March 01, 2010, 6:22 PM EST
By Dawn McCarty and Dara Doyle
March 1 (Bloomberg) -- The owners of Florida ’s Sawgrass Marriott Resort, the site of the U.S. PGA Tour’s Tournament Players Championship, sought bankruptcy protection from creditors including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. RQB Resort LP listed assets and debt of as much as $500 million each in Chapter 11 documents filed today in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Jacksonville , Florida . RQB Development also sought protection. The resort is the home of the TPC Sawgrass golf club.
The 508-room hotel resort has rights to 85 percent of starting times each day to the Players Stadium Course through 2089. In July 2006, Goldman Sachs Commercial Mortgage Capital LP helped finance the $220.5 million purchase of the 65-acre resort in Ponte Vedra Beach by RBQ Resort and RBQ Development.
TPC Sawgrass, which didn’t file for bankruptcy, is the headquarters of the U.S. PGA Tour. Its Stadium Course, built to accommodate spectators, hosts the tour’s Players Championship, won last May by Sweden ’s Henrik Stenson. The tournament has a $9.5 million purse. RQB Resort is the owner of the hotel and cabana club. RQB Development is the owner of the golf villas, the spa and related development rights. “The current economic recession and associated disruption in the debt and equity capital markets have been extremely challenging for the debtors,” RQB said in court papers. The resort is the exclusive partner to the PGA Tour’s Tournament Players Club at Sawgrass, known as TPC Sawgrass, court papers show.
The new owners spent $30 million upgrading the resort, according to court filings. Sales rose 10 percent in the first full year. Then the economic decline reduced the number of conferences, which account for 65 percent of sales. The resort’s revenue for 2009 was $42.6 million down from $56.7 million the previous year, according to court papers.
In the third quarter of 2008, the owners announced a plan to cut costs by $4.5 million. Sales fell 25 percent in 2009, “resulting in a lack of liquidity for the resort and the inability of the debtors to pay,” the company said in court papers. Goldman, which is owed about $192.5 million as of Jan. 10, hasn’t been paid since August. RBQ met Goldman on March 16, 2009 and told the bankers then that they might have “liquidity issues” by August.
Goldman Sachs spokesman Michael DuVally declined to comment for this story. The case is In re RQB Resort LP, 10-01596, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Middle District of Florida ( Jacksonville ).
Anyone care to hazard a guess as to the implications for the golf course? I've never played Sawgrass (yet) and I do hope to get there. So, will I arrive and find more open tee times or will I go and find office complexes? This economy is BRUTAL!