While America is building golf courses like mad in places with a reasonable, much less highly profitable tourist trade, go figure out why Miami, Florida is closing courses. Developers want the land to build houses, or in the case of one course near me, a retirement community. Three courses I used to play a lot have closed in the past few years. Local government just doesn't seem to think golf is an activity that attracts tourists. Personally, I don't get it.
And, a fourth course with 27 holes, owned by the Miccosukee Indian Tribe is "sort of" on the market. It's a matter of common knowledge they have wanted to sell at least 9 holes, if not the whole thing, for many years now.
Here's the real issue though. Two of the courses that closed had covenants with the homeowners who live in homes with the course in their backyards.
In both cases, politics and money came into play and the covenants were broken. It all comes down to corruption in the courts, the simple ability to pay off a judge for a favorable ruling. Some judges who were investigated were found guilty and removed from the bench. One was even sent to prison for something like 7 years, but by the time these investigations and court processes are done, it's generally too late to save the course, because construction to whatever the developer wants to do has started. Nobody stops it while the investigations and court case is going on.
Killian Greens, the course I play most, also has a covenant. I'm not sure how much longer it goes on, but the owner wants to build more homes on the course. Unlike other course owners, he has made a big effort to improve what was a dog track into a much improved golf course. He has also realigned pricing and made "deals" like $30 for 18 holes with a cart all day on Wednesdays. In short, he's trying to make a profit on volume of play at a less profitable rate per person and it's working. Now he offers the same deal on Monday too, which was the deadest day of the week before.
The deals became so popular, to attract more players, business on other days of the week improved too.
None of the owners of courses who broke the covenant even tried to improve business. A lot of us are hoping the owner at Killian Greens will make KG so successful he decides he wants to keep it as a golf course and ditch the idea of developing the property. I'd say odds are small, since new homes in that neighborhood might bring $600,000 at current prices, obviously more into the future. I've heard varied numbers for how many homes he thinks he could build, but it seems to be between 50-60 homes. Even at a current home value around $600,000, that could land him something like $30,000,000 plus. I seriously doubt the course bills more than $2,000,000 a year gross, so I expect KG to disappear someday.
