Loading...

Friday, February 27, 2015

Transactions, february 27, 2015

     Wintergreen, Virginia. A Kansas City, Missouri-based based real estate investment trust has acquired the best-known four-season vacation spot in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains. EPR Properties has paid an undisclosed amount for Wintergreen Resort, an 11,000-acre spread that features a ski area, overnight accommodations, meeting space, a spa, restaurants, and a 45-hole golf complex (18 holes by Ellis Maples, 27 by Rees Jones). EPR, an investor in Top Golf, bought Wintergreen from Jim Justice, a former coal magnate who’s described by Forbes as “West Virginia’s only billionaire.” (Estimated total net worth: $1.7 billion.) Justice, who’s owned Wintergreen since 2012, also owns the Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, a property he rescued from bankruptcy in 2009.

     Pawtucket, Rhode Island. A financially troubled golf club that occupies tracts in both Rhode Island and Massachusetts will likely soon be bailed out by three of its members. David Rampone, Benny Martin, and Gary Reis have agreed to purchase Pawtucket Country Club, a venue that opened in 1902 and features an 18-hole, Willie Park, Jr.-designed golf course. “The sale completely re-positions the financial standing of the club,” Rampone told Rhode Island Public Radio. “It also allows us to recruit new members and provide them with assurances that the club is financially sound and they can join without concerns of assessments looming.” The Providence Journal reports that Pawtucket “has lost many members in the last several years and has struggled to replace them.” The new owners haven’t disclosed a purchase price, but they’ve promised to invest in capital improvements “to protect the traditions that have lasted here for the past 113 years.”

     St. Louis, Missouri. The University of Missouri-St. Louis has decided to enter the golf business, but it isn’t making a long-term commitment. The school has paid $1.4 million for Normandie Golf Course, a historic track -- it opened in 1901 and is said to be the oldest public golf venue west of the Mississippi River -- whose 117 acres just happen to be an ideal location for future campus expansion. University officials have promised to maintain Normandie’s 18-hole, Robert Foulis-designed track for the next 10 years, but at that point they plan to reassess.

     West End, North Carolina. An unidentified investor has acquired Seven Lakes Country Club, a Pinehurst-area facility whose future has been in doubt for several years. The Fayetteville Observer reports that the club, which once had more than 600 members, now has only “a few hundred.” Seven Lakes’ 18-hole course was designed by Peter Tufts III, the great-grandson of the Pinehurst resort’s creator, James Walker Tufts, and the godson of Donald Ross. To make the club viable again, the new owner will need to fund long overdue capital improvements.

     Bogart, Georgia. A lender has accepted $1.7 million for the centerpiece of an Athens-area golf community. The offer for Jennings Mill Country Club, which has been struggling financially for years, came from Mark Bell, the owner of a bar in Athens. Jennings Mill features a Bob Cupp-designed golf course that opened in 1987 but no clubhouse, as the building was lost to a fire in 2008. “It is such a great facility with a great location and a great course,” Bell told the Oconee Enterprise. “It just needs a little bump, and we are going to give it a big bump.” Titan Financial, the seller, had foreclosed on Jennings Mill in the late 2000s. Fewer than 10 percent of the club’s members reportedly live in the accompanying community.

     Round Rock, Texas. A master-planned community in suburban Austin no longer owns its main attraction. NNP-Teravista LLC, an affiliate of Newland Communities, has sold Teravista Golf Club and its 18-hole golf course to an entity that appears to be led by the club’s general manager, Adam Owen. Teravista’s 14-year-old layout, designed by Clifton Ezell & Clifton, is said to be “heavily influenced by real estate on every hole,” but it nonetheless manages to attract some 44,000 rounds annually. In a conversation with the Austin Business Journal, the broker involved in the sale suggested that the new ownership group has an opportunity to capitalize on the club’s “untapped market share.”

     Marathon, Florida. An investment group led by Peter Rosasco has acquired Florida Keys Country Club, with plans to make the 55-year-old venue the centerpiece of “one of the finest destination resorts in the Keys.” Rosasco and his partners, some from Sweden, paid close to $4.4 million for Florida Keys, which opened as Sombrero Country Club. They intend to redesign the club’s 18-hole, Mark Mahannah-designed golf course and complement it with a marina, a boutique hotel, and other overnight accommodations. The purchase has been percolating for several years, and the new owners hope to begin construction this summer, pending approvals by local officials.

     Otsego, Michigan. A hog farmer in southwestern Michigan has purchased Prairiewood Golf Club, and he plans to convert virtually all of its 140 acres to farmland. Dennis DeYoung paid an undisclosed price for Prairiewood, which features an 18-hole course that was co-designed by Warner Bowen and Duane Kuiper. Matt Rayman had owned and operated the facility since it opened, in 1989.

