The venue for the 2016 Olympics won’t be completed next year, as originally planned, but Tim Finchem appears to be nevertheless pleased with the construction strides made of late in Rio de Janeiro. “Actually, the progress is reasonably good,” the relieved commissioner of the PGA Tour told Reuters. “We think the time line is in order. We were really concerned there, as you know, for a good period of time.” The new schedule calls for the Gil Hanse-designed course to open in 2015, although perhaps not until the second half of the year. That doesn’t leave much of a margin for error, but at least Finchem can now see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Finally, Mike Keiser has secured approval for the next leg of his Oregon Trail. Last week, after getting a nudge from the governor, the state’s parks commission unanimously endorsed the land swap Keiser needs to build Bandon Links, a pseudo-municipal golf complex, on property south of his Bandon Dunes resort. Some significant changes are on the horizon, however, for Keiser now apparently plans to build 36 holes instead of 27. Matt Ginella, a correspondent for the Golf Channel, has tweeted that Gil Hanse will design the first 18 and that four architects with a minimalist bent -- Mike DeVries, David McLay Kidd, Kyle Phillips, and Jim Urbina -- are vying to win the commission for the second.
Acknowledging that a recent exposé about water use in California’s Coachella Valley had “lit a little fire under us,” an official with the Southern California Golf Association has announced the formation of a task force committed to water conservation. Craig Kessler, the SCGA’s director of governmental affairs, told the Desert Sun that the valley’s 124 golf properties need to “step up to the plate as an industry and figure out how to do business in a way that uses less water, uses it more efficiently.” The task force will include representatives from the valley’s courses and officials from the Coachella Valley Water District. One of its primary goals will be to identify cost-effective ways to bring either recycled or Colorado River water to more of the valley’s courses. As we all know, however, it’s easy to establish a task force. It’s much harder to turn talk into action.
Donald Trump may soon add a second North Carolina golf property to his fast-growing golf empire. Eric Trump, a major voice in the family’s golf acquisitions, recently told the Charlotte Business Journal that he’s “looking at one other big project” in the Tar Heel state. He offered no details, but he noted that “water is something that we gravitate to” and, in a comment that might have been mouthed by his father, “we do whatever it takes to make the place the best.” Last year, the Trumps bought the Point Lake & Golf Club in Mooresville, a property they’ve branded as Trump National Golf Club Charlotte.
When it comes to offering free rounds of golf, the operators of Pico Rivera, California’s municipal course are putting theories into practice. GolfLinks, the manager of the city’s nine-hole, executive-length track, allows kids under 18 to play for free and charges them only a dollar for a bucket of range balls. “A course that doesn’t let kids play for free is missing the boat,” Larry Taylor of GolfLinks explained to Golf Digest. “You’ll get more green fees from their parents and relatives, and you’re building supply for the future.” Of course, Taylor’s firm has an ace in the hole: The Southern California Golf Association reimburses it for the green fees and buckets it gives away. This summer, the SCGA chipped in for 474 of the former and 909 of the latter.
More than 200 hopeful residents of suburban Charlotte, North Carolina have bought into a plan to reopen Cramer Mountain Country Club. The club, in Cramerton, has been closed since the summer of 2012, a victim of strangulating debt. Now, however, a group of home owners in the accompanying community has raised $3 million to buy the club, renovate its Dan Maples-designed golf course, and create what the group’s leader describes as “a much more progressive club -- more family-oriented, with tennis and swimming in addition to golf.” The revived, refreshed, and renamed facility -- it’ll henceforth be called Cramer Mountain Club -- will be unveiled next summer.
The general manager of a golf property in suburban Phoenix, Arizona believes that the area’s winter golf season has gotten off to a welcome fast start. “The winter visitors are coming back earlier, and the reservations are coming in earlier than they have in the past,” Greg Ellis of Trilogy Golf Club in Peoria told KTAR radio. “Everything is looking like a very good picture for the future for us in golf.” Sure, it’s just an anecdotal report. But hope springs eternal.
A family-owned golf property in Nebraska’s capital city has put its future -- its immediate future, at least -- into the hands of KemperSports. The Northbrook, Illinois-based management firm has assumed control of Wilderness Ridge Golf Club, the featured attraction of a 440-acre community developed by the late Jerry Schleich. Tom Schleich, a principal of the entity that owns Wilderness Ridge, was won over by what he called KemperSports’ “reputation, commitment to excellence, and focus in providing exceptional guest experience.” The club, which features a 27-hole golf complex, serves as the home of the University of Nebraska’s golf teams. “Wilderness Ridge has a reputation of being one of the best golf courses and dining experiences in the Lincoln market,” said Steve Skinner, KemperSports’ CEO. Those assets will be featured in KemperSports’ marketing pitch, as one of its primary tasks will be to pad the club’s membership rolls. KemperSports manages one other golf property in Nebraska, The Prairie Club in Valentine.
Two’s company, three’s a crowd: On average, an English golf club has 25 members under the age of 16, and only three of them are girls. The CEO of England Golf, the group that conducted the research, called the data “sobering.”
Sunday, November 24, 2013
Friday, November 22, 2013
Transactions, november 22, 2013
The original home of the FedEx St. Jude Classic has avoided foreclosure by turning over its deteriorating assets to a familiar face. Colonial Country Club, a century-old facility in suburban Memphis, Tennessee, is now controlled by James W. Russell, a long-time member who paid $2 million for 372 acres appraised at $3.6 million. Russell aims to restore Colonial’s fading reputation and polish its featured attractions, which include a Joe Finger-designed, 36-hole golf complex and a 40,000-square-foot clubhouse. “Service and product -- we are going to make that second to none,” he told the Memphis Commercial Appeal. “We want to offer a Mercedes,” he added, promising that the club would “not try to compete with everyone on price, but be very aggressive on the quality of our product.” Russell’s bid for the club was endorsed by a unanimous vote.
