[Brett Wiesley]

I've been reading about some of the newer courses being built on grand scale and location, mostly Asia, and wondered what the construction costs are?  What is the comparison cost for the same extravagant course routings for USA vs. Asia. 

[Mike Nuzzo]

Some of my notes from being a Golf Inc. judge last year:
I can't claim the prices as accurate, only reported.
Overall they ranged from $2+MM to $80M for 27 holes

International in Millions:
2.3, 7.1, 10, 16, 6.4, 13, 14, 45, 20, 80, 26, 15

US in Millions
3.7, 3.8, 6, 19

Total average was 11.7 / 18 holes after removing the 80M project
Cheers
Mike

[Frank Pont]

Bret,

construction costs are all dependent on soil type, how much dirt you move and scope of irrigation.

My last two Dutch 18 holes projects were both on sand:

Turfvaert, 80 k m3 dirt moved, single row irrigation 1.1 mil euros
Swinkelsche, 600 k m3 dirt moved, three row irrigation, 2.6 mil euros

[Jeff_Brauer]

My last two new courses in the USA were 4.0M and $4.4M, although that has been awhile.  Both on clay, some clearing, one a housing course that had a long stretch of pipe, cart paths, etc.  Irrigation keeps going up, and its hard to get a system for less than $1.5M

My current and most recent total blowouts of existing courses cost $7M (w sand cap fw), $3.6M, $4.2M (with union labor and some topsoil issues, but cheaper irrigation) I have done 18 hole green and tee renos for $1.9M and $3.6M, which excluded irrigation because it was fairly new.

I build a mid level course - not cheap or skimp on the basics, but not Mercedes Benz either, in most cases. As you can tell, site and regional factors - mostly labor rates and materials like sand, gravel can vary a lot.  Most prices pretty standard, except for irrigation, drain pipe, and anything hauled to the site (which is most stuff) by truck, with fuel prices soaring over the last few years.

[Frank Pont]

Irrigation keeps going up, and its hard to get a system for less than $1.5M

Jeff,

Interesting, its hard to spend more that half that in Europe, even if you do wall to wall irrigation. (3-4 line irrigation)

What do you think is the difference?

[Tom_Doak]

Irrigation keeps going up, and its hard to get a system for less than $1.5M

Jeff,

Interesting, its hard to spend more that half that in Europe, even if you do wall to wall irrigation. (3-4 line irrigation)

What do you think is the difference?

A lot of the difference is the way the systems are designed.  "Top of the line" in the U.S. today is to put the main line in the rough [so that a break, which never happens, won't disrupt play or damage fairway turf], and then to put an isolation valve on every lateral going across the fairway [one valve for every 3-4 heads].  I'd guess stuff like that adds $100k to $200k per course, presuming you haven't bought into that in Europe.

I'm guessing you don't spec 1700 gallon per minute pump stations and bigger pipe so that the whole course can be watered in six hours, either.

The rest, I'm not sure, but it's the main reason I'm bringing Don Mahaffey to new jobs now instead of signing up with the standard irrigation designers.

[Andrew Buck]

Irrigation keeps going up, and its hard to get a system for less than $1.5M

I remember when the course I grew up on finally installed fairway irrigation in 1993, which also included new controlled irrigation of tees and greens the cost was around $200k.  I'm sure it was a fairly simple system with single row irrigation on a 6,400 yard course, but it seemed world class to us at the time.

Just amazing to think the cost has escalated 7X.  

[Dave Doxey]

Having researched, and eventually declined, an opportunity to invest in a course, I can't comprehend what kind of a business plan could be put together to make a course work at these construction costs.

If a public course - how many rounds and at what price?

If private, what dues structure?

I'm not being sarcastic - it really would interest me to see a simple example of a revenue & expense model for even a $5M course.

[Thomas Dai]

I'd be curious to know what would be the (ballpark figures) cost to replace an irrigation system at an 18-hole, 6,500 yd pretty flat parkland course in the UK?
All the best

[Wayne_Kozun]

Having researched, and eventually declined, an opportunity to invest in a course, I can't comprehend what kind of a business plan could be put together to make a course work at these construction costs.

Isn't the business plan predicated on selling dozens of housing lots that are worth a lot more since they are on a golf course?  Assuming that you want a 20% IRR (typical minimum for private equity deals) if you are investing in a course then how else is the return high enough given the risk?

