Dead Golf Courses: A Eulogy for SunAir and Diamondback

[Marty Bonnar]

On the back of John’s Mystic Dunes thread.
Reading it made me go look at Apple Maps aerials of the area and reminiscing about our times there.
I’m a massive Disney fan, so from the late 80s to the early Noughties, we ‘vacationed’ every December in Orlando. Something like 14 or 15 times. Did the parks like crazy and played a lot of golf. Met a bunch of GCAers and had some great times.
We rented villas most of the time and they were often in the area where MD was being built. Indian Ridge, Indian Ridge Oaks, near the old Splendid China, etc. Handy for a lot of the courses in the SW Orlando area, Kissimmee, Haines City, etc.
As Mike Sweeney said, we found Highlands Reserve and had a lot of fun there over the years. Early on, though, we used to go to SunAir, a fairly old housing tract with a decent, if unremarkable, course running through it. Having had a long relationship with it, I’ve kind of been following its slow long lingering death over the years. The current aerial shows it completely unmaintained, a sad shadow of a golf course.
https://maps.apple.com/?address=Sun%20Air%20Lodge%20and%20Golf%20Course,%204669%E2%80%935495%20Watkins%20Rd,%20Haines%20City,%20FL%20%2033844,%20United%20States&ll=28.018268,-81.528929&q=Marked%20Location&_ext=EiYpMSBbZIgDPEAx4fXjqTFiVMA5LcumHNUFPEBBodyV8YphVMBQBA%3D%3D&t=h
It amazes me how an operator can’t make a success of a golf course somewhere like Orlando. Long season, great weather, zillions of tourists. What’s wrong with the model?


As I said, I’ve watched SunAir slowly die, but even more shocking was the revelation that Diamondback was gone. Similar recent aerial to SunAir shows dead fairways and no maintenance. A web search tells it closed a few years ago and hasn’t been picked up by any new developer. Shame, because it was a fun track with interesting timber raised cart paths through the native vegetation, providing protection for lots of species, including the snakes after which it’s named.
https://maps.apple.com/?address=Grenelefe%20Golf%20and%20Tennis%20Resort,%203271%20Camelot%20Dr,%20Haines%20City,%20FL%20%2033844,%20United%20States&ll=28.070516,-81.558381&q=Marked%20Location&_ext=EiYpARWOIJUOPEAx+5C3XP1jVMA5p0BmZ9ETPEBBz1Z7BJhiVMBQAw%3D%3D&t=h
Built, I think, by some members of the Grenelefe (just across the road) who couldn’t get enough tee times, it always seemed a fun place to be.


We were last in O-town four or five years ago. I’m thinking of returning for a big birthday next year. I hope some of my other golf memories are still there!


Cheers
F.

[Tom_Doak]

It amazes me how an operator can’t make a success of a golf course somewhere like Orlando. Long season, great weather, zillions of tourists. What’s wrong with the model?

What's wrong with the model is, that's how capitalism works.


The courses you mentioned had to compete with brand new courses that were more than 100% subsidized by lot sales . . . until the lots were all sold, and then those places ALSO became courses that were unable to compete in the market.


Some of them get sold for 5¢ on the dollar, and the new owner can then charge green fees based entirely on operating costs, without having to pay back any capital, giving him a competitive advantage over those still funded by their first owners.


After enough of those fail, too, you've got a lot of courses charging rock-bottom prices, and even lowering their maintenance standards so they can charge a couple of bucks than the other guys.  And then lots of them just start to go away, as their owners get tired of the rat race.


There are lots of people here who celebrate this mechanism -- hey, it keeps prices down so we can all afford to play golf!  Perhaps they cannot think things through to their inevitable conclusion.  Or, they have made enough off the process not to care.

[John Kavanaugh]

While the number sounds too large to me I was told I had my pickings in Orlando from 121 courses.

[Dave Doxey]

It amazes me how an operator can’t make a success of a golf course somewhere like Orlando. Long season, great weather, zillions of tourists. What’s wrong with the model?

What's wrong with the model is, that's how capitalism works.


The courses you mentioned had to compete with brand new courses that were more than 100% subsidized by lot sales . . . until the lots were all sold, and then those places ALSO became courses that were unable to compete in the market.


Some of them get sold for 5¢ on the dollar, and the new owner can then charge green fees based entirely on operating costs, without having to pay back any capital, giving him a competitive advantage over those still funded by their first owners.


After enough of those fail, too, you've got a lot of courses charging rock-bottom prices, and even lowering their maintenance standards so they can charge a couple of bucks than the other guys.  And then lots of them just start to go away, as their owners get tired of the rat race.


There are lots of people here who celebrate this mechanism -- hey, it keeps prices down so we can all afford to play golf!  Perhaps they cannot think things through to their inevitable conclusion.  Or, they have made enough off the process not to care.

Valid point. Simple economics.  Currently, there is a large oversupply of courses.  Courses will close until there is a balance between the supply of courses and the demand of golfers willing to pay greens fees that cover the true cost of ownership and operation of a course.  Eventually equilibrium will be reached.


Developers add to the oversupply situation. They will continue to build unsustainable courses until such time as the number of developments with abandoned courses becomes apparent and golf no longer is a selling point for new developments.


Golf isn't the amenity for developments that it once was. Ten years ago, my retirement vision was living in a development with a golf course.  Now, I would be reluctant to buy into a golf community, given the increased risk of the course closing or the membership in the course becoming increasingly expensive.  I watch homeowners in a nearby development struggle with reduced home values and increased HOA assessments due to a closed course now owned by the HOA.


Golf will always be available.  We currently enjoy a buyers market, where costs to play are low. That won't last forever.

[SB]

I also thought Diamondback was pretty cool. 

The other problem Diamondback and SunAir had is the location.  It's over an an hour from most of the hotels in Orlando, and with so many new courses built that were closer, it became impossible to attract the high dollar tourists and especially groups.  Just on that southwest side of town, within minutes of I-4, they built 3 courses at Reunion, 3 at Championsgate, Celebration, Highlands Reserve, Mystic Dunes, and Providence and that's not including the stuff in Kissimmee and the other 8 points on the compass.  At at distance, it is barely an "Orlando" course with so many other options that are closer.

[Buck Wolter]

These aerials look bleak at best to me, I can't imagine traveling to play golf down a bowling alley of houses.  I would guess most of the people living there are happy to not have golf balls bouncing off their houses now that the courses are dormant though I'm sure their equity took a big hit.

Isn't Sugarloaf Mountain the posterchild for Orlando area NLE's?