Desolation Row, march 6, 2015

     Palm Desert, California. The Great Recession is about to claim its first golf casualty in the Coachella Valley. Santa Rosa Golf Club, a private venue that opened in 1978, will bite the dust in May, a victim of aging membership, dried-up cash flow, and loans that can’t immediately be paid. “The golf-crazed Coachella Valley has been immune to course closures, at least until now,” writes the Desert Sun, which identifies Santa Rosa as “the first desert course to close its doors for good during the current national downturn.” A developer plans to build houses on the club’s 79-acre property.

     Salt Lake City, Utah. If budget-cutters in city government have their way, the municipal golf operation in Utah’s capital city is going to lose half of its eight major assets. Last year, elected officials in Salt Lake City voted to close Rose Park Golf Course. Now they want to close as many as three other 18-hole tracks, with Glendale, Wingpointe, and Nibley Park being the likely candidates. “We just don’t have enough golfers to support our golf systems in Salt Lake City,” a councilmember told a local television station. All of the city’s courses will remain in operation until somebody figures out what to do with them.

     Golden, Colorado. The corporation that brews Coors beer wants to get out of the golf business. In an effort to streamline, Molson Coors Brewing Company hopes to sell Applewood Golf Course, a 145-acre spread outside Denver, to a residential developer, provided that the developer can secure permission to build 450 houses. Applewood’s 18-hole, Press Maxwell-designed layout was created by Adolph Coors, Jr. and other family members and opened in 1961. According to KDVR-TV, the developer’s vision for the property is expected to get a public hearing this month.

     New Albany, Ohio. New Albany Company, a development group, has pulled the plug on its 18-hole, Arthur Hills-designed golf course. Winding Hollow Golf Course had been around since 1992, originally as the centerpiece of a failed, similarly named private club, and for a while in the late 2000s it operated as Tartan East Golf Club. The president of the ownership group told the Columbus Dispatch that the 190-acre property’s “future use is yet to be determined,” but he indicated that golf isn’t among the options being considered.

     Benton, Louisiana. On New Year’s Eve, John Ward turned out the lights at Palmetto Country Club for the final time. Palmetto opened in the early 1950s, and its 18-hole course was subsequently redesigned by Jim Lipe and David Toms, the Shreveport-based professional golfer. Ward tried to find a buyer who’d continue golf operations at Palmetto but ended up selling the property to a developer, a decision that he described as “difficult and painful.”

     White Salmon, Washington. Time has run out on Husum Hills Golf Course, a nine-hole track that enjoyed a 50-year run. “It’s like losing a part of the family,” said Don Struck, who’s owned the layout since 1994. Struck and his wife conducted a futile 30-month search to find buyer for Husum Hills, which charged $10 a round and collected the fee on the honor system. “I had lots of people that had the same vision we did, but nobody with the money to go forward,” Struck told the White Salmon Enterprise. The course will close officially sometime this spring. The Strucks are trying to secure permission to build some houses on the 47-acre parcel.

     Hardeeville, South Carolina. Memories are all that remains of Pintail Creek Golf Course, an 18-hole, daily-fee track that had operated for more than a half-century. Hal Bennett, one of Pintail Creek’s co-owners, blamed the course’s demise on fierce competition in and around Savannah, Georgia, but WJCL-TV suggests that the value of the track’s 100 acres made it easier for Bennett to get out while the getting was still good.

     Denison, Texas. The future of the golf course at Grayson College is in doubt, as the 18-hole track habitually loses money but is, in the opinion of a professional consultant, be operating as efficiently as it can. The track, consisting of nine-hole layouts designed by Joe Finger and Leon Howard, has been in existence since the early 1960s. The Sherman Herald Democrat reports that “there is talk of closing the golf course, but nothing is official.”

     Lynn Haven, Florida. Nature Walk Golf Club reportedly “loses tens of thousands of dollars annually,” so its owners are hoping to sell the 18-hole, executive-length track to a residential developer. “We’re trying to make lemonade out of lemons,” a spokesman for Royal American Companies, the club’s owner, groused to the Panama City News Herald. Royal American faces an uphill battle, however, as what the newspaper describes as “an avalanche of public criticism” helped to persuade local planning officials to reject its initial proposal. It’s likely that the company is already trying to find more effective sweeteners.