[Mike_Trenham]

The year end SI double issue has some great maps illustrating everything from the migration of franchises to the counties most likely to produce a summer or winter olympian.  But of course the ones I found most interesting were those of golf courses density by county on multiple levels, public, private, per square mile (think recent tread on Oregon golf density) and course per capita.  

I had studied golf density a bit when I was thinking of getting into course development while in grad school.  I was trying to identify a mathematical way to find the best place to invest ones funds. While these types of maps are interesting, I quickly learned that in certain "Red State" counties if you add one course it quickly goes from way underdeveloped to over developed.

Did anyone else lose more than an hour of their life looking at these maps the past few days?

Can Someone post these to get the discussion going?  I tried to find a link on SI.com but could not find this article.

[SB]

Good grief, you just started a thread on the last 7 years of my life.  I used to buy golf courses for one of the large golf management firms, and we extensively used demographics to evaluate the relative strength of a market.  The best place to invest is a formula based on population, drive times, average household income and number of golf courses, and some other factors, but you're right about new courses having an impact.  It's also the hardest to research or predict.  

One thing I can tell you:  if you built a golf course on the island of Manhattan, the ratio of golf courses to people would be very good.  That said, there is technically a golf course in Manhattan (governor's island) that nobody ever plays, so maybe I'm wrong.

[Mike_Trenham]

Yes the barriers to entry are so low I often thought that the only safe option is buying land in close proximity to a large city.  Paying say 200,000 per acre vs. 35,000 out in the sticks will up your debt service by about $70 per round.  But you are insulated from new competitors and closer to where the demand actually is located, so you could more likely get the volume needed for sucess.  If your plan fails in the mean time the land has probably apprecaited so you may get back some of the investment in improvements before you sell it off for more sprawl.  Also if you build a course where the land is readily availble & cheap and have some sucess next thing you know both courses are unprofitable.  

The economics of this industry are pretty tough, cudos to those that have truely made money in this industry from the golf/hospitality operation and not just real estate.

[danielfaleman]

What if, say, you build a really, really, good golf course in the middle of rural Nebraska?

[SB]

Posted by: danielfaleman  Posted on: Yesterday at 05:07:41pm  
What if, say, you build a really, really, good golf course in the middle of rural Nebraska?  

 
Unless you're private and ranked #1 in the country, you're screwed.  See: bankruptcy of Links of North Dakota for additional information.  

[Mike_Trenham]

Also see Mikes Red Resort...

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