Posted: 12 Feb 2011 02:56 AM PST

Golf Town Inc., a Canadian big-box retailer based in Markham, Ontario, will establish a group of golf superstores in Massachusetts this year as it expands into the United States for the first time. The company said it is making a $25 million investment and creating 200 jobs in the Boston area, with five stores opening next month and one more in the fall.

"New England has avid golfers who are very passionate about their game,'' said Stephen Bebis, chief executive of Golf Town.

Bebis said the company's suppliers approached Golf Town a couple of years ago to suggest expanding in Boston. "We started studying the Greater Boston area,'' Bebis said. "We found that last year, it was the only market where golf rounds were up in the US. We found a very active and growing golf market.''

The region's flagship US store will open in Watertown's Arsenal Mall on March 24, with stores opening simultaneously in Avon, Bellingham, Reading, and Seekonk. The sixth store, to open later in the year, will be located in Northborough. Each store will be about 20,000 square feet or larger. Golf Town has 55 stores in Canada, and more than 1,500 employees. At least about half of the US jobs will be full-time positions, Bebis said.

Bebis said the US stores will have interactive features that can't be found at smaller retailers or stores that don't specialize in golf. The Watertown location, for exam ple, will have a large putting green and six computer golf simulators that will allow customers to try out the products before they buy.

"The store is so much fun that it's hard to leave without buying something,'' Bebis said.

Mike Tesler, a retail analyst with Retail Concepts in Norwell, said he was skeptical about any golf retailer's prospects in the current economy.

"Golf stores have been struggling,'' Tesler said. "Golfers aren't spending on equipment like they used to. If these people were coming in seven, eight years ago, I'd say things are happening, golf is hot, people are spending. But [now] it's a shrinking market.''

For a new entry in the market to succeed, Tesler said, it would have to either bring in products that no one else offers, or sell golf equipment at the best prices.

"If you talk about the 10 categories that got hit hardest by the recent economic events, I would say golf is in the top 10,'' Tesler said. "Guys are laid off, or guys don't get their raise — they're not playing as much golf.''

But Bebis said his stores, because of their size, will be competitive in price and selection, and will also carry a large array of apparel.

The area's economy was actually a major reason for expanding here, he added. "New England did not have the mortgage crisis, has steady employment, and has lots of white-collar workers and blue-collar workers who like to play golf,'' Bebis said.

The expansion is a homecoming of sorts for Bebis, who was born and raised in New Bedford.

"I visit New England a lot, visiting family,'' he said. "Even my family members kept telling me, 'Dad, when are you coming here?' ''

Globe correspondent Calvin Hennick can be reached at calvinhennick@yahoo.com.

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Desert Mountain Golf Club bought by members for $73.5 mil

Posted: 12 Feb 2011 05:06 PM PST

by J. Craig Anderson - Feb. 13, 2011 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic

Members of the exclusive Desert Mountain Golf Club in north Scottsdale have completed a deal with owner Crescent Real Estate Holdings to purchase the club's six golf courses, all related facilities and about 500 acres of developable land for $73.5 million.

The deal expands on an agreement in the Desert Mountain membership contract that would have required members to buy the club's six golf courses and clubhouse facilities on March 1.

Member representatives described the expanded deal as an insurance policy against future changes to the club and its surrounding community of multimillion-dollar homes.

Of particular concern, they said, was the large swath of adjacent land, which Crescent ultimately could have sold or developed for any number of residential or commercial projects.

Dave Kaplan, who lives in the Desert Mountain community and has been a member of the club since 1997, said he was not surprised that 99 percent of the members who voted on the purchase deal favored it. Of the roughly 2,300 members, 90 percent cast votes, the club's managers say.

"I strongly supported Desert Mountain's global asset purchase, which accelerated the turnover process and ensured the future of our community," Kaplan said.

It's no secret that dozens of high-end golf courses have struggled to remain private - or even stay open - in recent years.

Some have addressed the economic problem by opening the fairways to public play.

