Transactions, march 3, 2017

     Pinehurst, North Carolina. One of San Diego’s best-known businessmen has laid a claim on a fading club in a hotbed of U.S. golf. A group led by Doug Manchester – he likes to call himself “Papa Doug” – has signed a non-binding contract to buy Forest Creek Golf Club, a 21-year-old venue with two well-regarded Tom Fazio-designed golf courses. (Golf Digest ranks the tracks as #10 and #12 in the state.) The club’s board appears to be eager to see the sale go through, as it believes that Manchester’s group “has the financial strength necessary to accomplish the shared goal of re-establishing Forest Creek as a premier golf course destination community.” Manchester’s pockets are certainly deep enough to achieve that goal. He’s the chairman of an investment company, the publisher of the San Diego Union-Tribune, a hotel and resort developer, a university trustee, a philanthropist, the founder of the San Diego chapter of the Alexis de Toqueville Society, and even a certified “nice guy.” In 2014, he teamed up with Phil Mickelson in a failed attempt to buy a golf property in California. Forest Creek has been owned by 189 of its members since 2012. They reportedly paid $15 million for the property.

     Newry, Maine. In a somewhat complicated transaction, one of Maine’s top courses has changed hands. Sunday River Golf Club, part of a ski area near the New Hampshire border, has been sold to Portland-based Newry Holdings LLC, reportedly for $2 million. Sunday River features an 18-hole, Robert Trent Jones, Jr.-designed layout that Golf Digest views as the #3 venue in the Pine Tree State, and the new owners’ goal, a spokesperson told the Lewiston Sun Journal, is “to get it back up to the #1-rated in the state, so that everyone will want to come up to see it and play it.” Sunday River opened in 2004, and in recent years it’s been skating on thin financial ice. Harris Golf, its owner and operator, was “regularly late in paying property taxes,” the newspaper reports, and earlier this year it “deeded” the course to an LLC “in lieu of foreclosure.” The LLC then flipped the course to Newry Holdings. Sunday River is Newry Holdings’ fourth golf property. Its flagship appears to be Black Swan Country Club in Georgetown, Massachusetts.

     Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. Brown Golf has acquired its second golf property in one of South Carolina’s most popular vacation spots. Last fall, almost exactly a year after purchasing Dolphin Head Golf Club, the Bluffton-based firm added Palmetto Hall Plantation Club to its fast-growing portfolio. Palmetto Hall, which opened in 1991, has a pair of 18-hole golf courses, one designed by Arthur Hills and one designed by Bob Cupp. Brown Golf bought it from an affiliate of Arcis Equity Partners, which had owned it since 2014. John Brown, the president Brown Golf, has described Palmetto Hall as “a gorgeous club” and believes it’ll be “one of our flagship properties right from the start.” With the acquisition, Brown Golf now owns and/or manages 22 golf venues in South Carolina, North Carolina, Florida, and Pennsylvania. “We love the game of golf,” Brown has said, “and our ultimate goal is to make golf as accessible and enjoyable as possible.”

     Louisville, Kentucky. Craig Heibert has acquired a controlling interest in Polo Fields Golf & Country Club, a property that he’s been trying to buy for two years. Heibert began negotiating with Pacific Life Insurance, the seller, in late 2014 or early 2015, when he was in the process of becoming the majority owner of another golf venue in Louisville, Persimmon Ridge Golf Club. According to Louisville Business First, in December 2016 Pacific Life accepted $537,500 for Polo Fields and its 18-hole, Bill Newcomb-designed golf course. The clubs are located just three miles from each other, and Heibert is marketing them as a package. Combined, the clubs are said to have roughly 1,000 members.

     Defiance, Ohio. Auglaize Golf Club’s ownership group may soon shrink from 11 to two. Greg Porter and Gary Cooper, who are members of the club’s current ownership group, have reportedly signed a purchase agreement for Auglaize, which features an 18-hole, Jim Spear-designed golf course that opened in 1963. Porter and Cooper haven’t revealed a sales price, but the Defiance Crescent-News reports that the 167-acre property carries a value of $489,500. When the property last sold, in 2003, it reportedly commanded $956,001.

     Aledo, Illinois. Speaking of Jim Spear, a golf course he designed on a farm in the Quad Cities area has a new owner. Late last year, Gary Baker, a retired farmer, reportedly paid $500,000 for Hawthorn Ridge Golf Course, a venue that opened in 1978. “The price was right,” Baker told the Moline Dispatch. “I did not want to see it get turned into a farm field again.” A reviewer believes that Hawthorn Ridge “finds a good balance between being playable while also not being a pushover.” Baker bought the course from Chuck Fiser, who’d owned or co-owned it since 2003.

     Avon Park, Florida. A retiree has acquired the golf operation at a seniors-only community in central Florida. In the fall of last year, Joe Pace bought Highlands Ridge Golf Club, which features a pair of 18-hole courses, one by Steve Smyers and one by Dave Harman. (Harman reportedly modeled his track after Kauri Cliffs, the top-100 course he designed in New Zealand.) Pace hasn’t revealed what he paid for Highlands Ridge, but he told the Highlands News-Sun, “It’s great to have money.” Pace is a former owner of Carolina Golf Club in Margate, Florida.