[Jeff_Brauer]

Jud,

Thanks for bringing it back on topic. I was a bit more global in my thoughts.

I have seen these recessions affect golf before and you are right. Golfers don't stop spending, they spend less and spend more efficiently.  Clubs lose memberships to upscale public courses - face it, even at $150 per round, you have control over spending and probably still spend less than the monthly dues at your club. Upscale publics lose play to mid range publics and mid range loses it to value courses.  Value courses lose F and B as golfers sneak sandwiches in their golf bags.  Fly in resorts lose play to drive to resorts.  Closer in is the new further away.

I have seen it here in DFW. Had lunch with a management type who has some of my courses.  Cowboys ($185 rack rate) has lost play (although less than some high end) to nearby Castle Hills (Jay Morrish design, costs $85-$100) and Castle Hills has lost play to Indian Creek (about $45-50) which has actually increased play this year.   All the designs are similar.  Maintenance (depending on time of year) is superior at the top end, but equal on the major playing surfaces at Indian Creek.  To play at a rate of 2-4 rounds to one, a lot of folks are choosing Indian Creek, which benefits from a new look remodel and improved image, rather than a course struggling with an "newly downgraded" image with reduced service, etc. 

In essence, right now Indian Creek has the right niche in the DFW market.  Basically, the market is telling us what golfers will really pay for, which flucuates with the economy.  But, this has happened before.  Golf will always be golf, and will survive without huge clubhouses, cart girls, flower beds, and absolutely perfectly trimmed cart paths, etc. that are nice, but not necessary.

[Richard Choi]

I don't know about 50% drop or what not, but I do know that we are heading for a even bigger crash before the next decade is out unless people get really serious about fiscal sanity.

When LTCM went down (about 10 years ago), the Fed got banks together to bail them out. While that may have eased the monetary pitfall momentarily, it set us up for even bigger fiscal implosion by setting up "Too Big to Fail" mantra. The combination of TBTF and low interest rate led to even bigger and more widespread risk taking with higher and higher leverage.

But once again, instead of learning from the disaster and making sure that it will not happen again, we are doing exactly the opposite. Too Big To Fail banks are even bigger, the interests are even lower, and Wall Street is paying even higher bonuses which will encourage ever riskier undertakings. There has been absolutely NO overhaul of the banking regulations, and whatever that has been proposed has been either watered down or concentrates the power even MORE with the TBTF firms.

The great thing about "The Great Depression" was that there were strong regulatory reforms that rose out of those ashes that made sure that we did not have the same thing happen again within a decade. It seems that everyone missed that lesson from the Great Depression.

I don't know when it will happen and I don't know how. But even bigger crash is coming, a crash that will cement the dethroning of US from the top of the economic pyramid. There is no doubt in my mind.

[Michael Dugger]

Well, Richard, I guess you better think about getting the heck outta the U.S. then too!  And don't let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya...

 

I'm just joking.  That was my attempt at poking fun at Jud.  Actually, I don't really want to poke fun because I didn't find anything about what Jud wrote to be funny.

Shame on you, Jud, people being allowed to think freely is what makes 'merica America.

I concur with everyone who believes the gov't is just kicking the debt can down the road.  I'm rather frightened.  I'm curious how long the soup lines will be, what type of cheese, exactly, is that gov't cheese?

The hours being cut phenomena recently trickled into my world.  I'm pondering finding a beach and an old boat to start restoring, a la Andy from Shawshank.

[Steve Kline]

jeff,

The personal savings rate has already gone back up significantly, as people repair their balance sheets.  The flipside is limp consumer spending for the next 7 years   The real golf question however is how you involve the general public.  People like me will always make room in the budget for golf as it has a high utility to me, and most everyone on this site.  The real golf contraction will be in the folks willing to drop $100-200+/round and spend 5 hours doing it IMHO....Many of whom by the way were the dreaded bankers....

Golf has a high utility to me as well. I've played since I was three, scholarship to college, play competitively in am tournaments still. But this year when my income got whacked by 35% there was no more golf. I went from playing at least 100 rounds a year since I was 13 to playing five from Sep 08 to Jun 09. No matter how the high the utility there is a point where it's just not feasible. And the dues at my club were only $200/mo.


