Western PA golf courses in flux

[Pete_Pittock]

Geoff Shackelford's website provided a link to this Gerry Dulac Pittsburgh Post Gazette article about the shakeout of golf course structure and ownership in western Pennsylvania.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08050/858545-85.stm

[George Pazin]

We're still reeling from JohnV leaving us.

[David_Tepper]

This is an interesting development. Certain GCA-ers think most golf clubs would be better off run as dictatorships rather than by their members.  Here will be real life examples of whether a club can succeed when owned & run by one person, after the membership has failed to keep the club afloat.

I hope we see another article a year or two down the road reporting on whether the new owners of these clubs have been successful and these clubs are now operating in the black.     

[JohnV]

Dave Axson just did a presentation on clubs to over 100 members of WPGA clubs.  The problems in Western PA are similar to other areas such as Cleveland with aging populations, many of whom are giving up golf or moving to The Villages in Florida.

[Steve Kline]

Cincinnati is suffering from a similar fate although individuals are not buying the private clubs. More often it is a golf managememt company. In Cincinnati there are just too many clubs for the number of golfers. Another problem is that they are all going after the same market - a full service country club with full dining, clubhouse, swimming pool, tennis courts, etc. I contend that if someone would just make a golf club with a good to great course that is easily walkable with a small place to get sandwiches it would make a killing. Most cities of any size have too many dining/entertainment options with better food and service than a club can provide for a club to make money on this stuff anymore.