The wealthy owner of Conover, North Carolina’s Rock Barn Golf & Spa, a resort that hosts an annual event on the Champions Tour, is closing in on his second golf property. Next month, Don Beaver expects to buy and begin upgrading Statesville Country Club, a 70-year-old facility in Statesville with an 18-hole golf course and a clubhouse in need of improvement. The club defaulted on some loans earlier this year -- its president recently described it as having “run out of money” and “run out of options” – and it persuaded Beaver to save its skin. Beaver, who made his money in health care, owns two minor-league baseball teams in North Carolina and another in New Orleans, Louisiana. He made a national name for himself in the late 1990s, when he tried to buy the Minnesota Twins and move them to Greensboro. At Statesboro, Beaver said in a comment published by the Statesville Record & Landmark, “the emphasis will be to grow the membership so the club can have the revenues for a first-class facility.” To attract new members, Beaver has promised that “dues will remain reasonable.”
In an effort to seize control of its destiny and preserve property values, a homeowners’ group in Zachary, Louisiana has voted to purchase the centerpiece of its community. Changing hands will be Copper Mill Golf Club, which features an 18-hole, “links-style” golf course that’s said to be “reminiscent of those in Scotland.” Ross Bruce, the developer of Copper Mill, had recently complained about the time and money involved in running the community’s nine-year-old golf course and had vowed to close it at the end of the year. He parted with the annoyance for $1.2 million. The home owners, who expect to close on the transaction next month, plan to invest as much as $1.7 million in improvements to the club. “We’re committed to providing an excellent golf experience, value to our residents, and a premier recreation destination in the Baton Rouge metro area,” the HOA’s president told the Zachary Plainsman-News. To achieve their goals, the prospective new owners may solicit a private-sector management company.
After 20 years of operating Quail Hollow Golf Course, Dave Hendrickson is willing to give it away. And the city of Boise, Idaho seems poised to take it. “Quail Hollow is a well-managed business,” the city’s parks and recreation director told the Idaho Statesman. “The course is coming to the city in outstanding condition, both financially and structurally.” The 18-hole course, which opened in 1982, was co-designed by Robert Von Hagge and Bruce Devlin. Pending acceptance of the gift by elected officials, it’ll become the city’s second course.
By the end of the year, a financially squeezed private club in Fort Smith, Arkansas will likely have new owners. Lance Beaty and Stephen Nelson are reportedly completing the due diligence on their planned purchase of Fianna Hills Country Club, a 40-year-old property. The club features an 18-hole golf course that was renovated by Carter Morris in 2004 and a clubhouse that one of the sellers acknowledges “is due for a major renovation.” Assuming that the transaction is completed, the prospective owners will attempt to “reposition” Fianna Hills and make it appeal to what Beaty calls “a younger audience and demographic.” He told the City Wire that “there will not be another venue in this market that will provide the range of amenities, event, and social activities that we will have here.”
Northfield Mount Hermon School didn’t have to look far to find a buyer for its ancient golf course. The prep school, in northwestern Massachusetts, has agreed to sell Northfield Golf Club to Ed Snow, who’s operated the nine-hole track since 2011. The sales price hasn’t been announced, but the school, which has had the property on the market since March, had been asking for $1.25 million. The school says that the course was designed by Alex Findlay and that “the current layout opened for play in 1912.”
As its members gradually disappear, an equity club in Marathon, Florida is anticipating a change of ownership. A group led by the city’s finance director has agreed to buy the 53-year-old Florida Keys Country Club, pending approval of its redevelopment proposal. In a nutshell, the proposal consists of replacing the property’s clubhouse with a hotel and some “vacation cottages,” building a new clubhouse, and making unspecified but “significant” improvements to its 18-hole, Mark Mahannah-designed golf course. If all goes as planned, the sale would take place in early 2014 and the bulldozers would arrive a few months later. The Florida Keys Reporter says that the club, which opened as Sombrero Country Club, once had as many as 280 members. It currently has 49 members with an ownership stake and 26 “club members.”
A non-profit group created to preserve open space near Kenyon College has purchased an 18-hole golf course. In August, Philander Chase Corporation paid $450,000 for Tomahawk Golf Course, an executive-length track located a little more than a mile from the college’s campus, in Gambier, Ohio. The 3,605-yard layout, originally called Tomahawk Hollow Golf Course, has offered a “casual and welcoming atmosphere” since 1962, according to an online source. A spokesperson for PCC told the Kenyan Collegian that the property’s future would be determined sometime this winter.
The wealthy owner of Conover, North Carolina’s Rock Barn Golf & Spa, a resort that hosts an annual event on the Champions Tour, is closing in on his second golf property. Next month, Don Beaver expects to buy and begin upgrading Statesville Country Club, a 70-year-old facility in Statesville with an 18-hole golf course and a clubhouse in need of improvement. The club defaulted on some loans earlier this year -- its president recently described it as having “run out of money” and “run out of options” – and it persuaded Beaver to save its skin. Beaver, who made his money in health care, owns two minor-league baseball teams in North Carolina and another in New Orleans, Louisiana. He made a national name for himself in the late 1990s, when he tried to buy the Minnesota Twins and move them to Greensboro. At Statesboro, Beaver said in a comment published by the Statesville Record & Landmark, “the emphasis will be to grow the membership so the club can have the revenues for a first-class facility.” To attract new members, Beaver has promised that “dues will remain reasonable.”
In an effort to seize control of its destiny and preserve property values, a homeowners’ group in Zachary, Louisiana has voted to purchase the centerpiece of its community. Changing hands will be Copper Mill Golf Club, which features an 18-hole, “links-style” golf course that’s said to be “reminiscent of those in Scotland.” Ross Bruce, the developer of Copper Mill, had recently complained about the time and money involved in running the community’s nine-year-old golf course and had vowed to close it at the end of the year. He parted with the annoyance for $1.2 million. The home owners, who expect to close on the transaction next month, plan to invest as much as $1.7 million in improvements to the club. “We’re committed to providing an excellent golf experience, value to our residents, and a premier recreation destination in the Baton Rouge metro area,” the HOA’s president told the Zachary Plainsman-News. To achieve their goals, the prospective new owners may solicit a private-sector management company.
After 20 years of operating Quail Hollow Golf Course, Dave Hendrickson is willing to give it away. And the city of Boise, Idaho seems poised to take it. “Quail Hollow is a well-managed business,” the city’s parks and recreation director told the Idaho Statesman. “The course is coming to the city in outstanding condition, both financially and structurally.” The 18-hole course, which opened in 1982, was co-designed by Robert Von Hagge and Bruce Devlin. Pending acceptance of the gift by elected officials, it’ll become the city’s second course.
