Bringing this back to golf, it is very important to note that the "subprime crisis" has morphed into a massive re-pricing of credit risk throughout the debt leverage chain and will indeed have some immediate ramifications for the golf industry.
Financing for new projects will now likely face lower LTVs coupled with higher rates and no doubt, no decrease in fees. All of this, combined with the relatively static nature of the game will combine to effectively deter many, many risk-based golf developments. The yen carry trade, if continued to be unwound, will have a dramatic effect on the high-yield market and it is that market that has traditionally financed the aggregate purchases of groups of existing courses and will near stifle the bank-led financing for construction of new foreign golf resort developments. Yes, deep-pocketed individuals will surely go ahead and complete many of their dream projects, but the institutional market will likely face a severe tightening especially now that the selling & absorption curves of adjacent RE has slowed so considerably. Existing projects, with financing already obtained and intact, will survive their build-out, but I'd be hard pressed not to see a recession-like effect on many new, Phase I-like plans.
This credit crisis will also effect many others inside the golf food chain as historically, quite a few golf-related businesses have been reliant on the equity and debt markets and are hardly AAA credit risks (although given the rating agencies ability to ignore blatant risk might not stop them from issuing pristine ratings just for the cash fee?). Keep in mind that severe dislocations and re-pricing of risk in our equity and private debt markets ALWAYS has very real effects on industries that are marginally profitable, seasonal, and capital-intensive.
Forget the alt-a/subprime mortgage issue for the moment (although the peak of trouble won't come until late Spring 2008), and instead focus on the disruption of the liquidity process as it is a far graver concern for all reaches of debt-based businesses. This seizing up of the short-term debt (commercial paper, etc) markets can kill otherwise healthy business just based on the perception, not reality of problems thus creating even more risk for cash-needy enterprises.
Richard Choi gave a marvelous golf related analogy for the behavior and role of many fund managers who are in immediate trouble, but don't forget that they've (and their investors)been a large part of the luxury market hit parade for the past 5 years and now they are likely to spread a contraction much further down the food chain of consumers, right down to the prime golfing demographic.
Bob Huntley...be careful with the Apt REITs..they are already very fully priced and trade at very low cap rate related prices, thus not quite as defensive a play going forward as they might have been 6-8 mos ago.
Too many very decent Americans will suffer sever contractions and will get their "dose of reality" with too much pain. I really hope, for everyone whose lives are so impacted by this credit crisis, that the Fed and the government don't mislead them into believing that it is a non-event and that "everything is alright." Golf is still little more than a luxury of life and so very unimportant relative to the fate of those people who play it. Sorry to seem so alarmed, but I believe this isn't just a "blip" this time.