Courses in financial trouble or closing?

golfinFF

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With the exception of destination areas for golf are you seeing/hearing of courses closing or just struggling financially.

I've heard the rumblings of financial trouble from several courses near me and one that will be closing its doors next yr.

Several of out private clubs have gone public or semi public in the last several yrs.
 
Yep. Of the 8 courses in my county one has been foreclosed on and is bank owned, another has closed then reopened and is on the verge of closing again, another is being sold on Nov 1 with no news of if it will stay a course or not and a Muni that has never made a profit but the city keeps it anyways. The golf business is very cutthroat right now.
 
The courses in my area are a little more sparsely located than around larger cities with the exception of Sea Island and the rest of coastal Georgia which is a major resort area. My home course use to be private but I guess that were struggling or decided to be greedy because once they opened to the public on a semi-private basis, they really started raking it in. There are one or two courses in my area that have opened and closed a couple of times but most have remained steady so far. The islands seem to always have plenty of business.
 
We have a surplus of golf courses here in KC, and while the five courses our owner has are doing ok, it would sure help if about 10 or 15 other courses would close! A surplus of courses is good for the golfer short-term for rates, but it sucks for courses who have to cut rates way below what they need to be to keep the courses up to the standards the people want. Then the golfers have to deal with courses with rough that is too long (or bare), greens and tees that are too hard and fairways that have either no grass or the grass is too tall. But the consumer wants a deal, so this is what they have to deal with.
 
Not aware of any closing but several seem to be struggling and have seen price decreases for greens fees and their maintenance seems to be in shambles
 
Not aware of any closing but several seem to be struggling and have seen price decreases for greens fees and their maintenance seems to be in shambles

Very much this.

Although a friend of mine who worked inca senior role for Billy Casper Golf until recently, said it won't be long before a lot of course are in serious trouble.
 
This is probably one of the largest differences between golf in Canada and the U.S. - I can think of at least 25 courses within a one hour drive of home yet the green fee prices don't reflect the excess supply vs. the demand. For example, our "average" green fee is about $ 60.00. Most courses are at least $ 80 if you want to ride. I can think of one course in Toronto that goes for $ 180; they guarantee a four hour round and it's easy to figure out why.

I know from experience at my home course (where I am a member) they have added a promotion this year where you play four rounds and the fifth is free. On average when we finish on a weekend morning the parking lot is at most 1/3 full unless we have a tournament. We lost approximately 70 members this year. While we're not in any risk financially (from what I can tell) that's still a big hit to the bottom line.

I've been saying for years that courses are going to have to drop their fees, but it hasn't happened. An empty tee time is lost revenue forever, but I guess they would rather have that than be known as a "cheap" course.
 
The course near me seems more crowded than I would like and yet they failed to secure a bank loan (banks dont want golf courses) just to operate while now trying to sell bonds just to cover the bonds maturing from past years.
 
The two part article below sums up most of the issues pretty well in our area including the struggles of the muni-courses and the fact the City of St. Paul has started to hire private management companies to run theirs. Having said that my home course seems to be thriving and has actually invested quite a bit into improvements over the last few years.

http://www.startribune.com/sports/golf/271544211.html
 
This is probably one of the largest differences between golf in Canada and the U.S. - I can think of at least 25 courses within a one hour drive of home yet the green fee prices don't reflect the excess supply vs. the demand. For example, our "average" green fee is about $ 60.00. Most courses are at least $ 80 if you want to ride. I can think of one course in Toronto that goes for $ 180; they guarantee a four hour round and it's easy to figure out why.

I know from experience at my home course (where I am a member) they have added a promotion this year where you play four rounds and the fifth is free. On average when we finish on a weekend morning the parking lot is at most 1/3 full unless we have a tournament. We lost approximately 70 members this year. While we're not in any risk financially (from what I can tell) that's still a big hit to the bottom line.

I've been saying for years that courses are going to have to drop their fees, but it hasn't happened. An empty tee time is lost revenue forever, but I guess they would rather have that than be known as a "cheap" course.

At those prices it's no wonder they are having trouble, I agree a empty tee time is just money lost and no other way to look at it.
 
Most courses around here are doing well comparatively speaking. The city owned courses have been aggressive in their budgets and in some cases their prices. About the only course I think is struggling never really had a shot to begin with. It was built in a failed housing development and those financial issues contributed to both a lack of maintenance and a lack of marketing. It's still hanging in there though for now.
 
Quite a few of the private clubs around me have fantastic deals going on to join. Most have dropped the initiation fee entirely, a few are offering 18 mos for the price of 12, and at least one is working directly with a local bank to offer an attractive loan to cover a decreased initiation fee and a years' dues.

My course is fortunate to have a 5 - year waiting list, a very robust associate member list, reasonable yearly dues, and a good amount of public play (it's semi - private) but we are the exception to the rule. Also our course is in really good condition.
 
Courses here are raking it in, but they won't tell you that. Average green fee on a weekend is 70 with no cart at pretty much every course. No GolfNow deals to be had either.
 
I heard courses are struggling around here, volume is down.
 
In this area many golf courses are associated with housing developments. When the housing boom ended many courses had problems. A few closed, some had maintenance issues and some changed hands and many went from private to semi-private.

At our club we went semi-private, the club was taken over by a new developer and a planned 9 hole addition has been abandoned.

Our course conditions are OK and a lot of effort is being put in but big ticket items are a ways off.
 
We've lost a couple of courses that I really enjoyed playing down here. They had a ton of potential, but just couldn't get the people on the course to get it through. There's another one near here that I've heard is about to shut down, so I've gone out and played it a couple of times recently just to get a few more rounds out there in case they do.
 
