OK let's try these numbers and see how it becomes affordable: 2.5 MILLION COURSE
Say a 20 year amortization at 6.25 percent on the golf course and you hope for 25000 rounds.....below is the per round cost:
CONSTRUCTION
land- free
irrigation-700,000- 2.44 per round
shaping- 200,000- .70 per round
cartpaths- 400,000 1.40 per round
bunkers-200,000 .70 per round
misc other course cost-1,000,000 3.50 per round
grow-in- 350,000- 1.22 per round
TOTAL CONSTRUCTION COST PER ROUND 9.96 PER ROUND
equipment lease- 4.75 per round
maintenance cost $500,000 budget 20.00 per round
4000 sq ft proshop/grill mortgage 1.50 per round
operation of shop budget 5.00 per round
TOTAL MIKEY COST 31.25 PER ROUND
TOTAL 41.21 PER ROUND
ESTIMATE GREEN FEE SHOULD BE ADVERTISED AS $60 w/o cart (yes, people do use carts)
Now this is if you can get 25,000 rounds and most likely it will take 2 years.....AND THIS IS BREAK EVEN ON AN AFFORDABLE COURSE....... you will hear plenty of appraisals where 40,000 is used.....BS on that.....rare.....what if you get 12000 rounds first year?
Oh well...just a sat morning breakdown..for your reading enjoyment.....be sure and thank the guy that is having you play for $30 somewhere......
I will put up my Sand Creek Station as an example of how to keep costs down, but there are many things there people don't like. To start with, the city wanted a course that was affordable. I think some sort of "altruistic" (although they hope to recoup it in tax dollars) motive helps. The ability to build some things "off budget" like entry roads helps as well.
Not only did the cooperating housing developer donate/swap some land to the City, they paid $500K to the golf course, providing we built our lakes to serve as their detention ponds and routed the course through housing to increase their value. In essence, the land was less than free and/or construction cost was subsidized. (This might also occur through bankruptcy sales, where the course owner gets $8M of construction for $2-4M.)
The course wasn't cheap to build ($4.2M course and another $3M for $7.3M overall to opening day) but they offer rounds under $40.
If you look at Mike's numbers, approximately $10 per round comes from construction (and that might be low) and $24.75 comes from maintenance (which is the low end of reasonable in current conditions) So, looking at the biggest number per round, how do we cut those costs?
I think it will come from trimming around the edges (oddly, by not trimming around cart path edges and reducing maintenance of the course edges) first. Then, I think it will come in the form of cutting major costs like labor through robotics and chemicals through genetic engineering of turf before it comes from the expense of "the look" people come to want in the good old US of A. You have to remember that in this model, we are using the golf course as greenbelt, which most expect to be, well...., green, or reasonably so.
Designs have already started changing to use less sand bunkers, which on a per SF basis are VERY inefficient features. My typical bunker budget is half what it used to be. Because rounds are projected to be less, tees can be smaller. Using the 0.2 SF per round rule I now build tees at 5000 SF rather than 8000 SF, expecting rounds to be 25K rather than 40K, and build more of them as rectangles to maximize space useage. Ditto with greens to a certain extent. While I don't eliminate cart paths, I use more shared paths on parallel fw, knowing that they are used mostly for maintenacne vehicles and on the occiasional rainy day, rather than for everyday use (most courses use the 90 degree rule, and most golfers figure they are 90 degrees to something and drive anywhere)
Irrigation is the big sticker shock. I still believe that you need a head everywhere you have turf, even if you don't turn it on often. I am seeing more of a return to temporary watering for grow in of natives. But, if we don't provide turf heads where turf is, using quick couplers or a block of heads on a manual valve, labor will go up later to save a little now, so there is no cost savings down the road. At the same time, I don't see reducing turf much more than the 90 acres currently in vogue for playability reasons and because turf really isn't that expensive to mow and maintain, especially on the outer, lesser maintained areas. There is some maintenance to "natural areas" that must be performed.
Environmental programs, like Audubon and LEEDS which favors more expensive permeable pavement might be cheaper in the long run, but are not cheap now. So, there are some conflicting goals that don't save money. As someone notes, the value of an existing course will go way, way up as the cost to build new gets prohibitive for most.
Most low cost courses have already trimmed the fat out of pro shop operations, but I suspect that someone will have automatic ticket taking, etc. (like ball machines with tokens only for the round of golf) to increase efficiency even more, at the expense of personal service. Just like gas stations survived moving to self serve, I presume golf will as well.
Just a few more pre-coffee thoughts on a Saturday morning.