Superstition Mountain Golf and Country Club, near Gold Canyon in the far East Valley, is one of the area's formerly private-only clubs that has been pursuing daily-fee golfers by opening up one of its two courses each day to non-members.

Country clubs Red Mountain Ranch in east Mesa, Moon Valley in north-central Phoenix, Corte Bella in Sun City West and Quintero near Lake Pleasant all have altered their policies in recent years to allow some limited use by non-members.

Desert Mountain members' bigger concern, according to club President Bob Jones, was making sure the community's vacant land would be developed for purposes that benefited the club and not just the property's owner.

"They (Crescent) would have maintained control," Jones said. "They could have sold the land to another developer."

To make the deal work financially, Jones and other representatives of the buyers' group obtained financing for a portion of the purchase price.

The upshot of that decision was that instead of each member paying an expected $50,000 over many years via fee increases, each member was assessed a one-time fee of $16,500, which Jones said would be the only contribution ever required of them.

He added that the group performed extensive due diligence before agreeing on the purchase price. The club has turned a profit every year since 2003, Jones said.

He said that the final negotiated price was about one-third of the seller's original asking price.

"The developer was hoping to get over $200 million from this deal," he said.

Kaplan said he and the other members knew in advance that they would have to contribute some cash, and that he did not consider the $16,500 a financial burden.

"I thought it was an amount that the majority of members were very comfortable with," he said.

Reach the reporter at craig .anderson@arizonarepublic.com.

Silicon Valley execs want to spice up your golf life

Posted: 12 Feb 2011 09:09 PM PST

NewsCore

The Wall Street Journal

Updated Feb 12, 2011 11:41 PM ET

SAN JOSE, Calif. — With more players flowing out of golf than in, a group of Silicon Valley executives have developed Flogton — a radical vision for a New World Order they believe could boost participation numbers in the game, The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.

In the Flogtonites' view, the US Golf Association's sanctioned game is simply too difficult to attract and retain enough to keep the game growing.

In particular, they argue, golf needs better ways to appeal to video game-enamored kids and to casual adult golfers who lack the time, inclination or athletic talent to master the game.

"We've got the courses. The courses are beautiful and under-utilized. There needs to be alternative golf formats that will bring more people out to play these courses," said Scott McNealy, the frontman for the project and the co-founder and former chief executive of Sun Microsystems.

In Flogton ("not golf" spelled backward), players could take their pick from several sets of rules to match their skill levels. The most restrictive format might follow strict USGA rules of play but allow souped-up balls and clubs.

McNealy said this format would be popular with seniors or others who are happy with USGA golf but cannot hit the ball as far as they used to, or would like to.

The least restrictive forms of play would set purists' teeth on edge: teeing up shots in the fairway, legalizing one mulligan per hole, allowing six-foot "bumps" (no nearer the hole) to get relief from trees and other obstacles and requiring the second shot from a bunker to be thrown.

These games would be geared primarily toward kids or rank beginners. For each format, Flogton handicaps could be established. Different social mores would also be encouraged, from trash-talking during backswings to wearing cargo shorts.

But it would not be "goofy golf," McNealy insisted. The rules for each format would be clearly established and enforced.

"If you hit a bad shot, it will still be a bad shot that you have to take personal responsibility for. That's the core value of golf. No excuses allowed," he said.

McNealy is himself a three-handicapper. Some of Flogton's other backers are also low-handicappers, including John Donahoe, CEO of eBay Inc., and Bill Campbell, chairman and former CEO of Intuit.

Their aim is not to replace USGA golf, but to provide an alternative, with the expectation that many Flogton players would eventually migrate to the regular game, the way tee-ballers grow into baseball.

"We know there will be resistance. A lot of old-line clubs will never allow Flogton play, and that's fine," McNealy said. But skiing traditionalists at first resisted snowboarding, he pointed out, "even though by now almost everybody acknowledges that snowboarding saved the industry."

Golf Zone

Sunday, February 13, 2011

“Canada's Golf Town picks Mass. for 1st US stores” plus 2 more

“Canada's Golf Town picks Mass. for 1st US stores” plus 2 more

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