Operations, october 4, 2013

     In one fell swoop, Billy Casper Golf has added 13 golf properties to its fast-growing collection. The baker’s dozen had been managed by an affiliate of Kitson & Partners, a Florida-based firm led by former professional football player Syd Kitson. The group consists mostly of properties in Florida (among them Ibis Golf & Country Club in West Palm Beach and Talis Park Golf Club in Naples), with others in Arizona, Hawaii, and Indiana. In a press statement, Kitson said that it turned over its golf holdings to BCG so it could “focus even more on our core business of real estate investment and development in a market that is on the rebound.” The biggest development venture on its plate is Babcock Ranch, which is slated to emerge on 92,000 acres in Charlotte and Lee counties in Florida. With the Kitson collection, BCG now has management contracts on more than 150 U.S. golf properties.

     Nearly a dozen management firms expressed an interest in operating Red Wing, Minnesota’s 36-hole golf complex, but only one of them has taken the trouble to respond to the city’s request for proposals. City officials, who’d hoped to have an operator in place this month, expressed “shock and disappointment” at the lack of interest, according to the Rochester Post-Bulletin. “I don’t know what to make of that,” a councilmember said. “Maybe that the golf business is not good.” Mississippi National Golf Links has been closed since late 2012, when its operator, Wendell Pittenger, gave up his lease due to financial trouble. His unexpected departure led the city to file a lawsuit that may have scared off some potential operators, although the parties recently settled their differences. The lone response to the city’s RFP came from a local non-profit group that’s been trying to get control of Mississippi National since 2010. The city has so far resisted the group’s advances, but at this point it doesn’t have any other viable options.

     KemperSports has the inside track on a contract to manage the 18-hole municipal golf courses in Modesto, California. The city and the Illinois-based management firm are reportedly negotiating a two-year deal to operate the Dryden and Creekside layouts, which the Modesto Bee says are “a financial drain on the city’s stressed general fund budget.” If an agreement is reached, KemperSports could assume control of the properties by the middle of this month. KemperSports’ management fees will be paid by ValleyCrest Golf Course Maintenance, the firm that currently maintains the courses, which will see its contract extended until October 2015. KemperSports manages more than a dozen municipal courses in California, and it counts the cities of Carlsbad, Palm Desert, Ventura, and Yorba Linda among its clients.

     A quintet of management firms is vying to operate the city of Sanford, North Carolina’s Donald Ross-designed golf course. The city has received responses to a request for information from three firms that currently manage golf properties in the state -- Billy Casper Golf, Pope Golf, and Warrior Asset Management -- and from a pair of companies based in Georgia, International Golf Services and Trademark Golf Management. The submissions are being reviewed, according to the Sanford Herald, but no meetings with the private-sector groups have yet been scheduled. The city’s course opened in 1934. Parts of it have been redesigned by Rick Robbins.

     Glen Cannon Country Club, in Pisgah Forest, North Carolina, has cut its ties with Billy Casper Golf. The club, which opened in the mid 1960s, has “deteriorated immensely” since BCG began managing it in late 2011, a member told the Hendersonville Times-News. In particular, the members say, BCG’s inexperienced staffers didn’t maintain the golf course properly, failed to attract new members, and left “tens of thousands of dollars” in past-due bills. The Times-News says that Glen Cannon is now in “a dire financial position.” BCG declined to respond to the members’ complaints, saying it was bound to silence by a confidentiality agreement. For the time being, at least, the members appear to be managing the club.

     A family-owned golf course in Stillwater, Minnesota has been turned over to a Minneapolis-based management firm. For the next five years, Northco Golf & Hospitality Group will operate Sawmill Golf Club, a facility established by the Nicholson family some 40 years ago, according to the Stillwater Gazette. “There’s an incredible amount of potential at Sawmill,” Northco’s president, Frank Jermusek, told the newspaper. “It’s a great piece of property.” The Gazette says that Northco currently manages more than 120 golf courses, but that can’t possibly be true. One thing’s for sure, though: Northco plans to change Sawmill’s name. The new name hasn’t yet been revealed, however.