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Can Minnesota golf courses find the next generation of players? I MinnPost Page 5 of 8 "What we're seeing is a real estate story almost more than a golf story," he says. Indeed, many of the state's closures have been in or near metropolitan areas where the land on which they sit is a magnet for real estate developers. Country clubs that once stood for more than half a century, like Orono's Lakeview Golf Course and Shorewood's Minnetonka Country Club, have lately been turned over to developers who can build loo or more high-end homes on them, priced anywhere from $400,000 to $1.5 million apiece. Tom Ryan highlights supply and demand in the golf business: The latter remains healthy while the former appears to be normalizing after years of runaway expansion. For the 20106, the National Golf Foundation predicted that as many as 1,000 golf courses would close throughout the country, and Ryan observes the industry is on pace to meet that mark. "When you look at the number of courses built, the number of golfers didn't increase at the same rate," Ryan says. "There's still plenty of room and places to play. I think we're a long ways away from any negative impact." Municipal courses: A losing proposition? One sector, however, does seem to be struggling. Early last year, a 151 -page report commissioned by the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board painted a bleak picture for the park system's six golf courses. Golf Convergence, the Colorado -based consultant that prepared the study, noted that rounds played at Minneapolis' municipal golf courses plummeted more than 46 percent from a 2000 peak of 324,647 rounds played. Net income for the city's golf operations also fell, from $1.8 million in 2000 to a loss of more than $532,000 in 2013. The report recommended $34 million in capital improvements, such as addressing drainage issues or "dated and disgusting" clubhouses, to remain competitive with private courses. "If value is not provided to the golfer, every golf enterprise will suffer," it says. The report called the park board's golf department a "failing enterprise" that has "spun into a death spiral," citing a long deferral of critical and competitive capital investment and a present- day lack of capital. Despite a "fabulous" density of golfers and a market where demand exceeds supply, the report says the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board is likely to see short-term operational losses. The City of St. Paul, meanwhile, lost about $1 million in 2013 on the four courses operated through its parks and recreation department, the most recent year for which data is available. Brad Meyer, the department's public service manager, says the city expected its courses to lose about $400,000 for 2014. http://www.minnpost.com/twin-cities-business/2015/04/can-minnesota-golf... 4/22/2015