The Week That Was, november 10, 2019

     In what amounts to a fire sale, an entity controlled by HNA Group, a financially besieged Chinese conglomerate, has agreed to sell its golf holdings in the Pacific Northwest. Citing “negative market circumstances,” and noting that it’s been “searching for interested buyers for quite some time,” CWT International Ltd. has announced that it’ll accept $86.5 million for the eight Seattle, Washington-area properties that it purchased from Scott Oki for $137.5 million in 2016. The sale has been triggered by the plight of HNA Group, which is being pressured by Chinese authorities to relieve the massive debt it’s carrying. The prospective purchaser is Magic Radiance, Ltd., a Samoan-registered group led by Elaine Bai, who hasn’t made any public statements about the transaction. For its money, Magic Radiance is getting two 36-hole complexes, Golf Club at Newcastle and Golf Club at Hawks Prairie, and six 18-hole facilities, among them Trophy Lake Golf & Casting Club, Indian Summer Golf & Country Club, Washington National Golf Club, and Golf Club at Redmond Ridge. In a filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange, CWT International asserted that it’s been “a challenge” to “identify suitable buyers” and claimed that the golf courses “do not have significant investment appeal.”

     Surplus Transactions – A little more than a year after paying “nearly $1 million” for Red Hawk Run Golf Club, in Findlay, Ohio, Nick Reinhart has agreed to sell the 21-year-old venue and its 18-hole, Arthur Hills-designed course to the homeowners’ association in the surrounding community. A local radio station says that Reinhart cited “a significant drop in the number of rounds of golf being played across the country” as his reason for making the sale. . . . For a reported $600,000, Greg and Heather Norsby have purchased Hickory Grove Golf Course, a nine-hole track outside Waterloo, Iowa. The seller, Larry Bomkamp, marketed Hickory Grove, which dates from the mid 1960s, as “the best nine-hole course in Iowa.” . . . Forest Hills Golf Course, a nine-hole, Jack Kidwell-designed layout in suburban Columbus, Ohio, has changed hands. A pair of local couples, operating as Compound Enterprises LLC, paid an undisclosed price the 50-year-old facility, which reportedly has an assessed value of $538,800. The property now operates as Forest Hills Grill & Golf.

     The long, slow drain of U.S. golf properties shows no sign of letting up. Here are some recent closings:
     – Gulf Hills Golf Club, a venue on Mississippi’s Gulf Coast whose lounge was once frequented by “movie stars, gangsters, and even Elvis Presley,” bit the dust last month. “If you don’t have people walking through the door, you can’t pay the bills,” a board member told WLOX-TV. Gulf Hills, which is for sale for $2.5 million, features an 18-hole, Jack Daray-designed course that dates from 1927.
     – Reames Golf & Country Club, a private venue in Klamath Falls, Oregon, is scheduled to end its 94-year run this month. The Herald & News says that the club, which has an 18-hole golf course (the original nine was designed by Chandler Egan), blames its demise on “declining membership and other economic factors.”
     – Oak Lake Golf Course, a 34-year-old track in suburban Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, has closed because its owners reportedly “wanted to do something else with their time.” The owners, the heirs of the late Bernie Conley, have been trying to sell their 18-hole, Fred Garbin-designed course for more than a year.
     – Willow Creek Golf Course, a 27-hole, Jim Spear-designed complex in Rochester, Minnesota, is now controlled by a local bank. “After four years of terrible weather, we just couldn’t sustain it any longer,” Wendell Pittenger, the venue’s owner, told the Rochester Post Bulletin. In 2013, financial struggles forced Pittenger to give up his lease on a municipal course in Red Wing, Minnesota.
     – Norton Knolls Golf Course, a nine-hole track in that’s operated in Oakland, Illinois since 1969. The course’s owners view golf as being on a “downhill slide” and expect to grow hemp for CBD products on about half their 65 acres.
     – Spuyten Duyval, which is said to be “one of the oldest golf courses in the [Toledo, Ohio] area” (it dates from the late 1920s), closed on Halloween. The complex, featuring 27 regulation-length holes and a nine-hole executive-length layout, has been purchased by Metroparks Toledo and will be converted to parkland.
     – Rogala Public Links, a nine-hole course in Mattoon, Illinois, will draw its curtains on New Year’s Eve. “We felt we hung on as long as we could,” confessed Donna Meaker, who’s owned the property since 1974.
     – Locust Valley Golf Course, a 101-acre facility outside Allentown, Pennsylvania, will soon be the site of a 125-unit, seniors-only community. Robert Ashford says that his 18-hole course, designed by William and David Gordon and opened in 1954, will remain open at least through April of next year.
     – Aztec Municipal Golf Course, outside Farmington, New Mexico, will be shuttered by the end of the year unless the city can find a buyer. The 18-hole track, opened in 1950 as Hidden Valley Golf Club, has been struggling financially for years.
     – Willowbrook Country Club, in Connersville, Indiana, has hosted its last rounds under the ownership of Rob Fitzgerald and his siblings. “Nobody ever closes down a money-making business,” said Fitzgerald, who hopes to find a buyer. Willowbrook, now with an 18-hole, Bill Diddel-designed course, was established (as Connersville Country Club) in 1902.

     Duly Noted – The sad decline of Phil Mickelson continues: “The Gambler,” no longer a factor on the professional tours, has decided to cash checks from a beer company. A light beer company. Hard to see how this boosts the value of his name. . . . Newsweek reports that the tap water at Individual #1’s golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey is “contaminated with toxic ‘forever chemicals.’” No surprise, seeing as how he’s already poisoned our body politic. . . . From the Department of Oddities Discovered While Doing Golf Research: The New York Times says that the king of Thailand, a man who lords over one of Southeast Asia’s major golf destinations, has “owned a number of pet poodles, one of which was granted the military rank of air chief marshal.”

     Are you wondering how much of a week’s golf news I cover in this blog? The answer, unfortunately, is just a fraction of what passes my way. The golf business, particularly the development side of the golf business, has unquestionably perked up of late, and there’s no way for me to address all of it. So if your business requires a more comprehensive news digest – a weekly compendium of stories collected from newspapers, magazines, and other sources – contact me via e-mail at golfcoursereport@aol.com. I’ll send you a sample issue of either U.S. or International Construction Clips, depending on your needs.