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David_Tepper

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WSJ 4/18 Golf Supplement w/ article on Bulle Rock
« on: April 26, 2005, 01:53:02 PM »
I was out of town much of last week, but I don't think anyone posted regarding the Golf Supplement the Wall Street Journal published on April 18. There was the usual assortment of articles about the Golf Channel, new equipment, retailing, etc., but there was also a very interesting article about the Bulle Rock Golf Course in Maryland and how the changing economics of the game have impacted the development of this project. Maybe someone will be able to link the article to this post.  

Geoffrey_Walsh

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Re:WSJ 4/18 Golf Supplement w/ article on Bulle Rock
« Reply #1 on: April 26, 2005, 02:10:51 PM »
Golf (A Special Report) --- Into the Rough: The industry's course-building mania has caused a chill even at places like Maryland's acclaimed Bulle Rock

By Neil King Jr.      
2,316 words
18 April 2005
The Wall Street Journal
R6
English
(Copyright (c) 2005, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)  
Corrections & Amplifications  

PENNY-PINCHING golfers take heed. One of the East Coast's premier courses is having a sale. Normally a whopping $145 a round, Maryland's Bulle Rock, perched at the top of the Chesapeake Bay, has cut its greens fee through mid-May to $105.  

The special offers and perks don't stop there. Bulle Rock has introduced a buy-two-rounds, get-one-free plan, as well as various corporate package deals. And the course's owners are tossing up thousands of houses and condos on the grounds, as well as a 37,000-square-foot community center, luxury inn and bed and breakfast -- all on land originally intended for another 18-hole course.  

Bulle Rock's general manager, Richard Rounsaville, is a proud man at a proud course, and he is loath to admit too bluntly that he has to grub for business. But he concedes that Bulle Rock's marketing efforts are in part an attempt to recover from a two-year industry slide that started in 2001 -- as well as the lingering effects of the Tiger Woods mania, which saw an estimated 1,400 new courses open nationwide in the second half of the 1990s. Bulle Rock arrived at the peak of the boom in 1998 -- and despite its status, it is feeling the effects of the golf glut.  

"It's obvious that people overestimated how many courses the country needed," Mr. Rounsaville says. "Competition has increased, and we're becoming more competitive, too."  

Now the owners of Bulle Rock must maintain a difficult balance. While they try to bring in new business, they don't want to introduce any radical features that would mar Bulle Rock's main attraction for golf aficionados: the prestige and purity of the course itself. So the course is pursuing some nontraditional marketing measures -- such as building condos on-site and hosting the occasional wedding party -- but it holds the line against others, such as twilight rates or high-tech additions to its golf carts.  

The greens-fee discounts are a particularly touchy area, since the course doesn't want to give the impression that it's a cut-rate operation. But Mr. Rounsaville says Bulle Rock felt the lower prices to start the season were necessary due to some last-minute work under way. "We're still finishing the construction of our new clubhouse," he says. "It wouldn't be fair to charge full price when there are no other services" golfers can use in the meantime.  

Built on a former horse farm, and named after America's first thoroughbred racehorse, the course opened to rave reviews. Sublime, awesome, elegant: such was the gush of adjectives. Golf critics deemed it one of the best works of the legendary course designer Pete Dye, who crafted Wisconsin's neighboring gems, Whistling Straits and Blackwolf Run, as well as other standouts like the Harbour Town Golf Links in South Carolina. Some writers, perhaps stretching it a bit, picked Bulle Rock (pronounced "Bully Rock") as an immediate rival to New Jersey's Pine Valley, one of the world's most illustrious courses.  

There's no doubt the place is a marvel, with fairways that dip and rise along undulating hillsides, and greens perched amid odd, craterlike bunkers and grassy ravines. Much of Bulle Rock, with glimpses of the bay in the distance, has the expansive, grassy feel of a classic Irish links course. There are four lakes, and rambling creeks at every turn, all to ensure that the average duffer doesn't grow too fond of any one ball.  

Unlike many prime courses, Bulle Rock is public, or what's known in the trade as a daily-fee course. It's also the most expensive round of golf anywhere in Maryland. (The median price for a round of daily-fee golf in Maryland is $49.95, the fifth-highest figure of any state, according to the National Golf Foundation, though some high-end public courses around the nation exceed $200.)  

But for all its beauty, and the sometimes wicked challenge of its 7,375 yards, Bulle Rock faced more than a few immediate challenges when it opened. A half-dozen other high-end courses also opened in the greater Baltimore area within a few years of Bulle Rock. Nearby rivals Beechtree and Mountain Branch were also much cheaper, at under $100 a round.  