By the end of the year, a financially squeezed private club in Fort Smith, Arkansas will likely have new owners. Lance Beaty and Stephen Nelson are reportedly completing the due diligence on their planned purchase of Fianna Hills Country Club, a 40-year-old property. The club features an 18-hole golf course that was renovated by Carter Morris in 2004 and a clubhouse that one of the sellers acknowledges “is due for a major renovation.” Assuming that the transaction is completed, the prospective owners will attempt to “reposition” Fianna Hills and make it appeal to what Beaty calls “a younger audience and demographic.” He told the City Wire that “there will not be another venue in this market that will provide the range of amenities, event, and social activities that we will have here.”
Northfield Mount Hermon School didn’t have to look far to find a buyer for its ancient golf course. The prep school, in northwestern Massachusetts, has agreed to sell Northfield Golf Club to Ed Snow, who’s operated the nine-hole track since 2011. The sales price hasn’t been announced, but the school, which has had the property on the market since March, had been asking for $1.25 million. The school says that the course was designed by Alex Findlay and that “the current layout opened for play in 1912.”
As its members gradually disappear, an equity club in Marathon, Florida is anticipating a change of ownership. A group led by the city’s finance director has agreed to buy the 53-year-old Florida Keys Country Club, pending approval of its redevelopment proposal. In a nutshell, the proposal consists of replacing the property’s clubhouse with a hotel and some “vacation cottages,” building a new clubhouse, and making unspecified but “significant” improvements to its 18-hole, Mark Mahannah-designed golf course. If all goes as planned, the sale would take place in early 2014 and the bulldozers would arrive a few months later. The Florida Keys Reporter says that the club, which opened as Sombrero Country Club, once had as many as 280 members. It currently has 49 members with an ownership stake and 26 “club members.”
A non-profit group created to preserve open space near Kenyon College has purchased an 18-hole golf course. In August, Philander Chase Corporation paid $450,000 for Tomahawk Golf Course, an executive-length track located a little more than a mile from the college’s campus, in Gambier, Ohio. The 3,605-yard layout, originally called Tomahawk Hollow Golf Course, has offered a “casual and welcoming atmosphere” since 1962, according to an online source. A spokesperson for PCC told the Kenyan Collegian that the property’s future would be determined sometime this winter.
Sunday, November 17, 2013
The Week That Was, november 17, 2013
Turkey wants to be a major player in international golf circles, and it believes that hosting high-prestige professional tournaments is the way to do it. Although the nation isn’t yet an established golf market -- it had only 19 golf properties in 2011, according to a study by KPMG’s Golf Advisory Practice, and a mere 5,649 players -- it plans to bid on the European Tour’s season-concluding event in 2016 and the Ryder Cup in 2022. “Turkey would have as good a chance as anywhere,” the tour’s CEO said in a comment published by the Telegraph. “This is a country where anything is possible.” To sweeten its proposal, Turkey is willing to build a new course specifically designed for the event it wins.
Peter Nanula wants to buy a prominent, financially strapped golf club in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, but he may have to fend off a committed group of club members to do so. In August, the Newport Beach, California-based investor acquired the first mortgage on Gaillardia Golf & Country Club, a property currently in receivership. Control of the loan would seem to give Nanula’s deep-pocketed Concert Golf Partners the inside track on a purchase, but a bid from Jeff McDougall, an oil man who owns a 17,500-square-foot mansion in the Gaillardia community, might be favored by a second lender involved in the proceedings. “We’re just a group in the club that would like to see it locally owned,” McDougall told the Oklahoman. “We think it’s the best thing for the community.” Neither suitor intends to spell out his plans for the club until the foreclosure process concludes, and nobody seems to know when that will happen.
In an effort to drum up business, some of the best-known golf courses in Gujarat, India have become marketing partners. The 12 founding members of the Gujarat Golf Association include Kensville Golf & Country Club in metropolitan Ahmedabad, Gaekwad Baroda Golf Club in Baroda, and Aalloa Hills Resort & Golf Course in suburban Gandhinagar. “Many of us are struggling hard to stay afloat, as golf is picking up very slowly here and the golf properties are expensive to maintain,” the managing director of Gulmohar Greens Golf & Country Club told the Indian Express. “So we decided to come together under one umbrella and promote it in an organized manner.” The golf business has become very competitive in Gujarat, thanks in part to construction related to residential development, and the newspaper reports that “very few golf enthusiasts” are “taking up the game.”
Eric Trump, who now effectively runs his family’s golf empire, has faith in the future of ultra high-end golf operations, as long as the properties are located in metropolitan areas. “During the boom, everybody was building golf courses and doing them in crazy locations,” he explained to Cybergolf.com. “Some amazing golf courses got built, but they happen to be in the middle of ‘you name the place’ and weren’t near any metropolitan city, not near any highway. You had to take a prop plane and then a helicopter to get there. The notion that those would be successful was a little fictitious.” To review, the Trumps own a close to a dozen U.S., golf properties, all of them near the cities of New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, West Palm Beach, Miami, Charlotte, and Washington, DC.
Troon Privé has added the oldest golf club in central Ohio to its collection of “private clubs of distinction.” Troon Golf’s private-club division has taken the reins at Columbus Country Club, an old-line property that was established in 1903 and was once a favored retreat for many of the capital city’s most prominent citizens. Today, the club’s initiation fee tops out at $2,500. “Columbus Country Club is an exceptional private facility with an outstanding reputation,” said Jim McLaughlin, one of Troon’s senior vice presidents. One of Troon’s primary tasks will be to restore the club’s membership. In 2011, in an effort to add value, CCC began offering joint memberships with the Athletic Club of Columbus. “We all need to attract a new generation of members and retain our present ones,” the club’s general manager at the time told Columbus Business First. An attraction that prospects will surely notice is a Donald Ross-designed golf course that hosted the 1964 PGA Championship in 1964.
John Fought, an architect based in Scottsdale, Arizona, has won the commission to oversee a renovation of a golf course owned by the city of Wilmington, North Carolina. Fought will receive $105,000 (plus up to $16,000 in travel expenses) to prepare a master plan for greens-related improvements at Wilmington Municipal Golf Course, an 18-hole, Donald Ross-designed track that dates from the late 1920s. The city expects to rebuild the layout’s greens, greens approaches, and greenside bunkers, and other upgrades may be done as well. “There is little doubt that these improvements will elevate your reputation and enhance the playability of the course,” Fought said in a comment published by the Port City Daily. The work will likely cost about $700,000. It’ll begin next year, but the city hasn’t yet decided to complete it in one phase or two.