     Baileys Harbor, Wisconsin. On the last day of last year, Baylake Bank sold Maxwelton Braes Golf Course, an 18-hole track that had been in operation since 1928, for $675,000. “We’re looking at the long shot,” said Jim Bresnahan, a retiree from Wausau who’s become the property’s new owner. “I want to make sure it gets handed down to my family, the next generation after me.” The bank, which was hoping to get $900,000 for Maxwelton Braes, had been in control of the property for the past five years, after a foreclosure. According to the Green Bay Press Gazette, Bresnahan gravitated to the golf business because he was “looking for something to do that was not work.”

Sunday, February 22, 2015

The Week That Was, february 22, 2015

     Like so many other wealthy golf nuts, Michael Jordan thinks it would be wonderful to own his own private golf club, one with a personally selected membership willing to play by his rules. According to Golf magazine, the Chicago Bulls legend has secured an option on property in Hobe Sound, Florida and expressed an interest in hiring Tom Doak to produce a course worthy of those who prize the sort of exclusivity only the greatest basketball player of all time can offer. “He’s going to keep it small, probably fewer than a hundred [members],” an anonymous PGA Tour pro told the magazine, identifying the likely targets as “fellow athletes, buddies, and other people who come highly recommended.” Odds are that Jordan, after consulting with his financial advisors, will eventually come to his senses and realize that the West Palm Beach area doesn’t need another private golf club, even one with him at its helm. Until then, though, it’ll be fun to see how far his ego takes him.

     Speaking of rich people who think they’re the answer to at least some of golf’s problems, a Texas billionaire has put together an investment group that aims to buy a bankrupt private club outside Kiawah Island, South Carolina. Robert “Bob” McNair, who’s said to be worth $2.4 billion -- he made his money in the energy business and is today best known as the owner of the Houston Texans -- has his eye on Golf Club at Briar’s Creek, a property that he co-founded in the early 2000s. Golf Digest reports that the club, which features a well-regarded, Rees Jones-designed golf course, is now roughly $35 million in the hole.

     Sagebrush Golf & Sporting Club’s future is legitimately in doubt. The expected sale of the minimalist icon outside Merritt, British Columbia has fallen through, and the club’s highly touted golf course will almost certainly remain closed until a new owner is in place. “I can’t see us opening until sometime into May or maybe even June, probably, at the earliest,” one of the club’s current owners told the Vancouver Sun. Given the depth of Sagebrush’s financial and legal troubles, however, a summer opening may be optimistic. Rave reviews and high rankings haven’t delivered golfers to Sagebrush, which has failed to heed Mike Keiser’s most fundamental law of build-it-and-they-will-come venues: One course is a curiosity, two is a destination.

     In an interview with New England Golf Monthly, Larry Hirsh said that the “contractions” our industry has experienced in recent years will be “going on for some time,” ending only when “banks decide they will lend on golf course properties.” Because looser lending practices aren’t on the immediate horizon, the president of Conshohocken, Pennsylvania-based Golf Property Analysts considers himself to be just barely bullish on golf’s near-term future, rating himself as a 6 on a scale of 10.

Sunday, February 15, 2015

The Week That Was, february 8, 2015

     After pinching pennies for years, U.S. golf courses are once again willing to spend money on capital improvements. In what it describes as “a jolt to the industry” (a welcome jolt, it should be noted), Golf Course Industry reports that 71 percent of the nation’s golf courses will get some sort of bunker improvements over the next three years. The volume of planned work is so high, according to the publication, that many construction companies were almost completely booked for 2015 before the end of 2014. GCI says that 569 superintendents participated in its State of the Industry survey.

     After failing to negotiate a settlement, more than 80 caddies have sued the PGA Tour, seeking to claim a share of the sponsorship fees generated by professional golf. Their argument: They deserve a slice of the estimated $50 million pie because they’re obliged to wear advertising materials while they work, just as the well-paid players do. Tim Finchem, the tour’s wealthy commissioner, told the New York Times that the arrangement in place, which pays nothing to the caddies, is “a good system” and that he wants to “let it go on.” He suggested that the caddies ought to sue the players instead.

     Gifts of Gab, Part One: We all appreciate honesty, and Gil Hanse was especially candid in his appraisal of his new golf course in Rio de Janeiro, the track that will host the golf competition of the 2016 Olympics. “I can honestly say it won’t be the best golf course we ever designed,” the Pennsylvania-based architect told Golf Advisor. The irony, Hanse notes, is that “I can’t imagine we’ll ever build a course that will be viewed by more people in our lifetime.”

