The Money -- or The Golf Course?

If you wondered why your neighborhood golf course is no more, here's the answer.

Golf is a dying sport worldwide. Older people still play -- but there are way too few younger ones coming in to replace them.

Lot of theories about why this is so. The most popular? That younger folk don't want to spend four or five hours getting to a result. They want a "faster" fix than that. And golf is just too leisurely.

What this means is that most golf courses can't charge their dwindling membership anywhere near enough for the numbers to add up. The bar and the restaurant help a bit, but nowhere near enough.

In fact, it's worse than that. Many golf courses now find they have 30-50 hectares of prime rolling countryside - smack in the heart of suburbs, towns and regional centres.

At a housing density of 15-25 homes per hectare -- well -- you do the math!

Putting it together: a sport that can't financially "wash its face," sitting on land worth tens to hundreds of millions of dollars, in prime locations for development.

I interviewed Darren Halpin, the principal of a development company in Cairns, North Queensland -- but the story is largely the same in most places.

Halpin and his associates want planning permission for re-development of the picturesque Paradise Palms Golf Course -- and naturally, locals are largely against it.

"Why can't we continue playing golf -- or at least preserve a view that backs onto all that pleasant parkland?" they ask, not unreasonably.

Except the cold reality is the development profits are potentially so large, golf has no way to compete.

Moreover, if planning permission is ultimately denied, the developer will sooner or later have to sell the property and move on.

So, who are the potential buyers? The answer, inevitably, other developers.

The local Cairns Regional Council is held to be a potential (but somehow reluctant) white knight. Some dream Council will buy the course for, say $50m, and continue to operate it as a loss-making golf course. But, even if Council did that -- over the no doubt strenuous protests of other ratepayers -- how long before they themselves received an offer too good to refuse?

The other potential buyer -- a group of local residents and maybe club members. Let's just assume they have the $50m in their collective back pocket, so they have no pesky loan repayments to worry about. The problem is they still have to fund a venture losing $50,000 a week or more.

How long do you think before the residential group also cashed out -- and pocketed a large profit on the sale?

And who do you think might be the most attractive buyer with the juiciest bid?

And so there you have it. A protest movement, with which I sympathise, to stop a development, that for hard-nosed financial reasons, just cannot be stopped. Better to put their efforts into a battle over something else, where success might be a chance.

One way or another, Paradise Palms Golf Resort, Cairns, faces a future involving lots of earth moving equipment, jobs for tradies, and ultimately, a new suburb no one wants -- but many will want to live in. #PhilAckmanCurrentAffairs #ParadisePalms #ParadisePalmsGolfResort #DarrenHalpin #CairnsFM891