After what’s been described as a “disastrous” and “devastating” golf season, the city of Edina, Minnesota may consider closing or privatizing one or both of its golf courses. The city’s Braemar Golf Course consists of a 27-hole regulation complex and two nine-hole executive-length tracks, one of them operated as Fred Richards Golf Course. Through the end of September, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, net earnings at the courses were down by roughly $325,000 from the same time in 2012. As a result, according to the city’s director of parks and recreation, golf operations will be examined “to make sure we’re doing the best we can to operate as efficiently as possible.” The Fred Richards course, which caters mostly to seniors and beginners, will be scrutinized most closely and may be on the chopping block. The city hopes to make some decisions about its golf operation early next year.
Municipal golf operations in Minnesota may be experiencing declines, but at least one city in Wisconsin is seeing a slight uptick in rounds and revenues. Despite losing 40 playing days to poor weather, the four golf properties in Madison rang up 81,000 rounds through late October, a 1 percent increase over the full-year performance in 2012. What’s more, the courses have so far generated $287,000 in profits, a better than 40 percent boost over 2012. “It has been a great year for the golf courses,” a spokesperson for the capital city’s parks department told the Wisconsin State Journal. A major operational change accounts for a significant part of the profits: This year, the city ended its relationship with the pros who formerly managed the courses.
You can add Rees Jones’ name to the list of golf-industry professionals who believe that brown is the new green. “I think we’re going to have to learn to deal with lesser conditions,” the Open Doctor said during a conversation with a reporter in Williamsburg, Virginia. “We’ve gotten spoiled.” Spoiled or not, in many parts of the nation brown still seems to be an acquired taste. How long, realistically, will it take the Powers That Be to change hearts and minds?
Peter Nanula wants to buy a prominent, financially strapped golf club in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, but he may have to fend off a committed group of club members to do so. In August, the Newport Beach, California-based investor acquired the first mortgage on Gaillardia Golf & Country Club, a property currently in receivership. Control of the loan would seem to give Nanula’s deep-pocketed Concert Golf Partners the inside track on a purchase, but a bid from Jeff McDougall, an oil man who owns a 17,500-square-foot mansion in the Gaillardia community, might be favored by a second lender involved in the proceedings. “We’re just a group in the club that would like to see it locally owned,” McDougall told the Oklahoman. “We think it’s the best thing for the community.” Neither suitor intends to spell out his plans for the club until the foreclosure process concludes, and nobody seems to know when that will happen.
In an effort to drum up business, some of the best-known golf courses in Gujarat, India have become marketing partners. The 12 founding members of the Gujarat Golf Association include Kensville Golf & Country Club in metropolitan Ahmedabad, Gaekwad Baroda Golf Club in Baroda, and Aalloa Hills Resort & Golf Course in suburban Gandhinagar. “Many of us are struggling hard to stay afloat, as golf is picking up very slowly here and the golf properties are expensive to maintain,” the managing director of Gulmohar Greens Golf & Country Club told the Indian Express. “So we decided to come together under one umbrella and promote it in an organized manner.” The golf business has become very competitive in Gujarat, thanks in part to construction related to residential development, and the newspaper reports that “very few golf enthusiasts” are “taking up the game.”
Eric Trump, who now effectively runs his family’s golf empire, has faith in the future of ultra high-end golf operations, as long as the properties are located in metropolitan areas. “During the boom, everybody was building golf courses and doing them in crazy locations,” he explained to Cybergolf.com. “Some amazing golf courses got built, but they happen to be in the middle of ‘you name the place’ and weren’t near any metropolitan city, not near any highway. You had to take a prop plane and then a helicopter to get there. The notion that those would be successful was a little fictitious.” To review, the Trumps own a close to a dozen U.S., golf properties, all of them near the cities of New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, West Palm Beach, Miami, Charlotte, and Washington, DC.
Troon Privé has added the oldest golf club in central Ohio to its collection of “private clubs of distinction.” Troon Golf’s private-club division has taken the reins at Columbus Country Club, an old-line property that was established in 1903 and was once a favored retreat for many of the capital city’s most prominent citizens. Today, the club’s initiation fee tops out at $2,500. “Columbus Country Club is an exceptional private facility with an outstanding reputation,” said Jim McLaughlin, one of Troon’s senior vice presidents. One of Troon’s primary tasks will be to restore the club’s membership. In 2011, in an effort to add value, CCC began offering joint memberships with the Athletic Club of Columbus. “We all need to attract a new generation of members and retain our present ones,” the club’s general manager at the time told Columbus Business First. An attraction that prospects will surely notice is a Donald Ross-designed golf course that hosted the 1964 PGA Championship in 1964.
John Fought, an architect based in Scottsdale, Arizona, has won the commission to oversee a renovation of a golf course owned by the city of Wilmington, North Carolina. Fought will receive $105,000 (plus up to $16,000 in travel expenses) to prepare a master plan for greens-related improvements at Wilmington Municipal Golf Course, an 18-hole, Donald Ross-designed track that dates from the late 1920s. The city expects to rebuild the layout’s greens, greens approaches, and greenside bunkers, and other upgrades may be done as well. “There is little doubt that these improvements will elevate your reputation and enhance the playability of the course,” Fought said in a comment published by the Port City Daily. The work will likely cost about $700,000. It’ll begin next year, but the city hasn’t yet decided to complete it in one phase or two.
After what’s been described as a “disastrous” and “devastating” golf season, the city of Edina, Minnesota may consider closing or privatizing one or both of its golf courses. The city’s Braemar Golf Course consists of a 27-hole regulation complex and two nine-hole executive-length tracks, one of them operated as Fred Richards Golf Course. Through the end of September, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, net earnings at the courses were down by roughly $325,000 from the same time in 2012. As a result, according to the city’s director of parks and recreation, golf operations will be examined “to make sure we’re doing the best we can to operate as efficiently as possible.” The Fred Richards course, which caters mostly to seniors and beginners, will be scrutinized most closely and may be on the chopping block. The city hopes to make some decisions about its golf operation early next year.
