For those of us with Walter Mitty dreams of running our own golf course, the story of Parkland Golf Club in Greenwood, SC, sends a sober chill up the spine. After more than 20 years, the course has closed, and although I was unable to talk with anyone associated with the club, simple math tells all we need to know
Parkland was designed by John Park and opened in 1985; no telling if the course's name was a tribute to the architect or reflected the environment. The few photos I was able to find show something of a parkland setting. Greenwood is midway between the cities of Columbia, the state capital, and the sophisticated Greenville. The
Up to the end, the semi-private Parkland was a bargain to play, with green fees topping out at $28. But in its final years, the course generated just 10,000 rounds per year, 18,000 at the peak a few years earlier. Simple multiplication says it all: 10,000 rounds at a maximum of $28 means the course owner had less than $300,000 annually from golf operations to pay all expenses and reinvest in the golf course. These days, that hardly seems enough to pay for the gas in the lawn mowers let alone improvements to the course.
Local golf competition in a sparsely populated area also had to be a factor. Within 10 miles, there are a half dozen other public golf courses and a few private ones. A local nine-hole course also closed recently.
Coldwell Banker's National Sales center has the listing for the course in behalf of the bank holding the note on the property. The price for the 18-hole course, including clubhouse and an eight-acre driving range that conceivably could be used for housing, is just $800,000, down from $1.8 million before the bankruptcy. About an hour up the road, at The Cliffs Communities, single-family homes at $800,000 are at the lower end of the market.
If you are interested, contact Kathy Bissell, VP of Golf Course Sales, at (904) 285-5465 or visit Coldwell Banker's web site.
have been pushed around to create the elevated and severely contoured green complexes, and a lot of sand trucked in to create wide expanses of sawgrass-punctuated waste bunkers. At the old Sea Gull, you could roll your ball onto most greens; those days are now over. Cost of the redesign is estimated at $7 million, but because of the delayed opening, the true cost is probably considerably higher.
a drive down the center, the second shot must be played to a landing strip of grass that is no wider than 25 yards, with water all along the left and trees, and a local street, on the right. The wedge approach is to a severely tilted green that is surrounded by bunkers that appear to have been formed by meteorites. It is a hole more fitting for an 18th, although The Founders' finishing hole is no slouch either, a short par 4 surrounded by sand. The par 3s are all impressive, one in particular with a false front that slopes down to a pond in front. Another hole, a par 4, features a split fairway; between the short grass strips is a humped area of Bermuda rough featuring some of the smallest pot bunkers I've ever seen. The only way out of them is sideways.
