Florida Golf Course Closing Drives A Wedge
Sandy Wilkov almost feels as if she's visiting a dying friend.
American Golfers Club's pitch-and-putt and executive courses have been closed for six months. Though still mowed, they're little more than browned-out jungles, the grass parched to straw, with thistles and weeds sprouting everywhere.
The clubhouse is shut down.
Only the driving range remains open.
Wilkov is as angry as she is sad that the club she loved is deteriorating and in danger of disappearing if a proposed residential development plan meets City of Fort Lauderdale and Broward County approval.
All across Broward, affordable and family-friendly golf facilities like American are closing in nearly epidemic proportions. So are driving ranges. It's part of a national trend.
"I'm devastated by what's happened to this place," says Wilkov, 72, a Fort Lauderdale resident who played American regularly with her husband, Herb. "It's a shame they've allowed it to dilapidate like this because it was so much more than a golf course. It was a community-gathering place. ... "This is a place worth saving."
That's exactly what the devoted regulars at American Golfers Club are organizing to try to do.
"We'll fight this tooth and nail," says Mickey James, 75, who has been playing at American since it opened in 1958.
It's more than a fight to preserve American. It's a struggle to hold on to a fading golf culture.
Executive, par-3 courses and public driving ranges appear to be going the way of drive-in root beer stands and carhops.
This is significant because though facilities like these are typically not as profitable as high-end resort courses and exclusive country clubs, they are feeder systems that serve as investments in golf's future.
"You lose too many courses like American, places friendly to kids and beginners, and you're going to hurt your pipeline to the game," says Jeff Wilson, former South Florida PGA Southern Chapter president.
There are thriving public and municipal golf courses in Broward, just not as many.
"It's not all doom and gloom," says Bob Klitz, general manager of Hollywood's Orangebrook Golf Course, a city-owned facility with two 18-hole courses. "Our junior program's loaded up with kids. Just because we have championship courses doesn't mean we aren't a feeder system."
Closings on the rise
Still, the National Golf Foundation delivered some sobering news about public golf in its latest Golf Industry Report released this spring.
According to the NGF, 93.5 golf courses closed in the United States last year, the most closings in a single year since the foundation began keeping statistics in 1936.
Notably, 88 percent of the closings were daily-fee courses. Significantly, those closings were "disproportionately executive and par-3 courses."
The NGF also reports that 2005 featured the fewest openings of new courses in 20 years.
These facts contribute to the NGF's finding that for the first time since 1945 the total number of courses open for play in the United States decreased. There were 16,052 open in 2004, 16,047 in 2005.
American Golfers Club, on north Federal Highway, is the only public-access golf course in Fort Lauderdale, but it's privately owned by the same partnership that bought adjacent Coral Ridge Country Club 18 months ago.
Phil Smith, the majority owner of Coral Ridge Golf Course, Inc., and his partners are proposing to build 61 million-dollar homes in the center of the 210-acre green space that makes up Coral Ridge and American. The plan calls for most of the country club's back nine to be torn up and re-routed to the west, around a proposed 39-acre housing development. The new back nine would run through what is now American Golfers Club.
The land-use and zoning changes won't occur without a challenge as American's regulars have organized with the help of Ray Novak, a retired Pennsylvania state trial judge who lives near the first tee of American's executive course.
"What we had here at American was more than golf," Novak says. "It was a beautiful experience. We've had so many kids play here, kids with their parents. It was a great place for families to come play together. That's what really made it a special place."
Clubs like American bring the rich man's game to the masses, to people who can't afford country club dues.
Executive and par-3 courses, many with driving ranges, are especially popular with juniors and beginners, with seniors wanting shorter tracks to walk and with working-class players wanting affordable green fees.
You could play American's executive course for as little as $15.
"Some people dismiss this as just a golf issue, but American's a park," James said. "It's a place where the public can enjoy recreation."
The 70 acres that make up American are designated as park/open space, but that doesn't preclude Coral Ridge's owners from converting the open space to private use. Smith is not seeking city approval to change that designation, only the 39 acres his group wants to convert to residential.
Valuable land
NGF statistics show more daily-fee clubs are struggling with golf participation on the decline. That's particularly evident in the number of closings in Broward County, where developers are increasingly on the lookout for courses to bulldoze and build homes.
