Economy Takes Toll on Golf Courses
The faltering economy is sparing nobody – and golf courses, which were taking it on the chin in the good times – continue to fall. The National Golf Foundation expects less than 85 courses to open in 2008, the lowest in 20 years. It also expects around 100 golf courses to close. That’s the third straight year of more courses closing than opening.
In the good times, golf courses were getting rezoned and bulldozed for shopping centers and subdivisions. Now, the economy is taking a bite out of them on the other side – this time, simply closing down.
As is the case with many architects in today’s economy, the only action is overseas.
Consider Rick Jacobson, a golf course architect in Libertyville, Ill. For nearly two decades, the founder of Jacobson Golf Course Design designed and renovated courses in Chicago suburbs, such as Bloomingdale and Winnetka, as well as nationally. But in the last few years, Jacobson – who has worked with Jack Nicklaus on a number of projects – has focused on a new market: China.
Last month, Jacobson agreed to design a 27-hole course in Hong Kong. It’s his third venture in China, following the 36-hole Lion’s Lake Resort course near Guangzhou and Chaozhou, an 18-hole resort course.
”In the foreseeable future we won’t see growth like the 1990s in the U.S. again,” said Jacobson, who also agreed to design a course in the Italian province of Calabria this year. “Some of the projects were ill-conceived. Some courses were just a temporary fad until they could flip it to a developer.”
The unfortunate part of the current situation is that there must be a lot of architects without work. The list here on EarthGolf contains more than 240 architects currently in the business. Granted, some of them are not in the US and some work together in firms, but with just 80 courses opening in the US last year and almost certainly fewer next year, times could not be more difficult for golf course architects.
Davis Love III, who is also in the golf course design business, had this to say about the economy.
As one of my friends has been saying, he says, I planned for a slow down; not a meltdown. You know, I don’t think we can predict, because what we were predicting six months ago what were predicting in our golf design business what we predicted six months ago we’ve completely thrown out the window.
Now we run them down. Okay, we’re going to project zero that way we won’t miss. So who knows where it’s going to go. I’d love to sit down with Greg and say, all right, and Arnie and Jack who are all in the same kind of business, like, What do you project? Same with the Del Webb guys. What do you guys project? Nobody has anything good to say. I don’t know.
Some of the publicly built courses over the past few years are beginning to see some major pushback. Take the case of the Neshanic Valley Golf Course in New Jersey, a 27-hole course designed by Hurdzan/Fry and opened 2004 and 2005. The county spent over $19 million on the golf courses and now they’ve got trouble as the rounds at the golf course have fallen off sharply. Revenue for the facility is $3.7 million a year, down nearly $200,000 from the previous year.
Even high end courses, like the Tom Fazio designed Hasentree Golf Course near Raleigh, North Carolina, couldn’t escape the collapsing residential real estate market. It is facing foreclosure – and it was a project expected to be worth in excess of $1 billion when complete.
It is likely to be a rough go for the next several years in the golf course industry. It will be interesting to see where things go and how the market will respond to the ecomoic meltdown. As golf course architect Mike Nuzzo points out in this post, it is possible to build a very good golf course under budget. However, it takes an old way of thinking – looking to the property to define the golf course instead of dictating to the property where the golf course should go. It also takes an architect actually concerned about the costs and committed to designing for a budget, something the big name architects have never had to do. That is almost certainly going to change going forward.
6 Holes of Golf, 12 Holes of Golf. Have you ever heard anyone say, “I
had a great 6 hole round, shot a 28.” Consider the time, the cost and the lack of any golfers attention span these days, why not 6 holes.
Warm up with a bag of 40 balls at the range, chip and putt 15-20
minutes, play 6 holes, grab lunch and get home and finish cleaning out
the garage you promised you would do ten years ago. Think about it. A
6 hole course and 12 station practice range with a pitching and putting
area, small golf shop and eating area on 40 acres of land that most cities can afford. Maybe that’s any entry and exit point for most golfers. Then they graduate from their to a full 18 hole course.