Municipal golf operations in Minnesota may be experiencing declines, but at least one city in Wisconsin is seeing a slight uptick in rounds and revenues. Despite losing 40 playing days to poor weather, the four golf properties in Madison rang up 81,000 rounds through late October, a 1 percent increase over the full-year performance in 2012. What’s more, the courses have so far generated $287,000 in profits, a better than 40 percent boost over 2012. “It has been a great year for the golf courses,” a spokesperson for the capital city’s parks department told the Wisconsin State Journal. A major operational change accounts for a significant part of the profits: This year, the city ended its relationship with the pros who formerly managed the courses.
You can add Rees Jones’ name to the list of golf-industry professionals who believe that brown is the new green. “I think we’re going to have to learn to deal with lesser conditions,” the Open Doctor said during a conversation with a reporter in Williamsburg, Virginia. “We’ve gotten spoiled.” Spoiled or not, in many parts of the nation brown still seems to be an acquired taste. How long, realistically, will it take the Powers That Be to change hearts and minds?
Friday, November 15, 2013
Vital Signs, november 15, 2013
The largest owner/operator of golf properties in the United Kingdom gives a free introductory golf lesson to women, after which it hands them a brochure that outlines “8 Reasons Why Women Should Play Golf.” Crown Golf’s argument boils down to this: Golf is good exercise that offers women opportunities to socialize and build relationships, wear cool clothes, and get out into the sun and breathe fresh air. Such a pitch may not resonate deeply with men, but women appear to be listening. Crown Golf claims that most of its 25 golf properties have “a higher-than-average percentage of lady members” and that some have a female membership that approaches 20 percent. This is an achievement worth noting, because only about 14 percent of the club members in the U.K. are women.
The San Diego Union-Tribune has documented the incredible shrinking initiation fees at some of Southern California’s premier private clubs. The Bridges in Rancho Santa Fe, which opened in the late 1990s with an initiation fee of $350,000, has cut its entry fee by nearly two-thirds, to $125,000. The levy at the Santaluz Club in San Diego, which charged $140,000 when it opened in 2002, is now $50,000. And the Farms Golf Club in Rancho Santa Fe, where members once paid more than $100,000, attracts just $20,000 today. “We’re out of the recession, really, but we’ve still got the over-saturation,” said Bruce Bennetts, the general manager of the Farms. “We’ve just got too many golf clubs. We need more of them to close, and then everybody would be healthier.” Of course, it’s important to note that lower prices attract members, and the name of the game in golf these days is monthly dues, not initiation fees.
As a result of “the economic downturn, bad weather, and the long-term decline of the sport of golf,” the St. Paul Pioneer Press reports, city-owned courses in Minnesota “are hitting a rough patch.” Citing 2011 figures provided by the state auditor -- the most recent data available, believe it or not -- the newspaper says that only six of the state’s 40 city-owned tracks managed to turn a profit. Collectively, the courses lost $4.7 million in 2011, 20 percent more than they lost in 2009. “It’s a labor of love, not a labor of making money,” notes Tom Ryan, the director of the Minnesota Golf Association. Despite all the red ink, however, at least some of the state’s city-owned golf properties have reason to be optimistic. Because the recession has claimed so many privately owned properties, the municipals expect to benefit from decreased competition.
On a golf course, a little rough goes a long way. Golfers get peeved when they have to waste time plodding through rough in search of their balls, according to a survey of golfers in the United Kingdom by Syngenta. More than 70 percent of the respondents to the survey, which was conducted in 2011, said that it was of “high importance” to find balls quickly, and 56 percent said that the rough on the courses they play is too thick. Syngenta has also determined that slow play is “a frustration for many players,” and that “discontent” begins to set in when rounds last more than three and a half hours.
As well-heeled golfers show a greater willingness to travel, the people who organize and market golf tours are ringing up sales. Tour operators’ revenues grew by 9.3 percent in 2012, their second straight year of growth, and the International Association of Golf Tour Operators expects another increase in 2013. “I believe we can all look forward to a third consecutive year of golf tourism growth,” the group’s CEO said at a recent industry get-together.
The growth of golf in China hasn’t only benefited U.S. designers and builders. E-Z-GO believes that it controls 40 percent of the market for golf cars in the People’s Republic, which has become one of its top five sales territories. “I think there are 500 golf courses in China right now, and we are working with more of them than anyone else,” Kevin Holleran, the company’s president, told China Daily earlier this year. E-Z-GO’s first Chinese customer was Mission Hills Shenzhen, which was an ideal place to start. In China, the average E-Z-GO car reportedly sells for about $7,200.
In Fort Worth, Texas, the future of municipal golf is being debated. The city’s golf operations have been losing money since 2001, reports the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and today the system is $8 million in the hole. What’s more, in 2012 the city’s golf properties -- now down to four, after the closing of Z Boaz Golf Course -- attracted just 142,000 rounds, down by nearly 50 percent from the 274,000 recorded in 1998. So city officials are asking themselves a question familiar to their counterparts from coast to coast: Should we invest in necessary improvements that might generate more play, or should we cut our losses by closing courses or finding private-sector operators for them? We could learn the answer to that question by the end of the year.
Do nine-hole courses sell themselves short? Of the roughly 16,000 golf facilities in the United States, the National Golf Foundation counts about 4,230 nine-hole facilities, 27 percent of the total. On average, the nine-hole layouts charge $23 a round during their peak seasons, less than half of what 18-hole courses charge ($52).
The San Diego Union-Tribune has documented the incredible shrinking initiation fees at some of Southern California’s premier private clubs. The Bridges in Rancho Santa Fe, which opened in the late 1990s with an initiation fee of $350,000, has cut its entry fee by nearly two-thirds, to $125,000. The levy at the Santaluz Club in San Diego, which charged $140,000 when it opened in 2002, is now $50,000. And the Farms Golf Club in Rancho Santa Fe, where members once paid more than $100,000, attracts just $20,000 today. “We’re out of the recession, really, but we’ve still got the over-saturation,” said Bruce Bennetts, the general manager of the Farms. “We’ve just got too many golf clubs. We need more of them to close, and then everybody would be healthier.” Of course, it’s important to note that lower prices attract members, and the name of the game in golf these days is monthly dues, not initiation fees.