     HSBC, one of the golf industry’s biggest benefactors -- and perhaps its most crooked -- has once again been caught running afoul of the law. During the mid 2000s, the giant British banking conglomerate has acknowledged, a Swiss subsidiary schemed to help some of its customers hide assets from tax authorities and evade paying taxes they legitimately owed. HSBC described the illicit activities as “past compliance and control failures” and insists that the subsidiary has subsequently experienced “a radical transformation.” Late last year, HSBC agreed to pay a multibillion-dollar fine for conspiring to rig foreign currency markets, and before that it admitted to laundering money for Mexican drug cartels, terrorist organizations, and rogue governments, including Iran. So I’m wondering: Does HSBC need golf more than golf needs HSBC?

     Just last month, Samuel L. Jackson was waxing poetic about how wonderful it would be to own a golf course in Ireland. As it turns out, the close, deep-pocketed friend he wanted to enlist as his development partner was at the same time harboring a similar dream. J. P. McManus, one of Ireland’s richest people, has purchased Adare Manor, a 700-acre resort in County Limerick that features a Robert Trent Jones-designed golf course. Adare Manor has hosted a pair of Irish Open championships (in 2007 and 2008) as well as a McManus-sponsored pro-am that routinely counts Jackson among its high-profile celebrity contestants. The Irish Examiner estimates that McManus, who reportedly owns a piece of the Sandy Lane golf resort in Barbados, paid “in the region of €30 million” ($32.4 million) for Adare Manor. The seller was Tom Kane, a U.S. businessman who’d owned the resort since the mid 1980s.

     Gifts of Gab, Part Two: Some words have more than one meaning, but other words have no meaning at all. For example, here’s how Gil Hanse defines minimalism: “It’s difficult to understand exactly what that means. I think it means that we as architects will do everything we can to extract and exploit all the natural advantages of a site before we turn to moving earth. But we shouldn’t be afraid to move earth if we have to. If we move earth, we try to make it look natural. And I think, as a group we study landforms so much, and we really focus on that and scale, that maybe we do a little better job when we have to move earth of making it look natural.”

     Gleneagles, the famed golf resort in Perthshire, Scotland, is for sale. The Times of London believes that the 850-acre spread, the site of the Ryder Cup matches in 2014, could sell for more than £200 million ($301 million). Gleneagles, which has been controlled by various whiskey producers since the mid 1980s, features three 18-hole golf courses and a 232-room hotel. It’s profitable, and its current owner, Diageo PLC, suggests that prospective buyers have been beating down its doors since last September’s Ryder Cup, which reportedly attracted 250,000 spectators from 96 nations.

     Gifts of Gab, Part Three: What’s conspicuously missing from Gil Hanse’s recent conversation with Golf Advisor? The answer: Hanse’s most famous client. In one way or another, the interview catalogs nearly all of Hanse’s current work, from his recent re-do of the Blue Monster at Doral to the mostly completed Olympics course in Brazil to the forthcoming tracks at Streamsong and Bandon Dunes. But neither Hanse nor Golf Advisor mentions the course that Hanse has designed for Donald Trump in Dubai, a venue that’s supposedly under construction. This omission is especially curious when one considers how valuable a client Trump has been for Hanse. Did the commission from Trump simply just slip Hanse’s mind, or is there a chill in the air?

Friday, February 6, 2015

Vital Signs, february 6, 2014

     In U.S. golf operations, budgets aren’t being squeezed quite as tight as they once were. To wit: This year, just about half (49 percent) of the nation’s golf-course superintendents anticipate working with a larger operations budget, according to data compiled by Golf Course Industry. Only 17 percent of the respondents to GCI’s survey said that they expect to see their budgets cut. Over the past three years, says GCI, allocations for non-capital operations have increased by almost $46,000, from $651,400 in 2012 to $697,000 in 2014.

     Over the past five years, the most committed golfers in the United Kingdom have become certified old-timers. Since 2009, according to a report by Sports Marketing Surveys, the average age of avid golfers in the U.K. -- those who play at least once a week -- has risen from 48 to 63. This is a shocking increase, and a stark illustration of what happens to a sport when young people stop playing it.

     Last month’s PGA Merchandise Show has been called “a terrific start to 2015,” but the attendance figures were underwhelming. The show attracted 41,000 people, only about 400 more than it did in 2014. Anyone searching for reasons to be optimistic about our industry’s near-term fortunes has to look elsewhere.

     As the rich get richer, their increasing wealth is being reflected in golf’s demographics. Citing data provided by KeyBanc Capital Markets, the Economist reports that “people earning $100,000 or more now make up 45 percent of all golfers, up from 40 percent in 2005.” While this may be welcome news in some quarters -- in particular, among private clubs, resorts, destination venues, and high-end public courses -- it indicates that golf is continuing to evolve into a niche sport for the well-heeled. So the next time you hear someone say that the average price of a round of golf is $29, remember that it’s never a bad idea to follow the money.

