And you wonder why golf is

[Patrick_Mucci]

having problems.

A new Public course opened in Pound Ridge, NY recently.

It was designed by Pete and Perry Dye.

I haven't played it, but, early reviews were favorable.

Greens fees are $ 235 per round.

You say that's high ?

The course was delayed for eleven (11) years by various agencies.

The cost to complete rose precipitously to over $ 40,000,000

So how can you build a public access golf course in a fairly well populated area for an amount that won't result in high to exhorbitant green fees when you have external forces driving up the price to play ?

Who, in their right mind, is going to invest that much time and that much money to build a public golf course ?

[John Moore II]

Indeed, stuff like this is a big reason for declining rounds. We can't keep the cost of a round down and people don't come play. And people in the business don't seem to recognize the fact that these things are problems.

[Patrick_Mucci]

JKM,

I'm sure that the force behind the club, Mr Wang, never visualized an 11 year delay and huge cost overruns.

Clubs like Wild Horse and Bandon/Pacific Dunes appeared to have had the benefit of favorable relations with governmental agencies, not the adversarial one that Mr Wang and other developers face.

It was project that the rebuilding of the World Trade Center would not be complete until the middle of the next decade, well over 10 years since 9-11, and that the cost overruns would total 1 to 3 Billion dollars.

Someone said it best when they stated that the United States defeated the combined powers of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and the Japenese Empire in less than 4 years, but it took 26 years to add another runway to the Atlanta Airport.

We've become paralyzed by bureaucracies and legal entanglements, which delay and drive up the cost of everything, making the price to the consumer .... excessive

[David Stamm]

http://www.carlsbadmagazine.com/Stories/golf.html

[John Moore II]

Pat--I'm not sure if you are agreeing with me or disagreeing. Or something in between. But just in general, without a $40million cost overrun, green fees at clubs are going out of sight. I mean, I think they charge $125 or 150 at PGA Golf Club to play those courses which are slightly above average at best. Pinehurst gets $150 I think for the members courses, which are frankly not that great. Bandon and Kohler and Kiawah get 200+ per round on admittedly great golf courses. From a public golf point of view, we need more average/below average architectural golf courses that can charge $25-$50 per round and give the average player a place to play. Thats how you grow the game of golf, not with architectural gems that are expensive to construct and expensive to maintain.

[Patrick_Mucci]

David,

While the problems are similar, a municipality can afford to wait.

JKM,

I was agreeing with you.

The dilema in many cases is the cost to acquire the land, and then to build the course.  Time is money and carrying charges for 11 and/or 18 years can bankrupt a project when NO revenues are coming in.

I love Wild Horse and Sand Hills, but remoteness has to be an impediment to affordable golf for the consumer and prosperity for the developer.

[Mike Hendren]

Patrick,

On the other hand, how problematic are barriers to entry in an industry where supply exceeds demand?

Mike

[Mike Sweeney]

Pat,

You are way off base on this one. There has been some form of a golf club on this location for years on the Pound Ridge/Stamford border.

See: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D04E4DE103EF934A15757C0A961958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all

"Eventually, the High Ridge Country Club closed. Homes were built on the Stamford side of the golf course, while the nine remaining holes on the Pound Ridge side are now the Pound Ridge Golf Club."

____________________________________________

I really don't know the full story, but I played the old 9 Pound ridge hole course a couple of times with Dylan and it is no surprise that there is a bunch of rock on the property. The old 9 hole course closed in 2003 or 2004 and the new course just opened, so we are talking 5 years max. It was basic stuff, low fees, so I am not surprised they tried to build something on the property. With that much stone, did they make the right BUSINESS decision?

Stamford is developer friendly. I am not sure about Pound Ridge/Westchester. There is more to this story, but I don't know the details.

[John Moore II]

Michael--I am not sure if supply exceeds demand, depending on the market. In Pinehurst, it certainly does, but thats why we depend on tourist play. In Raleigh, the supply certainly does not exceed demand for affordable public golf. I would also say that in West Palm Beach, there is ample demand for more affordable public golf. It all depends on the market as to what real demand is.

--Pat--I think cost of land is why we are seeing so many land reclamation projects. An old Mine used at Tobacco Road and The Pit. Land fills used in New York and Palm Beach and other places. I think those are great things to be used, because they can generally be purchased more cheaply than normal land.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Mike Sweeney,

Are you saying that the New York Times misrepresented the facts ?

