Golf Course Closings Skyrocket
The main article in the USA Today package relates:
The golf industry's mantra during the Tiger boom was "a new course every day." That's switched to a couple of closings every week.Seventeen golf courses in Myrtle Beach, S.C., alone have closed, including one that once hosted an LPGA Tour event.Golf course openings fell from a peak of 398.5 in 2000 to 124.5 last year when measured in 18-hole equivalents, the National Golf Foundation reports. During that time, course closings soared from 23 to a record 93.5 last year.
When courses temporarily closed for renovation are included, the USA had fewer golf courses open at the end of 2005 than a year earlier — the first year-to-year decline since 1945.
Golfers still have plenty of places to play: 16,052 courses nationwide.
"Golf courses aren't generating the returns people like to see," says Mike Hughes, chief executive of the National Golf Course Owners Association. "The land has appreciated so much in value that it makes abundant economic sense to turn the property over to other uses."
Local governments often support the redevelopment because it brings in more tax revenue than a golf course.
Be sure to read the sidebar, too, on how cities are generating more tax revenues by converting golf courses into more lucrative developments.
Comments
Tiger’s impact on the game of golf has been more than making already rich developers richer. If golf courses are closing, you can bet, the richer or still getting richer. Tiger’s lasting impact on the game of golf will be in the lives of young people who reach their full potential through education and self-worth.
Kudos to JA Kline’s perceptive comment. Course closings might just have more to do with +$100.00 green fees than the backlash of the “Tiger Effect”. When was the last time you could walk onto a
People are leaving and have left the game in large numbers. They have realized golf is 1. not easy 2. expensive 3. time consuming.