BRUSH PRAIRIE — Some of the bucolic qualities of The Cedars on Salmon Creek are on hiatus.
Past an orange safety fence near the clubhouse, wheezing excavators scrape at what used to be fairway grass while a reversing backhoe chirps. Construction has been the norm for the Brush Prairie course since last summer.
As members of a high school girls golf team practiced their short game just yards away, coach and course professional Joe Cain tries to put a little backspin on the situation.
“It’s a good lesson in turning all of it into white noise,” he said, smiling.
The distraction may be temporary, but it could lead to an eventual boon. Located at a dead end on the outskirts of Battle Ground, Cain said the public course relies on regular visitors for its revenue and not membership dues.
Whether they golf or not, more people are on the way. Early last year The Cedars sold the land underneath its driving range and first two holes to a Portland real estate developer. Nearly 300 homes are expected to rise.
“We’re a little off the beaten path, so this kind of opens the door,” Cain said, noting that The Cedars will redesign part of its course to field 18 holes. “It’s always been more of a destination. This is kind of a rebranding.”
While dotting homes around a golf course is not a new concept, the sport’s waning popularity and land-hungry developers seem to be easing these sorts of strokes.
Bubble for clubhouses
The ground appears to be shifting under the whole golf course industry.
From 1986 to 2005, golf courses boomed and more than 4,000 new facilities were built in the United States, according to the National Golf Foundation. A well-running economy helped, but so did the belief that Tiger Woods would drive a new generation to the links.
“Really, everyone did pretty great back then,” said Chris Garrison, golf professional at Camas Meadows Golf Club, which opened in 2000. “(Woods) led this huge charge that really introduced a lot of people to golf that would never have been introduced (otherwise).”
Two coinciding events have hamstrung that growth, however: Woods’ widely publicized struggles and the Great Recession.
According to the National Golf Foundation’s reports, the sport had more than 30 million regular players at its peak in 2003, but now stands closer to 24 million.
And, after so many courses opened for business, Cain said the industry is correcting itself. Thousands have closed in the U.S., including more than 200 in 2016.
Local courses that are privately owned don’t share their finances. But information is available for Tri-Mountain Golf Course in Ridgefield because it is owned by Clark County. Revenue there dropped from $1.7 million in 2015 to $1.5 million in 2017. The amount of golf played has dropped, too. The course saw 42,000 rounds of golf played in 2015, compared with 34,300 last year.
There are courses that can survive on prestige and yearslong waiting lists, Cain said, such as Chambers Bay or Bandon Dunes in Oregon. But what about the local courses?
“You try to get more golfers, right?” said Cain. “We did sell off a portion of our property but it was only two holes. That’s something we can make back easily.”
Teeing it up
The Cedars is hardly the only course to strike a deal with real estate developers.
Cain, who earned a business degree in golf course management from the Golf Academy of America, said it’s a common business practice in the lauded golf scenes of Arizona.
“That’s how they do it there. They build the course then build homes around it,” he said. “People want to live on the course. That atmosphere is pretty prevalent.”
A recent local example is Charbonneau Golf Club in Wilsonville, Ore., which sold its driving range to a homebuilder two years ago.
Garrison said he understood how course owners might be enticed to sell portions of a course. According to the Building Industry Association of Clark County, an acre of residential land today fetches between $150,000 and $175,000.
“Say it’s 10 acres and you can sell it for umpteen dollars. Then you look at the revenue on the (driving) range and how long it takes to get there. And, by the way, you have to fertilize it and mow it, and then those mowers wear out,” he said.
One of Camas Meadows’ former neighbors, Green Mountain Golf Course, took that to the next level. Its owners sold the entire course in 2014 for a massive, multiyear housing development. And the WinCo Foods along Northeast 117th Avenue sits atop what a dozen years ago was a golf course.
Camas Meadows has its own crop of homes moving next door, though the course did not own the land. Garrison is optimistic more neighbors and a 90,000-square-foot commercial center could bring more visitors to the course and the clubhouse.
“We can’t wait. The drive-by traffic is going to help us out,” Garrison said. “There’s a lot of ideas that we’ll be working with to make sure we can meet some of their needs, too.”
The golf courses also hope that more people might find their way into the clubhouses for events or a meal. The Cedars struck a deal with restaurateur Russell Brent to operate a new smokehouse that will also cater banquets.
“It’s going to be great for the course and it will be great for us because we’ll have more homes and a captive audience,” said Brent, who has three business partners in the endeavor.
Likewise, Camas Meadows is trying to be more active in marketing itself as an events center. With a banquet hall and outdoor tent, Garrison said it can accommodate up to 1,500 people on a nice day for weddings, retirements, birthdays and more.
“I think it’s really difficult to be just a golf course,” he said. “You have to come up with different ways and we have to make sure we’re utilizing the whole facility.”
Garrison did not disclose how business is going at Camas Meadows, but said management is hoping to get more visitors. Besides hosting events, it is ramping up adult classes and trying to stay involved with schools, he said.
Looking ahead
The recent appearance of Tiger Woods at The Masters boosted television ratings, and Garrison said people at the clubhouse were noticeably more excited.
But, after nearly three decades in the industry, he said golf courses cannot expect the sport’s stars to keep them in business. He said he notices that new golfers are getting involved right as old golfers retire, so he hoped they would be more active.
“I have to tell you, in 29 years, I’ve seen the industry be very passive,” he said. “That can be frustrating at times because the weather will be good, people will come and love the game, then everyone sits on their hands.”
Still, he said the sport has probably endured its biggest setbacks in the last decade. And, with more people moving to the Vancouver-Portland metropolitan area in the short-term, he’s hopeful that will mean some good breaks.
“It’s a tough business. We’ve been here a long time and made it through some rough patches,” he said. “Things are only going to get better with the population growing, but you never know. We’re really fortunate that we’ve been able to do just fine.”
