Selling golf in Kansas City wasn't always this difficult.
Shane Gardner remembers the boom market in 1995, when he took the reins at the newly-opened Ironhorse Golf Club in south Leawood.
Back then, the course sold itself. Golfers jammed phone lines with reservations. Open tee times quickly became rumors. People bought $150 memberships with the only benefit being an extra two days of advance reservation time.
"Back then, you could charge a premium for tee times," said Gardner, who serves as the course's general manager. "There were only two upscale public courses in town -- Deer Creek (in Overland Park) and us."
The monopoly didn't last long. In fact it seemed that courses began popping up faster than the time Gardner needed to play a par-3. Today, there are nine more public courses than when Gardner moved to the area. Nearly all of them are built inside housing developments, a main impetus for the boom.
"They just kept coming and coming and coming," said Gardner, who can't sell advance reservation memberships anymore and must work even harder to attract golfers.
Most general managers of courses in Kansas City are facing the same problem. With a large supply of public courses, would-be "country club members for a day" have a wide variety of choices.
But courses are fighting over a shrinking number of available rounds and revenue. An informal survey of 10 courses around the city shows the number of rounds played fell 5 percent from 2002 to 2003. Revenues also fell 5 percent over the same period.
Those numbers reflect a nationwide trend in the decline of rounds played.
"People aren't flooding our doors," Prairie Highlands general manager Jeff Locke said. "We have to work diligently to get people on our golf course."
The problem exists all across the Kansas City area, but competition seems to be fiercest in Johnson County. And the number of courses in Johnson County might grow even more. Shawnee and Olathe are mulling plans to add 18-hole municipal courses. Each would be considered an "upscale public" with greens fees costing more than $30 per round. A golf course is also part of Lenexa's City Center plan.
The possible additions have sparked a new debate in Kansas City's golf community: Has supply outgrown demand?
Numbers obtained by The Star don't paint a promising picture.
The two Overland Park-owned golf courses, Overland Park and St. Andrews, have seen a combined 16 percent decrease in rounds played from 2001 to 2003. The same time period yielded an 11 percent drop in revenues. Both are among the most-played courses in the area.
Several municipal courses have had trouble generating enough revenue to cover their costs. Despite its popularity, Ironhorse has borrowed $1.8 million from the city of Leawood, which will be repaid after its 20-year loan is retired in 2015. Ironhorse has posted a positive income four times since 1995.
Spring Hill's Sycamore Ridge opened in 2000, but has had to dip into a city reserve. Discounts in 2003 helped the number of rounds jump 30 percent from 26,000 in 2002 to 34,000. The course's revenue increased only 13 percent because of cheaper rounds.
Deer Creek was averaging 45,000 rounds a year in the late '90s. Today, the course averages 34,000, according to its director of sales.
The city of Olathe closed its novice-oriented Lakeside Hills in November 2002 after it was determined that course improvements would result in a loss of funds.
Statistics compiled by the National Golf Foundation show the number of golfers in the United States grew to 27.4 million in 2003, an increase of 4 percent. Those golfers, however, are playing fewer times per year. The number of rounds played nationwide decreased from 518.1 million in 2001 to 494 million in 2003.
The foundation also found that an average of 298 golf courses was added each year between 1993 and 2002. In 2003, the number of courses added was 72.
Area operators point to a number of reasons for the current market. Weather, as it always seems to be, was the biggest factor. Sixty-two percent of facilities told the National Golf Foundation that weather was the biggest reason for their decrease in play. (Thirty-five percent of facilities reporting an increase also cited weather.)
A soggy June has thrown most courses in the Kansas City area off their projections. Because June is also a big corporate-outing month, several rainouts have affected the bottom line.
Operators also cite the current state of the economy and increased competition as reasons for the decline. The courses also face rising maintenance costs. One manager said the average maintenance on an upscale course averages $1.5 million to $2 million a year.
"It's been very difficult after Sept. 11," said Carl Dietz, Sycamore Ridge general manager. "Before that, our business was very strong and we had a lot of corporate events. But with the way the economy is right now, there are a lot of layoffs and that's affecting our business, too."
Deer Creek director of sales Mark Argotsinger said the course has to "scratch and dig" to attract more golfers. That includes restructuring the rate schedule and offering a summer special rate -- $46 after 11 a.m. on any day of the week buys a round of golf, a cart and two drink tickets. Deer Creek's standard rates are $59 on weekdays and $69 on weekends.
Most courses now offer coupons and similar special rates through their Web sites, though some only send offers to mailing lists and existing customers. Currently, golfers can expect to pay above $20 for a regular municipal course like St. Andrews to more than $50 for courses such as Ironhorse, Falcon Ridge and Tiffany Greens.
