Gone But Not Forgotten

Remembering local courses moved on into golf legend

Phillip Ellis, Golf Today
Posted 9/18/18

Golf is one of the most popular sports in the world. It’s enjoyed in every civilized country by players from age eight to eighty and beyond. The Gulf Coast is blessed with some of the top links in the South. From the....

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Gone But Not Forgotten

Remembering local courses moved on into golf legend

Posted

Golf is one of the most popular sports in the world. It’s enjoyed in every civilized country by players from age eight to eighty and beyond. The Gulf Coast is blessed with some of the top links in the South. From the Robert Trent Jones Trail courses to many nationally recognized courses, award winners, and player favorites, it has them all. Unfortunately, with the problems of a slow economy, oil spills, and hurricanes eating away at its base, golf along the coast has changed in recent years.

In a little more than a decade, over eight local courses have closed and moved into golf legend. So far, Isle Dauphine on Dauphin Island is the only one to reopen. Other courses include: the Linksman on Dog River in Mobile; the Woodlands in Gulf Shores which was part of the Craft Farms family; the Moors in nearby Milton, that was for years the home to the Champions Tour's annual events; Gulf Pines on Brookley Field along Mobile Bay, a popular course with the locals; Isle Dauphine on Dauphin Island, a true links course on the Gulf of Mexico; Magnolia Springs a par 3 in Magnolia Springs, a favorite with the snowbirds; Meadow Lake a nine-hole course in Theodore; and finally Silver King, originally Driftwood CC, in Irvington.

A course we left out of the mix because it never actually opened is on Hwy 225 near Spanish Fort, The project, I'm not sure about its name, was started originally by LPGA golfer Jan Stevenson, changed hands, and currently sits idle.

You could say so what. It’s business. They come and go. It’s the natural order. Perhaps you would be correct; but in the same time span only two courses, by my recollection, have been built in our community: Soldier's Creek in Elberta and Emerald Greens in Gulf Shores.

So what do we take from this, well your guess is as good as mine. Golf is a solid sport built on tradition and enjoying world-wide popularity. The one thread that runs through all these closings is that, outside of the Woodlands and the Moors, the others were low cost tracks with prices under thirty dollars. In today's economy, it’s hard to maintain a course in that price range without tons of play. So here's the question, "the chicken or the egg?" Do you lower prices to attract legions of golfers, or do you raise them to stay in the black financially?