Desolation Row, december 11, 2015

     Rancho Cucamonga, California. First, the bad news: A developer wants to build an apartment complex and a retail center on the Arnold Palmer-designed Empire Lakes Golf Course. And now the good news: Randall Lewis promises to build “very nice housing for singles, couples, and retirees” on the nine-year-old, 160-acre layout. A series of public hearings has been scheduled, with a vote on a zoning change likely to come in the spring of next year.

     Baton Rouge, Louisiana. After a year of talking about it, the city has decided to quit supporting its least-played golf venue. A closing date for Howell Park Golf Course hasn’t yet been set, but the clock is ticking on the 5,779-yard layout. “Instead of a golf course which serves an average of 30 people per day, I prefer serving 3,000 with events, picnics, ball fields, fishing lakes, playgrounds, and other amenities,” a spokesperson for the East Baton Rouge Recreation & Parks Commission said in a press release. In making its decision, BREC acted on a recommendation from the National Golf Foundation, which reportedly believes that Howell Park, a layout that dates from the 1950s, generates the fewest rounds of any 18-hole course in the United States. The NGF has also advised BREC to close J. S. Clark Golf Course, a nine-hole track in Baker, but the agency has so far resisted the temptation.

     Washburn, Illinois. At an auction in October, a farmer agreed to pay roughly $868,000 -- $6,200 an acre -- for Snag Creek Golf Course. Not surprisingly, Steve Byrd will soon be tilling the soil at the 18-hole track, which was designed and built by Maynard Christ in 1965. “It would have been nice to see it stay as a golf course,” Christ’s son, Tracy, told the Peoria Journal Star, “but there just wasn’t any interest.”

     Montgomery, Alabama. A parade of owners gave it their best shots, but in the end not even footgolf could save Tallapoosa Lakes Golf Course. The 36-hole complex, built on land that had been in Jimmy Dozier’s family since 1937, was undone by a key metric: It rang up roughly 88,000 rounds in 1997, but this year the number is down to roughly 40,000. “It’s a sad situation that all of this is going away,” Dozier told the Montgomery Advertiser. “I just want the public to know that I tried all I could.” Dozier has agreed to sell the property to the Poarch Band of Creek Indians, the owners of a neighboring casino complex.

     Anderson, South Carolina. With no serious buyers on the horizon, the plug has been pulled on Anderson Country Club. “We had hoped to sell it as a country club,” one of the club’s owners, Tony Saad, told the Anderson Independent Mail. “But the revenue generated simply will not support the operation of the club.” Anderson opened in 1918, with a nine-hole, Tom Bendelow-designed course. The second nine arrived in the early 1930s. Saad and his partners, Greg Saad and Dee Watkins, reportedly paid just over $900,000 for the 187-acre property in 2004. They put it on the market a little more than a year ago, hoping it would fetch $1.4 million.

     Danville, Pennsylvania. “We thank you all for your patronage!” was the message from the LLC that owns Liberty Valley Country Club, which went belly up in late September. The LLC is hoping to find a buyer for the 18-hole, 25-year-old course.

     Livermore, California. Just one year short of its 50th anniversary, Springtown Golf Course went out of business in mid October. Local golfers tried to save the nine-hole municipal layout, but the increasing cost of water and a significant decline in the number of rounds played -- down by 30 percent since 2008, according to the Contra Costa Times -- put the facility’s operator in a financial squeeze. The city says it would welcome new private-sector managers, but none have so far knocked at the door.

     Gainesboro, Tennessee. Unless a buyer steps up, the lights will go out at Cumberland Bend Golf Course on New Year’s Eve. “I try not to think about it,” Duane Randolph said in a comment published by Club & Resort Business. “You put your heart and soul into something, you’d like to see it go on.” Randolph hopes to get $800,000 for Cumberland Bend’s nine-hole, 45-year-old track. A possible hang-up: Much of the course has been laid out on land owned by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

     London, Kentucky. Crooked Creek Golf Course went dark on April Fools’ Day, and today, nine months later, an expected sale hasn’t yet materialized. Mike Nami bought Crooked Creek, an 18-hole, Brian Silva-designed layout, in 2007 and reportedly made $8 million worth of capital improvements. The investment didn’t pay off, however, because he was forced to close the course for a couple of weeks in 2012 while he negotiated with a prospective buyer. And now he’s closed it again. No telling where we go from here.