As a result of “the economic downturn, bad weather, and the long-term decline of the sport of golf,” the St. Paul Pioneer Press reports, city-owned courses in Minnesota “are hitting a rough patch.” Citing 2011 figures provided by the state auditor -- the most recent data available, believe it or not -- the newspaper says that only six of the state’s 40 city-owned tracks managed to turn a profit. Collectively, the courses lost $4.7 million in 2011, 20 percent more than they lost in 2009. “It’s a labor of love, not a labor of making money,” notes Tom Ryan, the director of the Minnesota Golf Association. Despite all the red ink, however, at least some of the state’s city-owned golf properties have reason to be optimistic. Because the recession has claimed so many privately owned properties, the municipals expect to benefit from decreased competition.
On a golf course, a little rough goes a long way. Golfers get peeved when they have to waste time plodding through rough in search of their balls, according to a survey of golfers in the United Kingdom by Syngenta. More than 70 percent of the respondents to the survey, which was conducted in 2011, said that it was of “high importance” to find balls quickly, and 56 percent said that the rough on the courses they play is too thick. Syngenta has also determined that slow play is “a frustration for many players,” and that “discontent” begins to set in when rounds last more than three and a half hours.
As well-heeled golfers show a greater willingness to travel, the people who organize and market golf tours are ringing up sales. Tour operators’ revenues grew by 9.3 percent in 2012, their second straight year of growth, and the International Association of Golf Tour Operators expects another increase in 2013. “I believe we can all look forward to a third consecutive year of golf tourism growth,” the group’s CEO said at a recent industry get-together.
The growth of golf in China hasn’t only benefited U.S. designers and builders. E-Z-GO believes that it controls 40 percent of the market for golf cars in the People’s Republic, which has become one of its top five sales territories. “I think there are 500 golf courses in China right now, and we are working with more of them than anyone else,” Kevin Holleran, the company’s president, told China Daily earlier this year. E-Z-GO’s first Chinese customer was Mission Hills Shenzhen, which was an ideal place to start. In China, the average E-Z-GO car reportedly sells for about $7,200.
In Fort Worth, Texas, the future of municipal golf is being debated. The city’s golf operations have been losing money since 2001, reports the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and today the system is $8 million in the hole. What’s more, in 2012 the city’s golf properties -- now down to four, after the closing of Z Boaz Golf Course -- attracted just 142,000 rounds, down by nearly 50 percent from the 274,000 recorded in 1998. So city officials are asking themselves a question familiar to their counterparts from coast to coast: Should we invest in necessary improvements that might generate more play, or should we cut our losses by closing courses or finding private-sector operators for them? We could learn the answer to that question by the end of the year.
Do nine-hole courses sell themselves short? Of the roughly 16,000 golf facilities in the United States, the National Golf Foundation counts about 4,230 nine-hole facilities, 27 percent of the total. On average, the nine-hole layouts charge $23 a round during their peak seasons, less than half of what 18-hole courses charge ($52).
Sunday, November 10, 2013
The Week That Was, november 10, 2013
Mike Keiser is one step closer to securing approval for the Gil Hanse-designed golf complex he plans to build in Bandon, Oregon. Bandon Western World reports that the state’s parks and recreation department has recommended approval of the land swap Keiser needs to before he can break ground on what’s become the most talked-about municipal golf property in history. If the state’s parks and recreation commission likewise blesses the project -- it’s scheduled to vote on the matter later this month -- then Keiser will be good to go.
Edwin Watts Golf Shops LLC, which sells golf merchandise in 90 U.S. stores and online, is broke and searching for a buyer. The company filed for bankruptcy protection last week, blaming its financial distress on what Reuters described as “increased competition and waning enthusiasm for the sport.” Sun Capital Partners, the private equity firm that acquired the chain from another private equity firm in 2007, hopes to sell it before the end of the year. Edwin Watts, the Florida golf pro who founded the company in 1968, is said to be among the prospective buyers. “I think the company is going to survive,” he told the Northwestern Florida Daily News, “and we hope to potentially figure out a way to get it back.” Edwin Watts calls itself “the most trusted retailer in the industry.”
Proposals are officially being sought from private-sector groups wishing to build a “world-class” golf resort in a western suburb of Liverpool, England. Only the truly elite need apply, however. Wirral Council, which owns 285 acres in Hoylake, has master-planned the property to include a luxury hotel, meeting space, a spa, some houses, and a golf resort that will lure golfers from around the world. Phil Davies, the council’s leader, expects the resort to become “a landmark destination for golf tourism.” The site buts up to Royal Liverpool Golf Club, and the council expects to select its development partner by July 2014, when Royal Liverpool hosts the 143rd Open Championship. Responses from interested parties are due on November 13, 2013.
The original version of this post first appeared in the November 2013 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
For months, Chinese investors have been buying golf properties on coastal Queensland, Australia. Now they’ve made what the Malaysian Insider calls “the first significant Chinese investment in New Zealand’s tourism sector.” A Shanghai-based group, Shanghai CRED Real Estate, has purchased the 2,790-acre Peppers Carrington resort on the North Island’s Karikari Peninsula. The resort’s amenities include villas, a lodge, vineyards, and an 18-hole golf course that was, in 2003, redesigned by the late Matt Dye. (He was one of Pete Dye’s nephews.) Shanghai CRED plans to market Peppers Carrington to Chinese vacationers looking to lounge on beaches they’ve not yet visited. “Affluent Chinese tourists tend to use Chinese tourist agencies, which in turn prefer to recommend Chinese-owned resorts internationally,” said Guo Gui, Shanghai CRED's general manager. Shanghai CRED describes itself as “China’s largest real estate group.” It bought Peppers Carrington from Paul Kelly, a U.S. investment banker.
A decade or so ago, Russia’s over-excited golf promoters predicted that the nation would open 500 golf facilities -- nine- and 18-hole courses, driving ranges, practice centers -- by 2018. In light of new economic data, however, the federation’s golf dreams may need to be deferred. Russia’s oil boom has ended, and the Putin government now expects to record average annual growth in the neighborhood of just 2.5 percent through 2030. “The factors behind the sharp economic growth in the pre-2008 crisis years are exhausted,” the nation’s economic minister said in a comment published by the Wall Street Journal. As a result of the contracting economy, the newspaper says, “salaries and pensions will rise more slowly,” and consumer spending “will crimp.” If you’re keeping score, KPMG’s Golf Advisory Practice has determined that Russia nowadays has just 16 golf properties -- among them, just seven 18-hole courses -- and a measly 4,500 registered golfers.
