The Week That Was, april 29, 2018

     Municipalities all over the nation often try to serve their communities by providing affordable golf, but few of the courses they operate would be able to remain in business without subsidies from taxpayers. And the cost of maintaining those courses can be staggering, particularly in states where municipal courses are plentiful. To wit: Over the past five years, according to USA Today, Florida’s municipal courses collectively lost nearly $100 million – a number that takes your breath away. There are lots of good reasons to support municipal golf, but it’s easy to understand why some people bristle at the prospect.

     Over and over in recent years, golf has promoted itself as a welcoming, inclusive sport and pledged to step up its efforts to attract minorities, especially women and African-Americans. Regrettably, it appears that the owners of Grandview Golf Club haven’t received the memo.
     By now, most everybody in America has heard what happened this week at the now-infamous club in York, Pennsylvania. To summarize: A group of black women, at least some of them club members, played one hole and, by the time they got to the second tee, they were approached by club officials and cited for a common complaint, slow play. They were asked to leave and offered a refund. They chose instead to continue playing. At the ninth hole, the women were approached by a larger delegation and ordered to depart within five minutes, again because of slow play. When the women refused to go, the club called the police. It did so, it later explained, “to ensure an amicable resolution.”
     The women later described the incident as “demeaning,” “hostile,” and “horrific.” One of them said, “I felt we were discriminated against.”
     As far as the pace-of-play complaint goes, two points must be made. First, the women reportedly finished nine holes in “under two hours,” which is par for any course. Second, a member of the group playing behind them told the York Daily Record that “not one time, from [hole] one to nine, did we catch up with those ladies.”
     For anyone with a memory, this incident stirs memories of Sergio Garcia and Fuzzy Zoeller disgracefully trying to be funny by making a joke about serving fried chicken to Tiger Woods. Like it or not, golf’s deepest, darkest secret has once again been rubbed into America’s face.
      It’s impossible to over-estimate the impact such racially charged confrontations can have on the public perception of golf. Accounts of the clash at Grandview were published or broadcast by CNN, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New York Daily News, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, USA Today, Newsweek, People, and “The Daily Show.” The story found its way into countless local newspapers and television news reports, not to mention online news services.
     By contrast, the message that golf so eagerly wanted to send this week – the upbeat announcement about our industry’s economic clout, the centerpiece of National Golf Day – laid the proverbial egg. Golf’s $84 billion story was covered by the golf media but ignored by virtually every other news source.
     What’s worse, though, is that nobody in a position of power in golf has as yet offered a rebuttal to what occurred at Grandview. Steve Mona, our industry’s most prominent mouthpiece, could’ve issued a press release clearly stating that discrimination of any kind, whether intended or not, doesn’t reflect golf’s values. But he didn’t, probably because he was too busy lobbying for favorable legislation on Capitol Hill.
     Or, to put it another way: While many Americans were weighing the significance of an unpleasant interaction between white club owners and black customers, golf’s leadership looked the other way.
     This is yet another example of something we’ve all seen before in our business: A failure of leadership. If our institutional leaders really believe all those values that are taught to children as part of the First Tee’s curriculum – and if they want to stand on the right side of history – somebody should say something about the treatment of paying customers at Grandview. Instead, we hear crickets.

     Seeing as how its redesign and redevelopment plans have come to naught, earlier this year JC Resorts sold Temecula Creek Inn, a nearly 50-year-old venue in Temecula, California. The Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians paid an undisclosed price for the 305-acre property, which includes a 130-room hotel and a 27-hole, Ted Robinson-designed golf complex. At least for now, the tribe doesn’t intend to shrink the golf complex or enlarge the hotel, as JC Resorts had hoped to do. Instead, Temecula Creek will simply complement the tribe’s Pechanga Resort & Casino, which has an 18-hole, Arthur Hills-designed track.

     Surplus Transactions – The oldest resort in Naples, Florida is changing hands. Naples Beach Hotel & Golf Club, which opened in the late 1920s, is transitioning to the Athens Group, which expects to assume full ownership in 2020 or 2021. The 125-acre property is home to an 18-hole, Mark Mahannah-designed golf course that was recently redesigned by John Sanford in collaboration with Nicklaus Design. . . . Donnie Nelson says he’s going to put his “heart and soul” into Creekside Golf Course, an 18-hole track in Lavalette, West Virginia that claims to offer “one of the region's premier golf experiences.” Creekside has had four names since it opened in 1991, the previous ones being Lavalette Country Club, Twin Silos Golf Club, and Silo Golf Club. . . . Sometime last year, for an undisclosed price, five couples purchased Hastings Country Club, a venue in Hastings, Michigan that now operates as Legacy at Hastings. The club’s 18-hole golf course, which dates from the early 1920s, was designed by W. Bruce Matthews, who’s been called “the godfather of Michigan golf.”

     The future of Emerald Hills Golf Course, a 66-acre venue outside Manitowoc, Wisconsin, is officially uncertain, but it definitely isn’t bright. An undisclosed buyer, described by the Herald Times as “a local investor-developer,” has laid a claim on the bank-owned nine-hole track, a property that has been “under foreclosure on and off for the past decade.” Emerald Hills had operated since 1930.

     An All-Florida Edition of Desolation Row Extended – Pending approval by local officials, the 139 acres now occupied by Rolling Green Golf Club, a 55-year-old layout in Sarasota, Florida, will soon become a subdivision. A local newspaper says that an LLC controlled by Jon Whittemore has accepted $8 million for Rolling Green’s 18-hole golf course and related properties. Whittemore reportedly bought the property out of foreclosure four years ago, for $1.5 million. . . . The lights have been turned off at Polo Trace Golf Club, a 30-year-old venue in Delray Beach, Florida that changed hands last year. GL Homes reportedly paid $10 million for Polo Trace and its 18-hole, Karl Litten-designed golf course, a spread that the company plans to cover with more than 300 single-family houses. For what it’s worth, GL has also struck a deal to buy and redevelop Boca Raton Municipal Golf Course. . . . Mirror Lakes Golf Course, which has been described as one of the “oldest and most prestigious” layouts in Lehigh Acres, Florida, was scheduled to close last week. The 18-hole track originally opened in 1958, as the centerpiece of the Admiral Lehigh Resort, but it was completely revamped by Mark Mahannah in 1970.

     Duly Noted – For the second time in a year, the Elks Club in Southern Pines, North Carolina has failed to come to terms with a prospective buyer for Southern Pines Golf Club. . . . Can’t exactly explain the significance, but a news service says that FLC Group, one of Vietnam’s top golf developers, is “infamous for construction violations involving multiple projects.” . . . Attorneys for the Trump Organization proudly declared a victory after a federal court tentatively ordered their client to pay a $5.4 million payout to former members of Trump National Golf Club Jupiter. The reason for the celebration: The judgment didn’t require an admission of liability.