More pressing, though, was that Bulle Rock was a destination course that lacked both a resort hotel to house a lot of visitors and a second set of links for variety on the second or third day. The original owner, Ed Abel, planned to add both, and was adamant that the 230 untouched acres on the site -- along with 425 additional acres he acquired next door -- go to fairways and bunkers, not to condos and houses. Golf communities were a concept he loathed, believing that houses along any course detracted from the purity of the game.
« Last Edit: April 26, 2005, 02:22:36 PM by Geoffrey_Walsh »

Geoffrey_Walsh

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Re:WSJ 4/18 Golf Supplement w/ article on Bulle Rock
« Reply #2 on: April 26, 2005, 02:11:12 PM »
Then came the industry downturn of 2001, made all the worse by the terror attacks that September. Bulle Rock's business fell 10% in terms of rounds played, a slump that continued well into 2003. (By that measure, the industry overall shrank by 3% in 2002 and 1.5% in 2003, the National Golf Foundation says.)  

"It wasn't until the fall of 2003 that things really started to turn back around," says Mr. Rounsaville, a lanky 52-year-old who started his golf career as an assistant club manager in New Jersey in 1971 and has run Bulle Rock since its opening day.  

The slump put an end to the dreams of Mr. Abel, who saw a financing deal for his coveted expansion fall apart in the summer of 2003. He sold Bulle Rock that September to a consortium of area developers and businessmen.  

The new owners had a completely different concept for luring more business to Bulle Rock. With the industry hardly in a surge mode, course owners nationwide were looking to boost revenue by creating a captive audience. They ringed their courses with housing, and then persuaded hard-core golfers to move in and play round after round. Of the 150 courses expected to open this year across the U.S., according to the golf foundation, 60% will include housing.  

So Mr. Abel's condo aversion went out the window, and Bulle Rock's new owners are now turning much of the remaining acreage into roads, driveways and single-family houses, all under the slogan "Life Imitates Vacation." The Residences at Bulle Rock are expected to lure more than 4,000 people to live around the course itself, and many of them, of course, will be golfers. The first homeowners are expected to move in this summer.  

At the same time, Bulle Rock doesn't want to spoil the course's uncluttered aesthetics by ringing the fairways with lots of buildings. So the owners plan to put only a small percentage of the houses along the course itself; most will go out of sight on acreage behind the back nine, with views of Chesapeake Bay in the distance.  

Homeowners will be eligible for special off-peak rates that aren't available to visitors, plus a set quantity of cut-rate rounds when they buy a house. The current package allows buyers to purchase eight rounds at $95 each. "Our homeowners will certainly add a lot of golf rounds to our business, and increase our restaurant sales," Mr. Rounsaville says.  

The rumor is that once the housing side fills out over the next several years, Bulle Rock may go private, as has happened with many other public courses that became part of a gated community.  

Meantime, the course is hoping to bulk up its rounds in other ways. Because of its steep price, Bulle Rock doesn't have a big cast of regulars. Most people who come do so only once a season, "as a special treat," Mr. Rounsaville says.  

In an effort to change that, Bulle Rock now sells a three-round "frequent player" package that reduces the per-round price to $96, though you can buy only one of those a year. Larger corporate packages, which carry no restrictions, include 14 rounds for the price of 12, and 24 for the price of 20. "Our aim is to increase the number of repeat players," Mr. Rounsaville says.  

Last year, the course also tossed out some last-minute bonuses, such as four players for the price of two in April, and four for the price of three in November. Bulle Rock doesn't stoop to common perks like twilight rates for the late-afternoon set, but it does slash the price to $95 (space permitting) for a second round of 18 for anyone intrepid enough to play two rounds in one day.  

Mr. Rounsaville, putting a fine point on the offered perks, says the course is willing to cut prices early or late in the season, when the course may not be in perfect shape. And it's also willing to reward golfers who paid full price in the morning with a cheaper second round. "But our general principle is that the experience here is worth full fare, and we're not a cut-rate course," he says.  

The course got a marketing boon last summer, when Bulle Rock was picked to host the next five McDonald's Championships of the Ladies Professional Golf Association. While the tournament itself won't generate much revenue, Bulle Rock is counting on the long-term effects of greater publicity.  

The first championship, this June, will give the course international exposure, which should in turn attract a new batch of golfers. To prepare, Bulle Rock's owners are investing heavily in new phone lines and an expanded clubhouse, along with a new putting green and short-game practice area.  

The course is also banking on increased revenue on the food and beverage side, which Mr. Rounsaville says has never brought in more than 10% of the course's overall revenue. The bigger clubhouse will allow for almost twice the dining space, with large private rooms that can be cordoned off for special events like weddings. "That part of our business stands to grow quite a lot," he says.  