Jeff B. - I have not stats. I just meant that courses frequented by people who are into all the man made stuff and extreme/unsustainable mainteance.  maintenance probably won't continue playing if things get bad enough and those will be the courses that go.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Steve,

I was also going to comment that I have recently seen lots of clubs with empty waterfalls, including one of my own.  Courses can reduce maintenance on bunkers, reduce the number of bunkers, outside roughs, etc. and have some flexibility on what to spend, albeit with a reduced product.  Maybe the greens can even have a few weeds. 

I have written that many mounded courses might very well demound themselves, especially if someone somewhere close needs dirt, to achieve faster mowing times. I see a few courses changing tees to speed up mowing by getting rid of the perfect rectangles, which require more starts and stops......

In other words, design rarely controls the maintenance if that is what you are suggesting.

[Lou_Duran]

I heard President Obama today say that the problem is that business owners are showing their nature- squeezing employees for greater productivity and adopting a culture of cost cutting to make more profits instead of hiring more workers.  In one breath he acknowledges that only the private sector can get things going; in the next he is stoking the fires of class envy.

Like Steve and many other Americans, I have curtailed my golf, postponed replacing my 11 year-old vehicles, and have yet to buy a house.  I wouldn't care that much about the President's view of the world or his deep-seated need to apologize for America's shortcomings as he perceives them, except that his policies are consistent with that perspective and inimical to a sustainable healthy economy and a safe, stable world.  So, the little I can do as a prudent person is to store my nuts and hope that they last the hard times that even the Left on this site see coming.

Jeff- I don't play Ridgeview Ranch much, but I hear that it is full all day long.  Personally, I think it is a better course than Indian Creek and probably Castle Hills, and the gf is lower.  I hear that TangleRidge is up as well and will do 35,000 rounds this year.     

[Bob_Huntley]

I read in a leading newspaper that there is a shortage of gold; poppycock.

Gold is immutable, every ounce of gold produced from time immemorial is still somewhere, in King Tut's tomb, in vaults, under the sea, underground, in electronic devices, around people's necks and on fingers. When the price is high enough check out the pawn and Indian bridal shops.

A gold standard does bring a sense of security to the system but for the Apocalypse Now crowd, my AK 47 will be much more effective than your kilo bar.


Bob  

[Jud_T]

Gold is a shiny yellow rock that is essentially useless and somewhat tacky IMHO...except of course in high end audio equipment    Steve, my spending on golf dropped by about 70% this year as well...of course I still managed to get about 60 rounds in   

[Jeff_Brauer]

I heard President Obama today say that the problem is that business owners are showing their nature- squeezing employees for greater productivity and adopting a culture of cost cutting to make more profits instead of hiring more workers.  In one breath he acknowledges that only the private sector can get things going; in the next he is stoking the fires of class envy.

Like Steve and many other Americans, I have curtailed my golf, postponed replacing my 11 year-old vehicles, and have yet to buy a house.  I wouldn't care that much about the President's view of the world or his deep-seated need to apologize for America's shortcomings as he perceives them, except that his policies are consistent with that perspective and inimical to a sustainable healthy economy and a safe, stable world.  So, the little I can do as a prudent person is to store my nuts and hope that they last the hard times that even the Left on this site see coming.

Jeff- I don't play Ridgeview Ranch much, but I hear that it is full all day long.  Personally, I think it is a better course than Indian Creek and probably Castle Hills, and the gf is lower.  I hear that TangleRidge is up as well and will do 35,000 rounds this year.     

Lou,

I have always wondered why Ridgeview doesn't get more raves amongst the DMN panel and even Avid Golfer.   It has housing where Tangleridge doesn't, but its just as good a golf course, IMHO.  I don't play there much because its just too crowded.

Don't get me started.  When Clinton came in and said many of the same things, I felt insulted.  Here I was, a small businessman who had somehow created at least six jobs that paid over the national wage average, and I was told I was evil and needed to be taxed to the hilt.  One year, I made less than the year before, and the IRS saw fit to tax me more as a "highly compensated employee" than the year before.  I think Kennedy gave back his salary, but what other politicians who tell us we ought to not keep as much money as we can do?  Do they donate their salary or sign themselves up for the public option health benefit?  Of course not.

In a conversation with a contractor yesterday, I heard that some new environmental laws were passed the first month of Congress in a package that Al Gore would love. I knew it was under consideration, but somehow missed its passage.  In what cannot be good news for the golf construction or any construction industry, these new environmental restrictions and costs have to be passed on to the owner, like downstream water testing.  Actually, some or most of the reggies make some sense and are a continuation of a long progression of being more environmentally friendly.  My complaint is whether trying to stimulate the construction industry with tax dollars on one hand and stop it with regulations on the other hand makes any sense.