We had one muni close recently. The city wanted to use the land for an outlet mall. It's been closed for about 2 months now...the city counsel is still debating on the mall. It wasn't exactly a resort course...but there are not many cheap courses around here and that was one of them.
I'm more than willing to sacrafice great conditions for lower price. But now I have to drive about 40min and cross state lines to find somewhere to play for less than $40.
 
We had the only public course in our community of 42,000 close in 2010. Many of the private courses in the Sacramento area were forced to go semi-private or public when the economy tanked in the fall of 2008. Initiation fees at my club went from $42,000 in 2007 to $5,000 in 2011. Now they are back up to $20,000. We had about 120 golf membership out of 400 turnover but there is a waiting list again. The general manager at our club told us that in 2012 only 2 private course in the area were in the black for the year and in 2013 it was up to 5 clubs. The greens fees and availability of tee times is certainly better than it was 5 years ago. A couple buddies that belong to private clubs in the San Francisco area tell me that they didn't go through the same downturn or reduction of initiation fees, but the economy in the Bay Area stayed much stronger during the downturn with all the growth in the Silicon Valley.
 
The on-post course here at Fort Huachuca, which is also a public course, was recently named the least financially viable Army golf course in the country. Several years ago, someone decided to execute a grand water-restriction plan by drastically reducing the width of the course, as well as some other changes. Water consumption was reduced, but the place is simply no fun to golf on. Rumors swirl that it will eventually close, but I doubt it will happen.

The muni up in Benson, despite being a very nice course, is looking for offers to buy it from the city, but it's not a nice enough course/location for someone to justify turning it into a private or semi-private facility. That would be the second course to close up in Benson in 5 years, and they'd have no golf, despite being in a nice area just off the highway and away from Tucson. It would stink if the nicest public course within an hour's drive shuts down.
 
The on-post course here at Fort Huachuca, which is also a public course, was recently named the least financially viable Army golf course in the country. Several years ago, someone decided to execute a grand water-restriction plan by drastically reducing the width of the course, as well as some other changes. Water consumption was reduced, but the place is simply no fun to golf on. Rumors swirl that it will eventually close, but I doubt it will happen.

The muni up in Benson, despite being a very nice course, is looking for offers to buy it from the city, but it's not a nice enough course/location for someone to justify turning it into a private or semi-private facility. That would be the second course to close up in Benson in 5 years, and they'd have no golf, despite being in a nice area just off the highway and away from Tucson. It would stink if the nicest public course within an hour's drive shuts down.
Sad to hear this. I used to enjoy the rare opportunities I had to play Huachuca. The course used to be down right 'plush' back in the day, especially considering mother nature almost never watered her. We used to joke that Congress was somehow giving the Army a sweeter water budget dealio than the Air Force. You guys are in a pretty remote location there and amenities like a nice golf course are just all the more important because of it. Hopefully things work out.
 
We have a surplus of golf courses here in KC, and while the five courses our owner has are doing ok, it would sure help if about 10 or 15 other courses would close! A surplus of courses is good for the golfer short-term for rates, but it sucks for courses who have to cut rates way below what they need to be to keep the courses up to the standards the people want. Then the golfers have to deal with courses with rough that is too long (or bare), greens and tees that are too hard and fairways that have either no grass or the grass is too tall. But the consumer wants a deal, so this is what they have to deal with.

I am not sure I agree with this all that much. The courses I play don't have these issues. Adams Pointe, Swope, Deer Creek, Falcon, Tiffany, Shoal Creek are all in great shape this year and many of them charge not much more than painted hills does.
 
I am not sure I agree with this all that much. The courses I play don't have these issues. Adams Pointe, Swope, Deer Creek, Falcon, Tiffany, Shoal Creek are all in great shape this year and many of them charge not much more than painted hills does.

I've only played Tiffany Greens on that list this year, and it could have been in better shape when we played it. Greens looked like every other green around with many ball marks and the sand traps were washed out. They were either water hazards or hard pan. Of course, we only played it a month ago, and it had just rained real good the week before. Doesn't explain the no sand in the bunkers however.

But courses that have higher greens fees (before discounts, because a lot of people don't pay discounts) are going to be in better shape as a general rule, or should be. Just because they have the discounts doesn't mean they are selling all of their greens fees at that price. Painted doesn't, but they also don't have $60 greens fees to start with (Tiffany's are $68 on weekends).
 
I am not sure I agree with this all that much. The courses I play don't have these issues. Adams Pointe, Swope, Deer Creek, Falcon, Tiffany, Shoal Creek are all in great shape this year and many of them charge not much more than painted hills does.
Man I wish I was back living in KC! I loved the courses there - Shoal Creek was my favorite and the place I took the majority of my lessons. Brett Plymell is a heck of an instructor (at least for guys that hit on the wrong side of the ball like me).

When the recession hit, there were a couple of long established clubs 3 miles from me that I could have joined with zero initiation (one was close to $50k pre-resession) but now the initiation fees are back and they seem to be doing okay. Better management helped tremendously as there were several non-essential positions eliminated and responsibilities combined to streamline operations. The only club that I can recall that went belly up was The Legends, but it recently re-opened and continues to be private.

One thing I have noticed is that there are few courses that are now $50+ per round in St. Louis. The same places that charged $75 to $100 per round 8 years ago are now charging $34 to $60 per round.
 
Thanks for the comments guys and just as I suspected that the were hit pretty good by the recession are the ones that seen course close or offer cheaper rates.

Here locally we were hit pretty hard and things still haven't bounced back and it's why our courses are still taking a beating and struggling to stay open.

One course just offered up 3,6,9,12&15 hole deals to try and get more people out to play and to combat the fall schedule everyone is on
 
That's the first time I've heard of 3 holes of golf. Obviously not for those already spoiled by 18, but probably a great deal for a family just passing through on a limited budget.
 
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