A clubhouse can be a huge source of revenue. Bulle Rock's closest competitor, Mountain Branch, which opened in 2000 about 20 miles to the south, racked up 33,000 rounds of golf last year, and expects to exceed 35,000 rounds this year. But Mountain Branch's persistently packed restaurant accounted for 60% of the course's overall revenue last year, pulling in $3 million on its own.  

"Our motto is, if you don't maximize your facility, if you don't come at this with more than a golf background,

Geoffrey_Walsh

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Re:WSJ 4/18 Golf Supplement w/ article on Bulle Rock
« Reply #3 on: April 26, 2005, 02:11:33 PM »
you're going to fall prey to the golf glut," says Ron Winarick, managing partner at Forewinds Hospitality, which bought both Mountain Branch and Pennsylvania's Hartfeld National in January. Forewinds, a division of Sawyer Realty Holdings LLC, a College Park, Md., property-management company, is trying to build a business around acquiring high-end courses where golf is only part of the revenue stream.  

Mr. Rounsaville declines to give financial information for Bulle Rock. But as it pursues new business, there are some innovations that Bulle Rock openly dismisses as beyond the pale. For instance, Mountain Branch this spring is replacing all its carts with ones that have global positioning systems and a 10-inch screen that shows you where you are relative to the pin and to other nearby carts. Many golfers like these systems because they tell you exactly how far you are from the hole, making it easier to pick the right clubs.  

Golf clubs like them, too, because they help speed the pace of play. If a party of golfers is poking along too slowly, thus threatening a course-wide pile-up, a notice pops up on the screen suggesting they pick up the pace. If they continue to lag, the course will send out a ranger to speed things up. Laggards may be forced to skip a hole. Mr. Winarick expects the system will allow 15% more golfers to go out on the busiest days.  

Bulle Rock sniffs at such gadgets. "We want people to appreciate the beauty of the course, not come here to stare at a computer screen," Mr. Rounsaville says. Far from trying to squeeze in ever more golfers, Bulle Rock actually encourages people to walk the course with a caddie. About one in 10 golfers takes that route.  

But the balancing act between boosting revenue and preserving the purity of the course may get much more difficult. The surge of Bulle Rock homeowners will likely bring many changes to the golf club: more diners, more martini sippers, more rounds of golf.  

Heightened demand might sway the course from its tradition of closing from Thanksgiving through mid-April. And an overly crowded course might be enough to knock Bulle Rock off the short list of the top public courses in the country. (Golf Digest, for one, has often ranked the course among its top 10 five-star public courses.)  

"There's no telling what will happen on that front," Mr. Rounsaville says.  

---  

Mr. King is a staff reporter in The Wall Street Journal's Washington bureau. He can be reached at neil.king@wsj.com.  

David_Tepper

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Re:WSJ 4/18 Golf Supplement w/ article on Bulle Rock
« Reply #4 on: April 26, 2005, 02:24:56 PM »
Geoffrey Walsh -

Thanks VERY much for doing that!

DT

JBergan

Re:WSJ 4/18 Golf Supplement w/ article on Bulle Rock
« Reply #5 on: April 26, 2005, 04:09:27 PM »
Can anyone recommend a good place to eat/drink after a round at Bulle Rock?

Dan Herrmann

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Re:WSJ 4/18 Golf Supplement w/ article on Bulle Rock
« Reply #6 on: April 26, 2005, 04:19:05 PM »
I'm torn on Bulle Rock.

There are some great holes out there - I love #2, an awesome par 5.  But Dye has built some clunkers (I've always found #15 to be strange) at Bulle Rock too, and I don't think $150 per round is worth it.

Then again, Bulle Rock has a good caddie program.  And you're free to walk if you'd like (although you'll still pay for the cart).

Its biggest problem may be its location.  Havre de Grace, MD is between Philly and Baltimore, and doesn't have a lot of nearby customers, making it more of a destination course.  In my opinion, it's also way out of the reach financially for a typical Harford County resident.

It's also unfortunate that the article's author mentions the nearest competitor as Mountain Branch, some 20 miles away.  Perhaps he should have made the short trek up to Aberdeen and visited Beechtree.   To me, Beechtree has better architecture, better conditioning, and a pretty equal golf experience for much less money.

PS  - I actually listened to the author do an interview on XM radio, and he didn't overwhelm me with his golf knowledge.    Just a personal opinion - I could certainly be wrong...

Mike_Cirba

Re:WSJ 4/18 Golf Supplement w/ article on Bulle Rock
« Reply #7 on: April 26, 2005, 04:25:32 PM »
I'm torn on Bulle Rock.

There are some great holes out there - I love #2, an awesome par 5.  But Dye has built some clunkers (I've always found #15 to be strange) at Bulle Rock too, and I don't think $150 per round is worth it.

Then again, Bulle Rock has a good caddie program.  And you're free to walk if you'd like (although you'll still pay for the cart).