When Raintree Golf Club in Pembroke Pines closes next year, it will become the 11th daily-fee course to close in the last 10 years.
More than a quarter of the courses open for public play in Broward County have closed over the last decade, or turned private. Notably, most of the closings were executive or community courses.
There are 31 publicly accessible clubs open in the county today.
"The land in South Florida is so valuable to develop, and there's almost no land left," says Johnny LaPonzina, president of Professional Course Management, which operates 13 public and semi-private courses in South Florida. "It's getting to where just about the only open spaces are golf courses, and developers are willing to pay big prices to get the land."
Raintree is closing to make way for a gated community of 103 million-dollar homes. Sabal Palm and Monterey in Tamarac closed this spring to be redeveloped as home sites. There's a similar plan for Hillcrest Executive in Hollywood, which closed May 1. Eagle Woods has shut down in Miramar and is being studied for similar development. So is Eagle Lakes in Margate. Crystal Lake North, the former Tam O'Shanter Golf Club, Broken Woods in Coral Springs and Inverrary's Executive Course in Lauderhill also are among closings. Rolling Hills in Davie went private as Grande Oaks Golf Club.
Plantation Preserve just opened, but TPC at Heron Bay is the only other public-access course to open in Broward in the last 10 years.
Profits in decline
American, like so many of the other smaller daily-fee courses in South Florida, hasn't bustled with the kind of business it used to have.
John Foster, the general manager at Coral Ridge until the club's sale in 2004, said American always turned a profit in his 6-year run there, but those profits were in a steady annual decline.
J.J. Sehlke, Coral Ridge's managing partner, declined a request to make American's financial figures public but said rounds are down 20 percent on the executive course over the last four years, nearly 50 percent on the pitch-and-putt and 10 percent on the driving range.
Also, he said the price of hurricane insurance has skyrocketed since designer Robert Trent Jones' family sold the club, as have fuel and chemical costs.
Smith says he understands the disappointment of American's devotees, but he didn't make the decision to close the course rashly. He says he studied the club's viability for more than a year before deciding public golf didn't make financial sense.
"We wanted to evaluate what was best, to take a look at whether public golf works," Smith says. "We were trying to make that decision when Hurricane Wilma hit."
Smith and his partners never re-opened the executive or pitch-and-putt courses after Wilma knocked down trees and damaged its aging irrigation system.
American regulars have grumbled that Hurricane Wilma gave Smith and his partners a convenient excuse to shut down the facility and pursue a plan to make millions off their proposed housing development.
"Convenient? Yeah, right, we wanted a hurricane," Smith says. "That's kind of a slap in the face. I'm still fighting with Citizen's Insurance. We still have issues we haven't resolved here. We lost 400 trees. I've got issues at all my dealerships. I've suffered $15 million in damage at all my buildings. If anyone wants to call that convenient to my face, we can talk about it.
"Wilma did accelerate our decision. The hurricane facilitated us asking ourselves, `Do we want to invest a significant amount of money back into American, which over a year's time proved a failed business plan? Or did we want to go forward with a very limited development and improve Coral Ridge?'
"At American, we thought maybe we could improve upon what the Joneses were doing before we took over. We ended up finding they were tapping the market as well as you could on the public side of golf. It just isn't financially viable."
Novak thinks American makes great sense as a truly public golf facility, where breaking even while serving a larger community interest is a reasonable and worthy pursuit. In fact, there are eminent domain issues popping up from New York to Los Angeles, where cities or counties are trying to seize golf courses. In some cases, it's to clear the way for development, while in others it's to protect them from development. Notably, Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens is a Coral Ridge Country Club member.
Fort Lauderdale City Commissioner Christine Teel asked that the city study purchasing the property from the Jones family three years ago, but City Manager Floyd Johnson returned saying his analysis showed purchasing and operating the club would not be financially feasible.
"It would be an interesting question," Mayor Jim Naugle said speaking generally about what interest the city might have in owning any public golf course. "You would have to have a referendum and a bond issue. Would people vote to raise taxes to buy a golf course?"
It's a question American's regulars would like to ask citizens. It's a question Smith and Coral Ridge's owners have no interest asking.
"I hate to say this, but public golf is not my job," Smith says. "At the end of the day, we think our plans are best for the Coral Ridge community. The only losers are those who depended on American for public golf."
