Region braces for three new residential golf courses

Is there such a thing as too much golf?
For some, one round of the sport is enough to last a lifetime. For others ? those whose dreams are lined with lush fairways and greens, nightmares filled with bunkers and hazards ? there?s no such thing as too much golf.
For those in the latter category, good news is on its way in the form of three new courses in Northern Colorado. Highland Meadows is set to open in Windsor this June. Nearby, a 9-hole course called Pelican Falls should be ready for play in late 2005. And near Timnath, the Grand Tree development, complete with an 18-hole course, is expected to break ground in early- to late-2005.
All three of the courses will anchor residential developments offering resort-style living. And Highland Meadows and Pelican Falls are set to be privately owned but open to the public.
So the question is: Are there enough golfers out there to support the number of courses? Managers of municipal courses in the region don?t think so.
?Golf is overbuilt right now,? said Rod Chapman, golf manager for Loveland?s three municipal courses. ?There are too many courses already.?
Chapman said he is bracing for the inevitable impact on city-owned courses when Highland Meadows opens this summer.
?Highland Meadows needs 40,000 golfers to make a go of it, and that?s just the base minimum,? he said. ?Now, I know there?s not 40,000 new guys or gals taking up golf. So, where are they going to get it from? They?ll take 10,000 from Loveland, and 10,000 from Greeley and Fort Collins and Longmont. It hurts everybody.?
Golf is a trendy sport, with the current trend on the decline. According to the National Golf Foundation, the number of rounds played nationally decreased by 1.5 percent from 2002 to 2003 and 3 percent from 2001 to 2002. Locally, Fort Collins municipal courses saw a 10.7 percent decrease in rounds played. Greeley lost 6.3 percent, while Loveland more closely mimicked the national figures with a 1.7 percent decrease from 2002 to 2003.
Jerry P. Brown, Fort Collins? golf manager, agrees with his Loveland counterpart.
?The golf industry in general is in kind of a lag right now,? he said. ?Nationally, we?ve seen over-construction of golf courses in last decade, and the number of players has leveled off.
?It?s good for golfers, it?s great to have a lot of choices,? he said. ? But we?re pretty concerned, relatively speaking, with the addition of new courses in the area.?
It seems that every new course has a housing development attached to it, and statistics compiled by the National Golf Foundation show that real estate-related golf courses are definitely leading the pack. While overall they account for only 19 percent of the total number of courses, 48 percent of new course openings in 2003 were real estate-related and the trend is expected to continue.
?A golf course adds tremendous value to the surrounding real estate and the community,? said Martin Lind, local developer. Lind plans to build a 9-hole executive course called Pelican Falls as a complement to the already successful Water Valley development and its Pelican Lakes 18-hole course in Windsor. ?You don?t have to labor the course as an economic venture in itself,? Lind said. ?If there?s a glut of golf courses in the market, I?d like to have the one with the lowest debt.?
Municipal courses are taking steps to level the playing field, offering amenities usually reserved for privately owned courses. For example, Loveland is spending more than $500,000 this year, replacing its old golf carts with a brand new GPS-equipped fleet. The new technology will allow duffers to see exactly how far away they are from the pin, or to order food or drinks from the clubhouse.
?There?s always room for golf, but that doesn?t mean it?s always going to be profitable,? said Byron Collins, the developer behind the soon-to-be-developed Grand Tree resort-style community located on 640 acres just one mile east of Timnath. While the plan has yet to receive approval from Larimer County, Collins said he expects to have about 400 residential units surrounded by a course designed by Jim Engh, a Colorado State University alumni and Golf Digest?s Architect of the Year. At this point the course is anticipated to be private.
?Our course is really filling a community lifestyle niche,? Collins said. ?We?re not competing in the public realm. The course isn?t set up to be a profit center.?
Collins said at build-out he hopes to have 350 to 450 members playing 25,000 to 32,000 rounds a year.
?It is a very tight market,? he said. ?There?s a little more supply than the current demand. But we do expect for the population to grow.?
?If you wait five to 10 years from now, how far out are you going to have to go to find the property? It?s like buying a pair of shoes you have to grow into,? he said. ?You have to be a little more of a visionary. You have to step up and take your lumps a little bit in the early stages.?