This contractor was debating just how many millions of dollars to add to a current big project bid to satisfy what are really unknown reggies.  Besides the cost of hiring new environmental inspectors, test labs, etc. they are faced with a substantial fines structure.  All they know is that the environmental fines are "at the discretion" of the govt, with no upper limit.  While I am pretty sure that there will eventually be some precedence and stabilization, for the short term, they fear that a vindictive inspector (or cash strapped dept) may levy ungodly fines in the mean time.  And what do you want to bet that private sector developers will get the heaviest fines and govt jobs will get a pass, just like govt projects seem to have an easier time working around wetland regulations?

Short term, it will stifle a lot of private new construction given how scared contractors seem to be (based on just a few conversations I have had).  I am not arguing against better environmental regulations, but perhaps just their timing.  How can Obama not see the correlation between instilling fear in small and medium size businesses and them pulling in the reins until they see what will happen legislatively with this and health care?  I mean he has tossed about a dozen game changing programs in the air, yet passed none to date.  To me, it seems like the most natural thing in the world to set on the sidelines and hunker down, no?

Oh yeah, and to keep it on topic, I hear Obama isn't that good a golfer and doesn't care a hoot about preserving our classic courses.  The nerve!

[Jud_T]

Excellent prescription for jumpstarting the economy-Lots more government regulation and higher taxes....

[Steve Kline]

Gold is immutable, every ounce of gold produced from time immemorial is still somewhere,

Bob  

Do you know all of that golf would fill just two Olympic size swimming pools. Gold being immutable and its inability to be produced except through mining is why it has been money for 6,000 years.

[Lou_Duran]

I like TangleRidge better, but Ridgeview Ranch is comparable.  I don't care for how Palmer Golf operates it, a discussion I've had with Andy (the GM for RR and Frisco Lakes and a good guy), particularly that they have allowed the bunkers and the driving range to completely deteriorate.  With the surrounding demographics, the course is probably priced too cheap and it seems to get beat-up with too much play.

We have Mr. Nixon to thank for the EPA and its current administrator is a radical with incredible powers.  Its likely position on carbon dioxide as a pollutant will enable it to regulate energy even if Cap and Tax doesn't become law.  Without even considering the job-killing effects of ObamaCare, double the cost of electricity in this country and see what happens.  Remember, what triggered the mortgage defaults in CA was not the resetting of variable rate loans, but the near doubling of gasoline prices which made long drives to work impossible for many home owners already strapped by the state's ultra-high cost-of-living.

I have come to the conclusion that President Obama is sufficiently intelligent to know his policies will result in a very slow-growth, second-rate economy similar to Europe's and that he is perfectly okay with that.  Though he talks about markets, he holds them and capitalists in contempt and believes a more egaliatarian society can be achieved by a big government dominating the economy.  That he won't speak his mind honestly and get the Consititution properly amended to achieve this is what I find most sickening about him and his sort.  I wouldn't like it much more if they prevailed, but at least the American people can sign-on to a program based on the facts.

[Steve Kline]

Do all of you know that Pinehurst is shutting down Course #8 for a few months. They aren't making any improvements. They are just shutting it down because there's no demand. I played #2 as a guest of my dad for $99 last week. That's around a 60% discount from what I paid a year or two ago. Pinehurst is really feeling it - both on the member and resort guest play. I could see a resort like that closing a course permanently - or for a number of years.

[George Pazin]

I don't think there is anybody who really appreciates what COULD happen if everything goes wrong.

There's a few thousand people in DC (and NYC) who are pretty darn sure they know everything.

Me, I've started wondering about where in the world to start building Galt's Gulch.

[Kalen Braley]

I think Richard was pretty spot on with his comments.  So far from what I've read and seen, all we've done is further push down the pipe the inevitable judgement day.

But sooner or later, there will be no more turnips left to squeeze, especially when one considers that 99% of the ppopulation is only 1 lost job and a major health complication away from complete disaster.

There are no easy solutions, only soft landings as Greenspan liked to put it.  Except the soft landing we need will need to be a very long runway.  I'm usually very optomistic on the future of America, it always seems we've rebounded, but I find myself more pessimistic each day with the lack of real changes being put in place to ensure a prosperous future for more than those just on the very top of the food chain.

[Michael Dugger]

I read somewhere the other day that now 1% of the population owns 90% of the wealth.

Seems in the mid 90's it was more like 10% owning 85% (not that that's much better )

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