I find that hard to believe.

[SPDB]

I think Mike is right. Oddly enough, I went to check the aerial of the course. On Google maps, the old layout is still visible. I would be surprised if Google has any aerials older than 4 years. The MSN aerial site, however, has the course under construction.  The aerials are below.

Pat, I think you are jumping to the conclusion that if there were delays, it must have been the fault of the state/federal agencies. But if you read the article, there is nothing that says that regulatory bodies held up the course for 11 years.  To me it sounds like Wang, while dreaming of developing a course, took a while to get started. 

"There were then 11 years of fits and starts, including tussles with various agencies overseeing the development. Along the way, the project’s price escalated to $40 million."


Old Course

New Construction Here

[Mike Sweeney]

Mike Sweeney,

Are you saying that the New York Times misrepresented the facts ?

I find that hard to believe.

No the New York Times is saying it!

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C01E7DD133FF931A25753C1A9659C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all

[Scott_Burroughs]

A June 1, 2004 aerial of the original 9-holer:



Oct 1, 2006 (seems to be same aerial as SPDB's 'new construction'):

[Mike Sweeney]

From the 2003 NYT's article:

''The town has been generally supportive,'' said Gerry Tortorella, a lawyer for Eastwoods, ''but we haven't been given carte blanche and we have been held to very high standards of environmental protection.'' Clay Fowler, chairman of the Pound Ridge Planning Board, said there was ''a presumption of viability'' as far as the course's prospects went.



"Among them was a local resident, C.C. Wang, an overseas distributor and licensee of medical products, and his son Ken, who had been playing there since it was an 18-hole club. The Wangs through the family's U.S. Summit Company, bought the course for about $1 million."

__________________________________

Okay cooperative town, cheap purchase price, could it be?

PAT MUCCI IS SIMPLY WRONG?  (even two avatars will be allowed by Bob Huntley on this one!)

Reality is that while PRGC had to deal with two towns and two states during this process, it is not without precedent. Within 3-4 miles on Long Ridge Road sits Rockrimmon CC which was built by RTJ in the 1950's. It literally sits on land that splits Pound Ridge and Stamford, with the clubhouse located in Stamford, CT.

Again, mark the day on your calendars, PAT MUCCI WAS WRONG!

[TEPaul]

Pat:

Trying to answer why someone would make that kind of investment is hard to say but I just can't see something like that sustaining itself with those numbers without someone or something really subsidizing the hell out of it longterm and who's going to do that?

[Phil Benedict]

Again, mark the day on your calendars, PAT MUCCI WAS WRONG!

The day I'm going to mark on my calendar is the day Pat Mucci admits he was wrong.

[Jim_Kennedy]

The saddest part of the whole story is that the course was doing a fair gross as a nine holer and filling a need in its market, but which wasn't good enough for the Wang's, apparently.

Too bad. 



 

[Mike Hendren]

At least Pound Ridge had a finished golf course to show for their money:

http://www.montereyherald.com/realestatenews/ci_9735257?nclick_check=1

$45 mil doesn't go as far as it used to.

Mike

[Tom Huckaby]

Again, mark the day on your calendars, PAT MUCCI WAS WRONG!

The day I'm going to mark on my calendar is the day Pat Mucci admits he was wrong.

Agreed.  Pat Mucci is wrong on nearly a daily basis.  Armageddon will occur the day he admits one of his oh so many errors.

[Joe Bausch]

There are 18 posts in the thread now and not a single Al Czervik Caddyshack quote!  Ok, but it won't make it to 19.  "Hey, Wang, this is a parking lot!".

Somehow this made me think of how funny it would be if Barney invited Wang to his club and as he exited the car at the front of the clubhouse he started taking pictures of the parking lot.  My oh my that would be special.   

[Dan Herrmann]

Joe - makes me think of a club I where I used to be a member.  No master plan, just committees messing things up.  They want to revise the first hole, so they start moving dirt. 

When it comes time for the new tee, it's been turned into a parking lot.  A parking lot!

Needless to say, they now have one helluva bad first hole.  (Don't worry - actual professional architects were a part of the mess)

------------
Back on topic.   I've seen two different cases where a developer played bait and switch with a local township.  In return for approval of housing developments, they promised a lot of open space in the guise of a golf course.    Needless to say, the golf course is quickly dropped as soon as the developer got the approval.