While general managers might not like the current environment, it has benefited golfers, who are taking advantage of nice courses at an affordable price.
"With the competition out there, the courses are really making sure to have the best maintenance on their course," said Adam Tilton, an Overland Park golfer who plays twice a week. "You used to have to play Kansas City Country Club to get really good greens. That's not the case any more.
"I don't mind paying 60 dollars a round if the course is well-maintained."
Yet golfers don't have to pay even that much if they shop around.
"It's a golfer's market," Argotsinger said. "You can go anywhere and get a good price at a good course.
"But from the golf courses' standpoint, we're all at 75-80 percent of where we should be revenue-wise."
Considering the current market, Shawnee has proceeded with caution on its current proposal, which came from local developers Mark Simpson and Saul Ellis.
Titled The Links at MillCreek, the course would sit on 250 acres leased by the developers to the city for $1 per year. Shawnee would be responsible for building an $11-million golf course while the developers would build 500 upscale homes around the course.
On Tuesday, an independent consultant is scheduled to present a feasibility study to the Shawnee public works committee.
Shawnee parks and recreation director Neil Holman conducted his own feasibility study in June and concluded that the course would need to generate $2.3 million per year to cover a $700,000 debt payment and $1.6 million in operating costs.
Simpson estimates the course would need 35,000 rounds a year to turn a profit, but Holman is skeptical the course would attract that much play.
"Based upon what appears to be declining golf play and decreasing revenues at golf courses in the area," Holman wrote in his study. "(Our) staff is very hesitant to make a strong recommendation to move ahead with a municipal golf course at this time, unless some other revenue source or subsidy could be found."
Olathe has also investigated its course options after closing Lakeside Hills. Earlier this year, a developer pledged to donate land adjacent to Lakeside Hills so the city would have enough room to build an Arnold Palmer-designed championship golf course. The developer would then build homes around the course.
But Prairie Highlands filed a lawsuit against the city of Olathe, charging that a city-owned competitor was unlawful and would hurt their business. A judge ruled in favor of Olathe, but the developer had already pulled his offer to provide land. Prairie Highlands has filed a motion to reconsider.
Locke, the Prairie Highlands GM, said it's a simple matter of survival for his 3-year-old course.
"We're completely opposed against a municipality getting involved in high-end golf," Locke said. "We know how much it takes to survive and (an Olathe course) would severely hurt our business."
Olathe parks and recreation director Steve Baysinger said the city is exploring further options and has contracted a consulting company for a feasibility study of sites and markets in the city.
Lenexa's City Center plan is still being debated, and its golf-course plan is still in the early planning stages.
Not everyone paints a gloom-and-doom future.
Sandy Queen, manager of golf-course operations for Overland Park, thinks the market will rebound as the area's population grows. The National Golf Foundation estimates that 12 percent of the population plays golf at least once a year.
"Golf is not very lucrative," Queen said. "But the courses are built for many other reasons. You create open park space that can never be built on. It provides recreation for juniors, seniors and women. It increases the tax base and it draws people of means to your city.
"This is like any other business. For a long time, we had insufficient capacity. So we built more, and there's going to be a lag time in repopulating the courses."
Ted Osmundson, who runs Kansas City-owned Shoal Creek, said that business in his area north of the city isn't as competitive as other areas.
"Down in (Johnson County), I can understand," Osmundson said. "Up here we've had a few golf courses built in the past few years, but we've got through all of that. Hopefully no one's going to build up here any more."
No one wants the situation like the one in Johnson County, where Shawnee mayor Jeff Meyers is approaching his city's plan with caution.
"The land we want to develop is a beautiful piece of land and it would be a fantastic golf course," said Meyers about the MillCreek plan. "A lot of people are saying it would be ideal to have that in the city. But those are also the same people that are saying, 'Hey, watch out, golf just isn't that popular right now.' "
Terry Clark, an Olathe golfer who has opposed the city at planning meetings, believes the golf wishes of most municipalities are misguided. He believes the city needs shorter courses that are priced for senior citizens and youth golfers.
"Kansas City really needs to ask itself why it really needs yet another 7,200-yard championship course," Clark said. "We have plenty of those kinds of courses. Those aren't courses that kids should be learning golf on.
"There's a market that cities are ignoring."
And so the debate continues. Back at Ironhorse, Shane Gardner looks around and thinks the same thought as the rest of the general managers: How am I going to get more people on my golf course?
"The market has reached a point of saturation," Gardner said. "The core base of golfers is growing, but it's not growing as fast as they're building the golf courses around town.
"Sometimes it seems like the entire pie of golfers has already been divided."
Source: The Kansas City Star