     Tiger Woods’ latest comeback has so far been a dud, but the smart money says that his struggles on the PGA Tour aren’t likely to affect his earnings potential. “The second billion will be there for him,” Neal Pilson, a former president of CBS Sports, told Reuters. Pilson, now a sports-industry consultant, added: “His personality, his looks, his contacts, his remaining skills, and the emotional tie that people still have to Tiger is eminently marketable.” In fact, Pilson believes that the business opportunities certain to come Woods’ way “would probably dwarf” those that made Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, and Greg Norman so wealthy after they quit playing professional golf.

     2015 will be remembered as a watershed year for U.S. millennials, as they’re set to become our nation’s largest living generation. The Pew Research Center, working off data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau, has determined that the number of millennials (defined as people between the ages of 18 and 34) will grow to 75.3 million this year. Sadly, this group has so far showed relatively little interest in golf, and some have suggested that it’ll be a “lost generation” to our industry. It hardly needs to be said, but the millennials are going to out-number the Baby Boomers, the generation that once hoped to die before it got old. The Boomers, who’ve also been a disappointment to golf, will shrink to 74.9 million.

Sunday, February 1, 2015

The Week That Was, february 1, 2015

     Among the male-only golf clubs in the rotation for the Open Championship, the dominoes are beginning to fall. Just months after the Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews voted to admit women as members, Royal Troon Golf Club -- the host of next year’s open -- has decided to “undertake a comprehensive review to consider the most appropriate membership policy for the future.” The Guardian interprets this painfully dense prose as an indication that Royal Troon is “likely to follow the Royal & Ancient’s lead,” and Reuters thinks that the Scottish club “may start allowing women members in time for the 2016 championship.” The remaining clubs that need to review their membership policies are Muirfield and Royal St. George’s, though they don’t need to end their gender bias for several years. Their turns in the open rotation won’t arrive until 2021 at the earliest.

     Royal Troon isn’t the only high-profile institution in golf that needs to fix its woman problem. The World Golf Foundation, our industry’s most powerful policy-making force, has taken to promoting the game to females through a new website, GolfForHer.com. In a press release, the WGF’s CEO called the website “an innovative and appealing content aggregator” that will attract women and girls by showcasing “the fun, networking, and lifestyle aspects of the game.” By happy coincidence, the website is supported by all but one of the U.S. groups represented on the WGF’s board, namely the PGA of America, the PGA Tour, the LPGA, and the United States Golf Association. (Yes, it’s fair to wonder why Augusta National Golf Club, another member of the WGF’s board, isn’t a sponsor.) It would be premature to predict the outcome of this sales effort, but it’s worth noting that several of the aforementioned groups have created and spent who knows how many millions of dollars on various grow-the-game initiatives without much in the way of results.

     A world-famous architect and a slew of awards haven’t made the city of Laredo, Texas’ municipal golf course a money-maker. Golf Digest named Max Mandel Golf Course as one of the best to open in 2013, and Golf ranks it among the nation’s top 100 municipal tracks. But the course, which was supposed to have rung up 22,000 rounds “in the last year,” according to KGNS-TV, rang up only 19,000, and now the city has to cough up more than $300,000 to cover operating losses. The Max’s $9 million price tag is unquestionably a tough nut for the city to crack, but the course’s location, 10 miles outside the city center, isn’t doing it any favors. Foresight Golf has been managing the Max since it opened, but the city appears to be ready to seek for a replacement.

     The Nicklaus empire’s seventh golf course in South Africa is the centerpiece of a “visionary lifestyle estate” whose residents have the means to “escape the chaotic lifestyle that can be associated with living in the city.” Those are two of the phrases that have been used to describe Steyn City, a luxurious community that’s taking shape on 2,300 acres north of Johannesburg. At build-out, the master-planned spread, surrounded by a 10-foot electrified fence, is expected to feature 11,000 houses and apartments, office space, a hospital, four schools, a shopping area, and a variety of recreational amenities, including Steyn City Golf Club, which opened late last year. Douw Steyn, the wealthy insurance-industry mogul who’s developing Steyn City, will live in the community’s showpiece property, a 33,300-square-foot mansion that’s believed to be the nation’s largest residence. He hopes that the city’s 18-hole course, a Nicklaus Design track that’s been tailored for recreational golfers, will eventually receive a top-10 national ranking.

     Speaking of Nicklaus Design, the “signature” course that the company created on Hawaii’s Kauai Island has a new owner. On the last day of 2014, Marriott Vacations Worldwide sold Kauai Lagoons Golf Club other properties to Tower Development, Inc., a company led by Ed Bushor, reportedly for $60 million. “The economy is back, and Hawaii is firing on all cylinders,” Bushor told Pacific Business News. “It’s really an exciting time for Hawaii.” The golf club is part of a 601-acre community that was conceived by the late Chris Hemmeter and opened in the mid 1980s. Only 18 of its 27 holes are currently open, but Bushor intends to revive the third nine soon, perhaps by the end of the year.