Looking at the "affordable Bandon" thread again generates thoughtful investigation of the idea of supply and demand. One might propose that when a profit is made could or should it be re-invested in the property to a "greater good"? (What might be perceived as a socialist-inspired manifesto to follow, so ultra-right-wingers, take your hypertension medication NOW, please.)
A true "Labor of Love" would imply that as the resort makes more and more golf available, more capital can be used to create more golf courses and hopefully eventually lead to a decrease in per round costs to the players.
There is a very fine line that would be needed to be walked to do such a thing and I am no one to even suggest to Mr. Keiser that this should be his goal, but I got to thinking about this sort of thing when I was at Bethpage State Park recently. What a place with its five wonderful courses all truly affordable for all (even the out of town rate for W/E at BB is just over $100), an absolutely pastoral place, a magnificent structure for a clubhouse, but THE key is that it is owned by government which makes it
ALL PAID FOR and thus the costs are made low.
Bethpage is perhaps truly the
St. Andrews of America not Pinehurst which advertises itself as such and is quite honestly financially out of the reach of most golfers other than a once-in-a-lifetime (or marriage
) thing.
All that said, Bandon is a better financial proposition for the golfer than Pebble, Kohler or Pinehurst but still on the expensive and
luxe side of things. Sadly, (although I haven't been to Bandon recently so I can't comment on pace) most top notch American "Open for all to play" facilities have pace-of-play problems - Bethpage the least expensive and probably the worst pace wise.
Using the WDW model of all sorts of accommodations for various income levels and reasonably affordable theme park prices, one might hope that as the Bandon resort grows that something along those lines just might happen.
Again
The one bad thing about American golf as compared to the rest of the world is that the overwhelming majority of golfers will never even see nevertheless play the greatest architecture of this country. We all know that in Scotland for example, there are a mere handful of course that take special connections to see and play. One other thing is that most of the UK courses play along at a nice pace compared to the Pinehursts and Pebble/Spyglass/spanish Bay courses.