American Golfers Club's pitch-and-putt and executive courses have been closed for six months. Though still mowed, they're little more than browned-out jungles, the grass parched to straw, with thistles and weeds sprouting everywhere.
The clubhouse is shut down.
Only the driving range remains open.
Wilkov is as angry as she is sad that the club she loved is deteriorating and in danger of disappearing if a proposed residential development plan meets City of Fort Lauderdale and Broward County approval.
All across Broward, affordable and family-friendly golf facilities like American are closing in nearly epidemic proportions. So are driving ranges. It's part of a national trend.
"I'm devastated by what's happened to this place," says Wilkov, 72, a Fort Lauderdale resident who played American regularly with her husband, Herb. "It's a shame they've allowed it to dilapidate like this because it was so much more than a golf course. It was a community-gathering place. ... "This is a place worth saving."
That's exactly what the devoted regulars at American Golfers Club are organizing to try to do.
"We'll fight this tooth and nail," says Mickey James, 75, who has been playing at American since it opened in 1958.
It's more than a fight to preserve American. It's a struggle to hold on to a fading golf culture.
Executive, par-3 courses and public driving ranges appear to be going the way of drive-in root beer stands and carhops.
This is significant because though facilities like these are typically not as profitable as high-end resort courses and exclusive country clubs, they are feeder systems that serve as investments in golf's future.
"You lose too many courses like American, places friendly to kids and beginners, and you're going to hurt your pipeline to the game," says Jeff Wilson, former South Florida PGA Southern Chapter president.
There are thriving public and municipal golf courses in Broward, just not as many.
"It's not all doom and gloom," says Bob Klitz, general manager of Hollywood's Orangebrook Golf Course, a city-owned facility with two 18-hole courses. "Our junior program's loaded up with kids. Just because we have championship courses doesn't mean we aren't a feeder system."
Closings on the rise
Still, the National Golf Foundation delivered some sobering news about public golf in its latest Golf Industry Report released this spring.
According to the NGF, 93.5 golf courses closed in the United States last year, the most closings in a single year since the foundation began keeping statistics in 1936.
Notably, 88 percent of the closings were daily-fee courses. Significantly, those closings were "disproportionately executive and par-3 courses."
The NGF also reports that 2005 featured the fewest openings of new courses in 20 years.
These facts contribute to the NGF's finding that for the first time since 1945 the total number of courses open for play in the United States decreased. There were 16,052 open in 2004, 16,047 in 2005.
American Golfers Club, on north Federal Highway, is the only public-access golf course in Fort Lauderdale, but it's privately owned by the same partnership that bought adjacent Coral Ridge Country Club 18 months ago.
Phil Smith, the majority owner of Coral Ridge Golf Course, Inc., and his partners are proposing to build 61 million-dollar homes in the center of the 210-acre green space that makes up Coral Ridge and American. The plan calls for most of the country club's back nine to be torn up and re-routed to the west, around a proposed 39-acre housing development. The new back nine would run through what is now American Golfers Club.
The land-use and zoning changes won't occur without a challenge as American's regulars have organized with the help of Ray Novak, a retired Pennsylvania state trial judge who lives near the first tee of American's executive course.
"What we had here at American was more than golf," Novak says. "It was a beautiful experience. We've had so many kids play here, kids with their parents. It was a great place for families to come play together. That's what really made it a special place."
Clubs like American bring the rich man's game to the masses, to people who can't afford country club dues.
Executive and par-3 courses, many with driving ranges, are especially popular with juniors and beginners, with seniors wanting shorter tracks to walk and with working-class players wanting affordable green fees.
You could play American's executive course for as little as $15.
"Some people dismiss this as just a golf issue, but American's a park," James said. "It's a place where the public can enjoy recreation."
The 70 acres that make up American are designated as park/open space, but that doesn't preclude Coral Ridge's owners from converting the open space to private use. Smith is not seeking city approval to change that designation, only the 39 acres his group wants to convert to residential.
Valuable land
NGF statistics show more daily-fee clubs are struggling with golf participation on the decline. That's particularly evident in the number of closings in Broward County, where developers are increasingly on the lookout for courses to bulldoze and build homes.