Just when you start to believe that the divorce between golf and residential real estate is final, along comes Henry DeLozier to broker a reconciliation.
“As housing continues its recovery,” DeLozier contends in a story for Golf Course Industry, “more golf communities and clubs will be developed because golf courses remain extremely attractive amenities.”
Extremely attractive to whom? The number of U.S. golfers continues to shrink, and evidence suggests that most home buyers nowadays would prefer to live in communities with amenities such as lakes, organic gardens, and hiking paths. Does anyone believe that millions of prospective home buyers who’ve been reading ad nauseam in recent years about golf communities going bankrupt are now itching to buy into one? Today, anyone who really wants to live in a house along a golf course fairway can have his pick of them, from coast to coast.
Taylor Morrison currently has a pair of golf communities under construction in Florida, but are other major home builders planning to build any? Toll Brothers? Del Webb? And if the opportunity would happen to materialize, how many lenders would be willing to finance them?
DeLozier knows the golf and housing industries well, because he used to help develop golf communities for Pulte Homes. In fact, he’s likely had a hand in the development of more golf communities than anyone on earth.
So he knows that precious few U.S. golf communities sold even half of their houses to golfers. The majority of the residents in these communities bought for the views, not the golf, foolishly believing that their sight lines would be forever protected. They learned the hard way. But the next wave of buyers already knows the score. What sort of premium will they be willing to pay for a lot next to an expensive, hardly used amenity that can close on a whim and, under the right conditions, be replaced by rows of townhouses?
“No one wants to see a return to the poor decision-making that led to too many overbuilt markets and under-financed properties,” De Lozier writes.
Agreed. But the problem isn’t simply that golf courses built primarily to sell real estate contributed to overbuilding. The problem is that they were, by and large, lousy layouts -- needlessly difficult, with fairways choked by houses and routings that could only be negotiated with carts. They took the fun out of golf, caused millions to flee the game, and ruined the business for everybody.
DeLozier is right on target when he writes that the housing industry has a crucial impact on “unemployment, consumer confidence, and discretionary spending.” In this general sense, the health of the housing market most certainly affects the golf industry. But in this general sense, it also affects sales at restaurants, movie theaters, sports events, and everything else in our lives.
No matter what the experts may say, the golf industry doesn’t have a special connection to the housing industry. For a few decades in every century, when houses are selling like hotcakes, home builders simply make it seem as if there is.
Billy Casper Golf has secured a contract to operate its second golf property in Florida. The firm has signed a five-year contract to manage Colony West Country Club, a 36-hole municipal facility that’s been closed since August. BCG aims to reopen the complex before the end of the year. “Billy Casper Golf is the best choice to move Colony West forward,” said Michael Cernech, the city manager for the city of Tamarac. “Its extensive experience with these types of projects and powerful marketing platform will re-establish Colony West as a favorite among residents and visitors.” Over the life of the contract, the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel reports, BCG will be paid $497,000 to manage the complex and receive $250,000 for start-up expenses. BCG also operates Eastpoint Country Club in Palm Beach Gardens.
Sequoia Golf’s national expansion plans have reached the Pacific Northwest. The company has been hired to operate Mill Creek Country Club, a financially troubled facility in suburban Seattle, Washington. “They showed a clear understanding of our situation and presented a realistic vision for how they could help the club deal with its issues and move forward,” the club’s treasurer said in a press release. Mill Creek, owned by its members since 2007, has what it’s described as “a financial obligation we will not be able to deal with” -- it involves $100,000 payments due to some of its members -- and has discussed a sale with interested suitors. However, earlier this year it told the News of Mill Creek that it had restructured its debt and now has “at least five more years to build membership.” Sequoia hasn’t announced its strategy for rebuilding the club’s membership, but the press release suggests that it’ll involve its PlayAway program, which will give Mill Creek’s members access to a network of 450 private clubs and resorts in North America.
The pickings were slim, but Golf Digest has managed to find 15 courses worthy of being called the best new tracks of 2013. “Quantity is still down,” writes Ron Whitten, “but quality has never been better.” Whitten’s favorites appear to be the Red and Blue courses at Streamsong in Florida (“the golf destination of the year, maybe the decade”), but he also had nice things to say about Sewailo Golf Club in Arizona (“a fantasyland carved from flat desert”), the Grove in Tennessee (“probably Greg Norman's best American design in years”), and the Resurrection Course at Mystic Creek in Arkansas (“Best course in Arkansas? Someday, maybe”). To supplement the new courses, the magazine also identified 14 noteworthy renovations and redesigns.
Edwin Watts Golf Shops LLC, which sells golf merchandise in 90 U.S. stores and online, is broke and searching for a buyer. The company filed for bankruptcy protection last week, blaming its financial distress on what Reuters described as “increased competition and waning enthusiasm for the sport.” Sun Capital Partners, the private equity firm that acquired the chain from another private equity firm in 2007, hopes to sell it before the end of the year. Edwin Watts, the Florida golf pro who founded the company in 1968, is said to be among the prospective buyers. “I think the company is going to survive,” he told the Northwestern Florida Daily News, “and we hope to potentially figure out a way to get it back.” Edwin Watts calls itself “the most trusted retailer in the industry.”
Proposals are officially being sought from private-sector groups wishing to build a “world-class” golf resort in a western suburb of Liverpool, England. Only the truly elite need apply, however. Wirral Council, which owns 285 acres in Hoylake, has master-planned the property to include a luxury hotel, meeting space, a spa, some houses, and a golf resort that will lure golfers from around the world. Phil Davies, the council’s leader, expects the resort to become “a landmark destination for golf tourism.” The site buts up to Royal Liverpool Golf Club, and the council expects to select its development partner by July 2014, when Royal Liverpool hosts the 143rd Open Championship. Responses from interested parties are due on November 13, 2013.
