Bearish On The Bull Trace: Tennessee Pork

[Mike Hendren]

The Volunteer State is now the proud owner of 4 of the 5 Bear Trace golf courses, which lost $3.7 million last year after doing a whopping 89,000 rounds TOTAL.  

Pass the barbecue sauce.

http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060102/NEWS0201/601020351

Mike

[Tim Bert]

I just read the article at my kitchen table this morning.  I can't say I'm surprised based on the locations they chose.  RTJ Trail courses all seem to be within a reasonable distance of the cities there, and there are also two or three courses per location.  Some of the Bear Trace courses are just so far from anywhere.

Ross Creek Landing seems to be a step above the rest in terms of quality, so I'm not surprised that one is not coming back to the state.  Still haven't played Tim's Ford or Cumberland.

[Mike Hendren]

Tim,

Ross Creek Landing is extremely remote.  I could've sworn I heard a guy playing a banjo on my drive along the riverbank.

As a group, the golf courses might be better than those of the RTJ trail.  Less dramatic, but far less penal.  

If you've followed the ethics debate in the state legislature since your matriculation here, this story is no surprise.  

Mike  

[Andy Doyle]

I have in-laws in Knoxville & we drive through the state fairly often, so I was interested in the development of the Bear Trace.  When I started investigating, I couldn't believe where they located these courses - I guess the article clears that up.

I finally made the opportunity to play the course in Crossville, both ways en route from Knoxville to Nashville last June.  I really enjoyed the course - Cumberland Mountain.  When I get a chance I'll post some photos.

I played the course on a Tuesday and a Saturday in June - beautiful weather, the course was in great condition - I played by myself both time and finished well under 3 hours.  I was shocked that on a gorgeous Saturday afternoon there was almost no one on the course.

It's too bad - I really like the feel of the place.  Low key, understated, unpretentious - just a solid golf course in a relaxed environment.

Andy

[Tim Bert]

Mike,

I thought that Ross Creek Landing was both a little more dramatic and a little more scenic than the other two I played.  You are right about the course being remote.  When I played it, I was driving from Memphis.  Since it took 2.5 hours to get there, I fgured it must be convenient to Nashville.  Then when I got here I checked it out, and saw that it was close to two hours from Nashville.  They really had to work to find a location between these two cities that was at least a two hour drive from each!

I swear saw several children with moonshine stands set up on the side of the road just before we got to the course.

I've been trying to matriculate as little as possible since we moved to TN.  I've limited myself to times when my wife and son aren't around.

[Andy Troeger]

I can't say as this story surprises me either. I've played Cumberland Mountain a few times and its a wonderful course. Its interesting, however, as they call Crossville (which is remote) the "golf capital of Tennessee" as it has a number of other courses. I would have thought maybe they could have drawn some business to the course through Fairfield Glade which is not too far down the road.

Granted...I may be biased as the 14th was the site of my 2nd career ace!  

[Paul Payne]

I think TN has come up a bit short in its chase of the RTJ trail in 'Bama. I have played three of the courses, Cumberland, Tims Ford, and Harrison Bay. Cumberland was by far the best. None of them hold a candle to the Alabama trail in my opinion.

I thought Tims Ford was just an average course and a few of the holes feel like they are barely pushed into the edge of the site along the river.

What really opened my eyes however is that I have played Harrison Bay a few times a year almost since they opened. It is a decent layout but every year the course gets worse.

They have serious drainage problems throughout the course, causing them to rebuild bunkers on many holes. They are constantly re-sodding the fringes on many greens and cannot keep up with how quickly they die off. If you play after even a mild rain the course is riddled with sodden areas and mud.

My overall impression is that these are Nicklaus Inc. cookie cutter courses installed as cheaply as possible for the sake of creating the trail. I am not impressed.

[john_stiles]

The locations, save Ross Landing, are actually satisfactory. They 'ordered' these courses in the glory years of golf growth predictions and optimism.

They over-estimated the golf tourism and my impression, from my limited play and posts at GCA, are that the courses are not 'as good' as RTJ Trail.    Then, the courses are over-priced for the locals, and they have difficulty with local play.

The article has a few good lines about the pricing and concern for the business of golf, but overplays the location aspect.

Chattanooga is a large golf community, and the northeast side of town (Harrison Bay/Ooltewah/Hixson area) is booming.  Price is $45 for weekend play which is high for public golf.   Crossville is a 'retirement community' that is growing and has plenty of golf courses.

