Desolation Row, august 1, 2014

     The town of Marfa, Texas, the hippest place in the state (you heard right, Austin), may lose its golf course. The nine-hole layout, built by the city on land owned by Presidio County, has been scraping by since the early 1960s. But today it needs serious capital improvements, and nobody wants to pay for them. “That thing is never going to produce income to us,” a county commissioner griped to Big Bend Now. However, another commissioner warned, “I guarantee that if we lose the golf course, there’s going to be a lot of uproar.” While the elected officials try to figure what to do, most everyone in town is getting high and watching the Marfa lights.

     The future of Bonnie Dundee Golf Course, a financially challenged venue in Carpentersville, Illinois, is up in the air. The Dundee Township Park District is considering various alternative uses for the 18-hole layout, including soccer fields and picnic areas. But here’s the alternative use that stands out: The 90-year-old course might become a full-time footgolf facility. Is this what Sports Illustrated would call a sign of the apocalypse?

     Rio Salado Golf Course, a nine-hole municipal track in Tempe, Arizona, is pushing up daisies. The 63-acre course, which had operated for more than 20 years, will become an urban farm with a community garden and a plant nursery.

     Just months after agreeing to buy an ailing golf club in Fairborn, Ohio, Zachary Fink has changed his mind. “This is a tough market,” he confessed to the Dayton Daily News. Fink settled on a price for Greene Country Club in March and began operating the property as Gem City Golf Club. But the transaction never closed, and Fink is getting out while the getting is good. “I feel bad for the employees and the membership,” he said, “but the revenue was not coming in.” The club has closed, and its fate is to be determined.

     Elected officials in Bryan, Texas are thinking about turning the city’s 95-year-old golf course into a sports-focused recreation area. The 18-hole, affordably priced track is vulnerable because it loses money -- more than $300,000 this year, it’s feared -- and needs as much as $5 million worth of long-deferred capital improvements. The city’s mayor views investments in the golf course as throwing good money after bad. He thinks there’s more money to be made in building a new “super park” with baseball and soccer fields, a skate park, and hiking trails, and he’s hired a consultant to prove it.

     Woodmont Country Club, outside Fort Lauderdale, Florida, may soon lose nine of its 36 holes. Mark Schmidt, the club’s owner, has seen membership levels fall from four digits to the low threes and claims that the cost of maintenance and insurance makes it nearly impossible for a single-course operator to make a living in the golf business nowadays. He told Bloomberg that buying the club “wasn’t the most intelligent business decision” he ever made, but he has a chance to make amends by putting more than 150 single-family houses, a new clubhouse, a pool, tennis courts, and maybe a hotel on the vacated nine.

     In Riverside, California, Paradise Knolls may soon become Paradise Lost. A developer has contracted to buy the nearly 50-year-old golf course, in the hope of converting its 112 acres into a subdivision with a business park, a shopping area, and horse trails. “It will be a little sanctuary for residents,” the developer told the Riverside Press Enterprise. “A real community benefit.” If local elected officials approve the proposal, those who felt that the golf course was already a sanctuary and a community benefit will have to find their pleasures elsewhere.

     First, the transaction: In April, officials in Jackson Township, Pennsylvania paid $850,000 for Little Creek Golf Course, an 18-hole, executive-length track. And now, the reason for the purchase: The township believes the property, in the town of Spring Grove, is an ideal site for ball fields and hiking trails.

     A bank in Colorado wants $1.9 million for Pagosa Springs Golf Course, and if someone doesn’t put the money on the table quickly, it may shut the place down. The 27-hole complex, part of a large resort community, has had financial problems in the past but reportedly turned a $178,000 profit in 2013. A representative of Northstar Bank of Colorado has asked the town of Pagosa Springs if it might be willing to buy the venue, but the city’s interest in the property is said to be “tepid.”

     For the time being, at least, a municipal golf course in Rochester, Minnesota has gotten off Desolation Row. Soldiers Field Golf Course could have lost nine holes or been closed altogether, but its overseers had a change of heart in response to public pressure. “The overwhelming response from the golfing community certainly swayed me,” the park board’s president told the Rochester Post-Bulletin. The board expects to review the course’s financial viability again in a decade or so.