As the commercial-real-estate crisis worsens in Arizona, many golf-course owners find themselves deep in the rough and struggling to stay in the game.
About a dozen golf courses in the state have gone through foreclosure or bankruptcy since commercial properties started facing serious financial problems in 2008, according to Mesa-based real-estate-analysis firm Ion Data, and many others have been listed for sale.
So far, only about 5 percent of Arizona's roughly 340 golf courses have exhibited overt signs of financial trouble, experts said, while the number of "at-risk" courses across the U.S. is closer to 15 percent.
