Scott — The deferred maintenance at Sterling Hills really has no limits. The irrigation system is all but past it's useful life. We expect the main lines and road crossings of the big pipe to be stable, but all of the spacing and controls are toast. Originally the full area to the back yards was watered, now the edges are not watered, so nothing "fits" anymore. Besides, we have no $$ to be watering wall-to-wall any longer...both water cost and power cost.
Bunkers: all need rebuilding.
Tees: all need leveling, with several new forward tees.
Turf rootzone: built up with salts and terrible drainage in places, so we need to deep core and bring in sand.
Cart paths: 15% need replacing due to poor compacting and cracking.
Trees: 20% in decline.
Greens: B+ w/ some drainage needed (fortunately still have lots of life left)
Lakes: all leaking w/ shoreline breaking
Landscaping: all but lost completely as they turned the water off in 2006-07 (this is the area from the roughs up to the backyards)
We estimated $3 million just to bring the existing course back to a sense of quality, perhaps an overall "B" grade. With the infusion of funding from the 79 lots, we would spend more and return to "A" grade.
As it stands, I would not be surprised if the current owner might sell, which is a concern of many residents because there is really no "good" buyer. It would either be a deep-pocketed developer who would simply "wait it out" or a "mom and pop" group who would simple try and hobble it along the way it is currently — with no real infusion of capital.
Sad bit about many residential golf assets from the 70s, 80s and 90s: They sold homes...ran away...and never thought to earmark even a small portion of HOA fees to a golf fund. At Sterling Hills — just as an example — if $30 per month of the HOA fees for the 300 homes had gone into a GOLF ACCOUNT, there would be >$2.5 million in the bank now — which could be used to refresh the course, in addition to whatever the golf owner contributes.