A hard time for Arizona golf courses

Recently, Arizona golf courses face a quite tough conditions that too many places to tee off, but too few players. The following articles will make some detailed analysis on this problem.

As the commercial-real-estate crisis worsens in Arizona, many golf-course owners find themselves deep in the rough and struggling to stay in the game.
About a dozen golf courses in the state have gone through foreclosure or bankrupt since commercial properties started facing serious financial problems in 2008, according to Mesa-based real-estate-analysis firm Ion Data, and many others have been listed for sale.

So far, only about 5 percent of Arizona's roughly 340 golf courses have exhibited overt signs of financial trouble, experts said, while the number of "at-risk" courses across the U.S. is closer to 15 percent.

Roger Garrett of Phoenix-based Insight Land & Investments said golf-course owners are getting hit from all sides: Tourism is down, fewer locals are playing, water and labor costs are up.And too much competition has forced course owners to lower membership fees and greens fees.

Adding to those challenges is a decision by some lenders to place golf courses on their "toxic-asset list," he said, which means they won't consider lending money for a golf property under any circumstances.

For many Arizona golfers, the net result of these troubles is a positive one: Most courses have lowered their fees, and several members-only clubs have opened their doors to the public.

Two years ago, they would have been at least twice that much, Kufner said.

"The fact that I can play the Biltmore for $55 in December, it blows my mind," he said.

But there is a potential downside, particularly for homeowners in master-planned communities built around private golf courses.

With the real-estate recovery still moving at a glacial pace and golf revenue on the decline, some courses inside subdivisions are liable to close.

When a real-estate-development golf course closes, homeowners can end up living alongside an overgrown field, Garrett said.

"There's going to be 6-foot weeds outside their back door," he said.

Tony Kingsbaker, vice president of the Arizona Golf Association, said he believes outright closures will be rare in Arizona, but residents of high-end private golf communities probably can expect to see the course go public, as some already have.

"These people who bought into this high-end exclusive club, they're now having to play with Charlie Six-Pack," Kingsbaker said.
Hope our discount golf clubs can bring good luck to those golf-course owners.