Its biggest problem may be its location.  Havre de Grace, MD is between Philly and Baltimore, and doesn't have a lot of nearby customers, making it more of a destination course.  In my opinion, it's also way out of the reach financially for a typical Harford County resident.

It's also unfortunate that the article's author mentions the nearest competitor as Mountain Branch, some 20 miles away.  Perhaps he should have made the short trek up to Aberdeen and visited Beechtree.   To me, Beechtree has better architecture, better conditioning, and a pretty equal golf experience for much less money.

PS  - I actually listened to the author do an interview on XM radio, and he didn't overwhelm me with his golf knowledge.    Just a personal opinion - I could certainly be wrong...

Dan,

Well stated.

I had the exact same impression of Bulle Rock and would play Beechtree about 7-8 times out of ten between the two.

Bulle Rock also ends with the requisite par three, long par four with water down the left he employed at so many other courses.  

I felt that I had seen everything there, only done better, at Blackwolf Run.

Jeff Goldman

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Re:WSJ 4/18 Golf Supplement w/ article on Bulle Rock
« Reply #8 on: April 26, 2005, 04:26:06 PM »
I took a day trip to Philadelphia yesterday to visit friends at the IRS appeals division (  ;D ), and the Inquirer had a coupon for Beachtree advertising $20 off rounds Mon-Thurs.  Apparently, most public golf out there has been hurt.
That was one hellacious beaver.

JBergan

Re:WSJ 4/18 Golf Supplement w/ article on Bulle Rock
« Reply #9 on: April 26, 2005, 07:50:19 PM »
[ long par four with water down the left he employed at so many other courses.  


Sawgrass
PGA West Stadium
Blackwolf Run

Which other Dye courses end with the same (or similar) hole?

David_Tepper

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Re:WSJ 4/18 Golf Supplement w/ article on Bulle Rock
« Reply #10 on: April 26, 2005, 07:52:47 PM »
JBergan -

How about #18 at Hilton Head?

DT

Cory Lewis

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Re:WSJ 4/18 Golf Supplement w/ article on Bulle Rock
« Reply #11 on: April 26, 2005, 07:54:22 PM »
Actually we've done a little better every year for the past five years.  But like everybody in the public market rounds during the week can be pretty slow hence the twenty dollar off coupon.  I was happy to read we aren't the only ones who are very anti GPS.
Instagram: @2000golfcourses
http://2000golfcourses.blogspot.com

JBergan

Re:WSJ 4/18 Golf Supplement w/ article on Bulle Rock
« Reply #12 on: April 26, 2005, 07:59:48 PM »
JBergan -

How about #18 at Hilton Head?

DT

18 at Colleton River?  There's another...

Voytek Wilczak

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Re:WSJ 4/18 Golf Supplement w/ article on Bulle Rock
« Reply #13 on: April 26, 2005, 08:26:18 PM »
I agree that location is Bulle Rock's main problem.

It is a VERY nice course, but considering that it is in a middle of nowhere, it is not nice enough.

I played it twice and loved it. I drove straight from the NYC area to play it the first time; overnighted in Maryland the second time.

I wanted to recommend it to Cary when he enquired about nice courses around South Jersey, but Bulle Rock is 100 miles from Atlantic City - so I did not say a word.

It is location, location, location versus "when you build it they will come".

In the case of the latter, you better build a masterpiece.

Eric Pevoto

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Re:WSJ 4/18 Golf Supplement w/ article on Bulle Rock
« Reply #14 on: April 26, 2005, 09:05:04 PM »
"Our motto is, if you don't maximize your facility, if you don't come at this with more than a golf background, you're going to fall prey to the golf glut," says Ron Winarick, managing partner at Forewinds Hospitality, which bought both Mountain Branch and Pennsylvania's Hartfeld National in January. Forewinds, a division of Sawyer Realty Holdings LLC, a College Park, Md., property-management company, is trying to build a business around acquiring high-end courses where golf is only part of the revenue stream.  


Catchy motto!  This slant in the business, unfortunately, is becoming much more common.  Running golf courses like hotels, overbuilding facilities (or buying overbuilt facilities) and taking the focus away from golf is an interesting way to build the golf business.  Seems backwards to me.
« Last Edit: April 26, 2005, 09:06:14 PM by Eric Pevoto »
There's no home cooking these days.  It's all microwave.Bill Kittleman

Golf doesn't work for those that don't know what golf can be...Mike Nuzzo

PThomas

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Re:WSJ 4/18 Golf Supplement w/ article on Bulle Rock
« Reply #15 on: April 26, 2005, 09:27:41 PM »
supply and demand strikes again!

I played it once and it was fun -- but it was expensive and having played it once I'd go find other good one in the area next time
199 played, only Augusta National left to play!

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