. “We get a major synergy going with Kemper,” the club’s president believes. “This takes us to that next level without having to learn it ourselves.” Rockford is one of 13 private clubs in the KemperCollection, a group that includes Prairie Club in Valentine, Nebraska, Governors Club in Brentwood, Tennessee, and Holly Hills Country Club in Ijamsville, Maryland.

     KemperSports has also been inked to take charge of the golf course at a seniors-friendly community along Lake Tellico in Lenoir City, Tennessee. Kemper’s main order of business will be to create a new identity for WindRiver, which generated plenty of bad news when it was known as Rarity Pointe. Mike Ross, the community’s creator, fought bitterly with his partners and eventually had to seek bankruptcy protection, activities that don’t normally offer comfort to prospective home buyers. A group led by Joe Ayers bought Rarity Pointe at a foreclosure auction last year. It aims to refresh the community’s Bob Cupp-designed golf course, create a new master plan, and add amenities promised by Ross, most likely a clubhouse, a wellness center, and an indoor pool. “We need to be an active lifestyle community that appeals to all ages,” he told the Knoxville News Sentinel. Such a task is right up Kemper’s alley.

     An ailing municipal golf course in Memphis, Tennessee may have found a new lease on life. The Overton Park Conservancy has submitted a proposal to oversee the city’s Links at Overton Park, which has been in business since 1912. “Our goal is to keep it open, keep it thriving, keep it affordable, and keep it attractive to players at all skill levels,” the conservancy’s executive director told the Memphis Daily News. The day-to-day management of the 2,222-yard layout, which the city has threatened to close several times in recent years, will likely be outsourced.

     After talking about it for two years or more, the city of Annapolis, Maryland has finally begun to entertain offers for its only golf property. The city wants to rid itself of Eisenhower Golf Course, an 18-hole track in Crownsville that’s been operated by Anne Arundel County since 1966. If the city can’t find a buyer, it’ll either try to negotiate another lease with the county, which has a contract through June 2016, or find a private-sector operator. Eight years ago, the course generated a profit of $520,000, says the Capital Gazette, an amount that slipped to $285,000 in 2011. The city is reviewing bids through June 27.

     The high price of water has helped Touchstone Golf secure a management contract in the suburbs of Colorado Springs, Colorado. Earlier this year, citing what it described as “unsustainable” irrigation costs, Tri-Lake Golf LLC closed Monument Hill Country Club and forfeited its financial interest in it. The LLC said that the club’s future depended on “financial institutions willing to extend credit in this uncertain environment and a community united in finding reasonable and cost-effective solutions to water.” The facility’s lender has presumably tapped Touchstone to operate Monument Hill until a new owner can be found. Residents in the accompanying community fear that the golf course will turn into more houses, as the property is zoned residential.