When Raintree Golf Club in Pembroke Pines closes next year, it will become the 11th daily-fee course to close in the last 10 years.
More than a quarter of the courses open for public play in Broward County have closed over the last decade, or turned private. Notably, most of the closings were executive or community courses.
There are 31 publicly accessible clubs open in the county today.
"The land in South Florida is so valuable to develop, and there's almost no land left," says Johnny LaPonzina, president of Professional Course Management, which operates 13 public and semi-private courses in South Florida. "It's getting to where just about the only open spaces are golf courses, and developers are willing to pay big prices to get the land."
Raintree is closing to make way for a gated community of 103 million-dollar homes. Sabal Palm and Monterey in Tamarac closed this spring to be redeveloped as home sites. There's a similar plan for Hillcrest Executive in Hollywood, which closed May 1. Eagle Woods has shut down in Miramar and is being studied for similar development. So is Eagle Lakes in Margate. Crystal Lake North, the former Tam O'Shanter Golf Club, Broken Woods in Coral Springs and Inverrary's Executive Course in Lauderhill also are among closings. Rolling Hills in Davie went private as Grande Oaks Golf Club.
Plantation Preserve just opened, but TPC at Heron Bay is the only other public-access course to open in Broward in the last 10 years.
Profits in decline
American, like so many of the other smaller daily-fee courses in South Florida, hasn't bustled with the kind of business it used to have.
John Foster, the general manager at Coral Ridge until the club's sale in 2004, said American always turned a profit in his 6-year run there, but those profits were in a steady annual decline.
J.J. Sehlke, Coral Ridge's managing partner, declined a request to make American's financial figures public but said rounds are down 20 percent on the executive course over the last four years, nearly 50 percent on the pitch-and-putt and 10 percent on the driving range.
Also, he said the price of hurricane insurance has skyrocketed since designer Robert Trent Jones' family sold the club, as have fuel and chemical costs.
Smith says he understands the disappointment of American's devotees, but he didn't make the decision to close the course rashly. He says he studied the club's viability for more than a year before deciding public golf didn't make financial sense.
"We wanted to evaluate what was best, to take a look at whether public golf works," Smith says. "We were trying to make that decision when Hurricane Wilma hit."
Smith and his partners never re-opened the executive or pitch-and-putt courses after Wilma knocked down trees and damaged its aging irrigation system.
American regulars have grumbled that Hurricane Wilma gave Smith and his partners a convenient excuse to shut down the facility and pursue a plan to make millions off their proposed housing development.
"Convenient? Yeah, right, we wanted a hurricane," Smith says. "That's kind of a slap in the face. I'm still fighting with Citizen's Insurance. We still have issues we haven't resolved here. We lost 400 trees. I've got issues at all my dealerships. I've suffered $15 million in damage at all my buildings. If anyone wants to call that convenient to my face, we can talk about it.
"Wilma did accelerate our decision. The hurricane facilitated us asking ourselves, `Do we want to invest a significant amount of money back into American, which over a year's time proved a failed business plan? Or did we want to go forward with a very limited development and improve Coral Ridge?'
"At American, we thought maybe we could improve upon what the Joneses were doing before we took over. We ended up finding they were tapping the market as well as you could on the public side of golf. It just isn't financially viable."
Novak thinks American makes great sense as a truly public golf facility, where breaking even while serving a larger community interest is a reasonable and worthy pursuit. In fact, there are eminent domain issues popping up from New York to Los Angeles, where cities or counties are trying to seize golf courses. In some cases, it's to clear the way for development, while in others it's to protect them from development. Notably, Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens is a Coral Ridge Country Club member.
Fort Lauderdale City Commissioner Christine Teel asked that the city study purchasing the property from the Jones family three years ago, but City Manager Floyd Johnson returned saying his analysis showed purchasing and operating the club would not be financially feasible.
"It would be an interesting question," Mayor Jim Naugle said speaking generally about what interest the city might have in owning any public golf course. "You would have to have a referendum and a bond issue. Would people vote to raise taxes to buy a golf course?"
It's a question American's regulars would like to ask citizens. It's a question Smith and Coral Ridge's owners have no interest asking.
"I hate to say this, but public golf is not my job," Smith says. "At the end of the day, we think our plans are best for the Coral Ridge community. The only losers are those who depended on American for public golf."
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