The distances from interstate is actually not bad for the southeast for a tourist or locals.

The most remote is easily Ross Landing and that is the course that a private company is keeping, and not taken back by the state.

[SB]

Here's your answer:

"The ball started to slice off-course when the decision was made to site the Bear Trace's courses not based on good golf sense, but instead to put courses in the districts of powerful state legislators."

[Paul Payne]

SBusch,

Is that really how it happened? Not that it surprises me, just curious.

Is there any explanation regarding the seeming lack of funds either during construction or afterwards?

[SB]

By the time it hit the open market, the site selections had already been done, so I actually can't say for certain that it was politics.  It certainly looks that way, though.  Does anyone really doubt that's the way politics works?

Regardless, this was modeled on the RTJ Trail concept anyway, which was never a good investment, but did increase tourism.  Tennesee jumped on the bandwagon, as did a number of other states, but somewhere along the line, someone decided that they needed to make money, so the excel spreadsheet got juiced.  

I'm surprised that there's private money in this thing.  The newspaper downplays it, but they're the big loser here.  The state is simply a bank foreclosing on its loan.  The private company is the one that has lost the money to date.

[john_stiles]

The private company invested $17 million to upgrade ? Plus there was an original investment of $20 million.  The claim of $17 million doesn't make sense.  You could have completely re-built many of the courses for that price.  

I am aware the 'Harrison Bay' greens were converted from bent to champion's bermuda.  What else did TN Golf LLC do ?

There wasn't any lack of funds, other than than not enough in golf course register at the end of the day.

They built at the top of the golf bubble and built a number of courses that were not the equivalent of RTJ.  

Also,  the article didn't mention that any golf in Tennessee based on 'tourist golf' is basically a 9 month business.  

The winter weather is not so 'hot' for continued tourism like many of the RTJ courses (Montgomery, Auburn, Dothan, and Mobile).  You are not planning (I hope) any trips to the Tennessee courses in Dec, Jan, Feb.  You can go to a number of RTJ Trail courses and find reasonable or tolerable weather if you are golf nut from MI, OH, PA, etc.  That is not the case for Tennessee.

[Andy Troeger]

Is Cumberland Mountain the best of the Bear Trace courses? I had heard good things about a couple of the others (Harrison Bay and Ross Creek Landing) as being good.

Are these courses really that much worse than the RTJ Trail courses? If so I need to get down to Alabama!

[JWL]

While I can't comment on the success or failure of the Bear Trace, I can give you some minor insight into the way the original deal was structured as it relates to cost.  The course were conceived to be part of the Tennessee Park System.   I was only involved with the Cumberland and Chickasaw projects.   There was a maximum budget for each golf course, not to exceed 2.9 million dollars.   That was very difficult to achieve in light of the maintenance level desired, and the nature of each site.   Cumberland was constructed almost entirely on bed rock and there was little money available for blasting, so the course didn't have the movement we would have desired in some of the fairways, especially the first 4
holes.   Chickasaw was covered with wetlands and considerable monies were spent just to meet the mitigation requirements and construct some holes in less than desireable
soil.
All in all, the course turned out OK, but the unknown was always would the owners maintain the course to a level to
compete with the RTJ trail.
I have no idea if they have been able to do that or not.   The locations always did seem a bit out of the way for me.  I know they weren't easy for me to get to on site visits.
The group was composed on a private investment group, the state of Tenn and Wadsworth Construction.   I believe they all shared equally in the ownership of all the courses.

[Paul Payne]

I guess what bothered me about Harrison Bay is that in the end, I thought it had the best layout of all three I played.

The problem is that it seems there is a heavy layer of clay very close to the surface on many holes of the course. This seems to cause serious drainage problems and is killing the turf. It has also caused bunkers to flood easily and wash out.

I wonder why nobody identified this as a potential problem during the construction phase? Now it is almost cost prohibitive to correct the problems.

[Andy Troeger]

Paul,
   That doesn't surprise me. As much as I love the views on some courses in the state, the clay (and probably that bedrock mentioned) makes almost all the ones I've played extremely wet even when there has not been much rain. I don't believe that its unique to that site...Cumberland Mountain probably benefitted from having such mountainous topography that it was easier to allow the water to run off.