Sugarloaf Mountain had the named brand architect, the year-round warm climate, and a unique topography but it didn't have golfers. Neighboring World Woods survived the recession and on my visit, last year had a full tee sheet. The dichotomy between Little River and The Dormie Club and Sugarloaf Mountain and WW is the quality of the golf architecture. One survives economic storms and thrives while the other shutters.
Your point here was pretty garbled.
The point of my post was that "name design" or "architectural quality" are no guarantee of success if other factors fail.
Location [, location, location] is a huge one, although you couldn't say World Woods succeeds based on its location.
Timing is probably the most important thing, in any sort of development project. The recession hit when Sugarloaf was a couple of years old and still trying to attract customers and sell real estate. World Woods had been profitable for quite a few years and had a customer base to fall back on, which was huge.
My own first course, High Pointe, was a victim of timing. The client passed away just before the recession hit, and when it lost money the next year, his son closed it; there were no buyers because of the recession. Had the client lived five years longer, he would have kept it open during the recession, and it would have found a buyer afterward, I think. If he had died five years earlier, they probably would have sold it during the boom.
Last but not least, having deep pockets to survive the downturn is also an underrated factor in the success or failure of many projects.