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The Golfdom Report: All Quiet on the Construction Front
February 1, 2009 By: Anthony Pioppi GolfdomThe land that was supposed to transform into the bustling Maine National Golf Club in 2008 turned out to be a quiet piece of property for most of the year.
 (PHOTO BY: LARRY AYLWARD) |
Earlier in the year, the site was brisk with sounds of heavy equipment reworking the land into a highly anticipated private layout. But the recession put a stop to the project on all but a small amount of work for Mark Eitelman, owner of Agri-Scape Golf Construction, and his crew. Now and again Eitelman and some of his employees will inspect the site that was about 30 percent cleared when the job was halted. They visit the disturbed land to make sure that silt fences are in place and that no runoff is making its way into a nearby pond.
"We're there on an as-needed basis," Eitelman says of the Brad Booth-Brad Faxon design on the south Maine coast. "We're still dealing with the Department of Environmental Protection and erosion-control issues. We're babysitting the site."
Eitelman has not been given a time frame as when the project might start up again, and he does not foresee it happening anytime soon, maybe not even in 2009.
The sour New England golf market, where the only new course that opened in 2008 was the Brian Silva-designed Old Marsh Country Club, a semi-private layout coincidentally also in Wells, is not an aberration. Long before it was formally announced the country was in a recession, the golf course design and construction industry, from the jagged Maine coastline to the fog- shrouded shores of northern California, was mired in such a state.
 Mark Eitelman, Owner, Agri-Scape Golf Construction (PHOTO BY: ANTHONY PIOPPI) |
2008 marks the third consecutive year that more golf courses across the country closed than opened. In 2007, the National Golf Foundation said the equivalent of 121.5 18-hole courses closed while 113 opened. In 2006, 146 shut down and 119.5 opened. The NGF reported that 72 courses opened in 2008, the lowest number in 20 years. The NGF said there were 106 closures in 2008.
New course construction has virtually ground to a halt. It wasn't long ago that opportunities for renovations and restorations were passed over by many of the larger construction companies and highest-priced architects. But not anymore.
Most of the rest of the world is not that different from North America. There are burgeoning markets such as Eastern Europe, but the golf crisis is global for the most part. And no one can predict, with any semblance of faith, when it will end. Agri-Scape's Eitelman says that where once his business in the United States was 80 percent new construction and 20 percent renovations, it has been 90 percent renovation and 10 percent new construction for the last three years. Eitelman said he saw the downturn coming and was prepared for it, adding that he "re-geared" the company.
 Craig Schreiner, Architect, Schreiner Golf Inc. |
"We downsized our crew and equipment," he says. "A lot of our big earthmoving equipment is parked in the yard."
Three years ago, Agri-Scape employed 60 to 70 during the summer. In 2008 that number was between 25 and 30. Last year the company worked on a number of projects where it performed everything from major bunker renovations to irrigation and drainage work. Agri-Scape also handled much of the sodding,
Some of the jobs came at financially sound private clubs. "The older, stable facilities have money," Eitelman says. "There's always going to be that kind of work around."
But Eitelman says that even those courses have cut back. Where once the projects were budgeted for $300,000, they were reduced to $150,000 or $200,000. Making matters worse for Agri-Scape and other small companies is that the big boys on the block are bidding on smaller renovation contracts they once passed over.
Tom Shapland, president of the Midwest office for Wadsworth Golf Construction, the largest golf course builder in the United States, said a $1 million project was the smallest the company would be involved with not too long ago. Now Wadsworth is going after jobs nearly half that number. "It's very bad, very depressed," says Shapland, who has been with Wadsworth for 40 years.
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