Is Golf Club Real Estate Rebounding After Recession?

Probably not; at least not yet. This as the golf club real estate market is still struggling to bounce back from the recession - and is likely to never be like it was, Alexei Barrionuevo of Curbed reports.

For the past ten years, there have been more golf courses that closed than opened, and this opened an opportunity for developers to build portfolios of private clubs, says Jeff Woolson, managing director of CBRE's Golf & Resort Group. The trade of private golf clubs has never been active than in the past two years, which is a reflection of an improving debt market, fewer number of new club memberships, and a general decline in interest in the sport, says Woolson and other analysts.

"It is still a buyer's market," said Larry Hirsh, president of Golf Property Analysts, a real estate appraisal firm. "The courses that are for sale are for the most part courses that have some challenge or [financial] distress."

So what really happened to golf? It was during the late 1980's that the burgeoning of golf courses happened, and sped up ten years after, when Tiger Woods became highly famous. Just like every boom in America, it didn't take too long until it turned to over-building. But when the recession hit, golf and private club enthusiasts had a change of their priorities.

"During the recession it was really easy for people to cut golf out of the diet," Woolson said.

Then came the age when time and work schedules have become obstacles to the traditional golf paradigm.  "The club is a different animal than it was 20 years ago," Hirsh said. "It like the Oldsmobile ad; it is not your father's Oldsmobile anymore. Well, it is not your father's club anymore. There are very few clubs where dad leaves Saturday morning at 8 a.m. and goes and plays golf and says, 'I'll be home for dinner at five,' and sits around and golfs and drinks beer all day." 

But for Hirsh, golf is not dead. "We got a whole lot of oversupply, and it is correcting itself."