[Jonathan Mallard]

Having researched, and eventually declined, an opportunity to invest in a course, I can't comprehend what kind of a business plan could be put together to make a course work at these construction costs.

If a public course - how many rounds and at what price?

If private, what dues structure?

I'm not being sarcastic - it really would interest me to see a simple example of a revenue & expense model for even a $5M course.

I did a quick back of the envelope calculation.

Assumptions:

• $5MM note at 8% for 15 years
• $400k Maintenance, $300k other labor, $200k supplies

30,000 rounds at $55 per total nets you $16,667 for the year.

[Adrian_Stiff]

I'd be curious to know what would be the (ballpark figures) cost to replace an irrigation system at an 18-hole, 6,500 yd pretty flat parkland course in the UK?
All the best

Thomas- UK costs are much lower than anywhere else in the world, we are lucky that the zone we live in gives us plenty of rain and temperatures rarely get above 30C. Mainly we irrigate greens and tees, maybe only 10% of courses have fairway sprinklers. I put a system in myself for about £140,000 a couple of years back 18 Greens, tees, approaches and fairways. I am pricing one now at the same sort of rate but for 36 greens, tees and approaches. As a basic cost a sprinkler is £130, the joints and fittings and labour cost runs out about the same so Greens Sprinkers x 18 if you have are not much more than £18,000. A pump house might be £20-£30,000. The main pipework is  generally only standard MDPE, in the UK you wont use much more than 160mm for say 1000 metres, thats will ensure you can get enough water out there to water the course in 6 hours. Cabling and the irrigation controller are not cheap, but unless you got to chisel through rock these systems should not cost £300,000. Once the cabling and main is in, it is not lots to add fairway irrigtion a single row at 22 yard spacing means 10 sprinklers at £2,500 per fairway is about what it costs, though twin rows is usually sensible. Par 3 holes dont need any so usually you have 14 fairways at say £90,000 as the add on.

Course Construction all depends on soil movements, but the last couple of courses I did cost a minus amount as I used landfill and the money was enough to construct the course for nothing and get the club some cash. It does not cost much more if any to shape a course nicely or make it look rubbish, thats the skill of the designer and the shapers, though some of the top shapers know their worth now and command a £1000 per week upwards. In the scheme of things they are worth it.

[Brett Wiesley]

Thanks for the replies.  Seems varied.  Cheaper in Europe, expensive in the US and likely varied based on site and amount of dirt moved.  I think some of the new courses built in the US, entirely private, look to be at the very high end of the range.  Crazy for this economy.  I also wonder about the amount beings spent in Asia.  For a part of the world with limited number of courses - it seems like the courses being built are not aimed at growing the game, but glamour.  Just by looking at the new courses and pictures of construction it appears many of the sites are challenging to say the least.  If the economic bubble bursts in Asia, as some speculate, what will happen to these courses?  Do they disappear?  Do the governments take them over?

[Dave Doxey]

I did a quick back of the envelope calculation.

Assumptions:

• $5MM note at 8% for 15 years
• $400k Maintenance, $300k other labor, $200k supplies

30,000 rounds at $55 per total nets you $16,667 for the year.

I  think that your operating costs are low for anything but the most minimal facility in a low cost area.  $300K doesn't get much in the way of staffing.  Add in insurance, utilities, and equipment leasing and it would be hard to stay that low. 

Getting that amount play and price point would also be difficult outside of prime demand areas.  It does show difficult it is to even break even.

Course operators here may want to jump in with their experiences.

Given the capital that one would need to tie up to get the note (another $5M?), $17K is really a sizable loss.

I was amazed (and saddened) when I dug in to the details of a business plan for a course.  Now I need something else to occupy my retirement years 

[Thomas Dai]

Adrian,

thanks for these details. Just the sort of information I was looking for.

Brett,

I like the use of the word 'glamour' in your post. We hear mention, and I use it, of the phrase 'eye-candy' but 'glamour', that's a damn good descriptive word for some design/maintenance etc.

All the best

[Jonathan Davison]

My last two courses were built for approx €1.2million & €1.8million. Both were sandy soils which helped a lot, both had double row irrigation would have liked a bit more budget for triple row and both were in Eastern Europe.

[Tags:]

Tags:

[Tags:]

Tags:

Call to undefined function theme_linktree()