The original version of this post first appeared in the November 2013 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
For months, Chinese investors have been buying golf properties on coastal Queensland, Australia. Now they’ve made what the Malaysian Insider calls “the first significant Chinese investment in New Zealand’s tourism sector.” A Shanghai-based group, Shanghai CRED Real Estate, has purchased the 2,790-acre Peppers Carrington resort on the North Island’s Karikari Peninsula. The resort’s amenities include villas, a lodge, vineyards, and an 18-hole golf course that was, in 2003, redesigned by the late Matt Dye. (He was one of Pete Dye’s nephews.) Shanghai CRED plans to market Peppers Carrington to Chinese vacationers looking to lounge on beaches they’ve not yet visited. “Affluent Chinese tourists tend to use Chinese tourist agencies, which in turn prefer to recommend Chinese-owned resorts internationally,” said Guo Gui, Shanghai CRED's general manager. Shanghai CRED describes itself as “China’s largest real estate group.” It bought Peppers Carrington from Paul Kelly, a U.S. investment banker.
A decade or so ago, Russia’s over-excited golf promoters predicted that the nation would open 500 golf facilities -- nine- and 18-hole courses, driving ranges, practice centers -- by 2018. In light of new economic data, however, the federation’s golf dreams may need to be deferred. Russia’s oil boom has ended, and the Putin government now expects to record average annual growth in the neighborhood of just 2.5 percent through 2030. “The factors behind the sharp economic growth in the pre-2008 crisis years are exhausted,” the nation’s economic minister said in a comment published by the Wall Street Journal. As a result of the contracting economy, the newspaper says, “salaries and pensions will rise more slowly,” and consumer spending “will crimp.” If you’re keeping score, KPMG’s Golf Advisory Practice has determined that Russia nowadays has just 16 golf properties -- among them, just seven 18-hole courses -- and a measly 4,500 registered golfers.
Just when you start to believe that the divorce between golf and residential real estate is final, along comes Henry DeLozier to broker a reconciliation.
“As housing continues its recovery,” DeLozier contends in a story for Golf Course Industry, “more golf communities and clubs will be developed because golf courses remain extremely attractive amenities.”
Extremely attractive to whom? The number of U.S. golfers continues to shrink, and evidence suggests that most home buyers nowadays would prefer to live in communities with amenities such as lakes, organic gardens, and hiking paths. Does anyone believe that millions of prospective home buyers who’ve been reading ad nauseam in recent years about golf communities going bankrupt are now itching to buy into one? Today, anyone who really wants to live in a house along a golf course fairway can have his pick of them, from coast to coast.
Taylor Morrison currently has a pair of golf communities under construction in Florida, but are other major home builders planning to build any? Toll Brothers? Del Webb? And if the opportunity would happen to materialize, how many lenders would be willing to finance them?
DeLozier knows the golf and housing industries well, because he used to help develop golf communities for Pulte Homes. In fact, he’s likely had a hand in the development of more golf communities than anyone on earth.
So he knows that precious few U.S. golf communities sold even half of their houses to golfers. The majority of the residents in these communities bought for the views, not the golf, foolishly believing that their sight lines would be forever protected. They learned the hard way. But the next wave of buyers already knows the score. What sort of premium will they be willing to pay for a lot next to an expensive, hardly used amenity that can close on a whim and, under the right conditions, be replaced by rows of townhouses?
“No one wants to see a return to the poor decision-making that led to too many overbuilt markets and under-financed properties,” De Lozier writes.
Agreed. But the problem isn’t simply that golf courses built primarily to sell real estate contributed to overbuilding. The problem is that they were, by and large, lousy layouts -- needlessly difficult, with fairways choked by houses and routings that could only be negotiated with carts. They took the fun out of golf, caused millions to flee the game, and ruined the business for everybody.
DeLozier is right on target when he writes that the housing industry has a crucial impact on “unemployment, consumer confidence, and discretionary spending.” In this general sense, the health of the housing market most certainly affects the golf industry. But in this general sense, it also affects sales at restaurants, movie theaters, sports events, and everything else in our lives.
No matter what the experts may say, the golf industry doesn’t have a special connection to the housing industry. For a few decades in every century, when houses are selling like hotcakes, home builders simply make it seem as if there is.
Billy Casper Golf has secured a contract to operate its second golf property in Florida. The firm has signed a five-year contract to manage Colony West Country Club, a 36-hole municipal facility that’s been closed since August. BCG aims to reopen the complex before the end of the year. “Billy Casper Golf is the best choice to move Colony West forward,” said Michael Cernech, the city manager for the city of Tamarac. “Its extensive experience with these types of projects and powerful marketing platform will re-establish Colony West as a favorite among residents and visitors.” Over the life of the contract, the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel reports, BCG will be paid $497,000 to manage the complex and receive $250,000 for start-up expenses. BCG also operates Eastpoint Country Club in Palm Beach Gardens.
Sequoia Golf’s national expansion plans have reached the Pacific Northwest. The company has been hired to operate Mill Creek Country Club, a financially troubled facility in suburban Seattle, Washington. “They showed a clear understanding of our situation and presented a realistic vision for how they could help the club deal with its issues and move forward,” the club’s treasurer said in a press release. Mill Creek, owned by its members since 2007, has what it’s described as “a financial obligation we will not be able to deal with” -- it involves $100,000 payments due to some of its members -- and has discussed a sale with interested suitors. However, earlier this year it told the News of Mill Creek that it had restructured its debt and now has “at least five more years to build membership.” Sequoia hasn’t announced its strategy for rebuilding the club’s membership, but the press release suggests that it’ll involve its PlayAway program, which will give Mill Creek’s members access to a network of 450 private clubs and resorts in North America.
The pickings were slim, but Golf Digest has managed to find 15 courses worthy of being called the best new tracks of 2013. “Quantity is still down,” writes Ron Whitten, “but quality has never been better.” Whitten’s favorites appear to be the Red and Blue courses at Streamsong in Florida (“the golf destination of the year, maybe the decade”), but he also had nice things to say about Sewailo Golf Club in Arizona (“a fantasyland carved from flat desert”), the Grove in Tennessee (“probably Greg Norman's best American design in years”), and the Resurrection Course at Mystic Creek in Arkansas (“Best course in Arkansas? Someday, maybe”). To supplement the new courses, the magazine also identified 14 noteworthy renovations and redesigns.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
