Golf course transactions are becoming increasingly sophisticated, with private clubs, daily-fee facilities, resort properties and multi-course portfolios attracting different types of buyers. So, what goes on behind the scenes of a golf course sale?
The act of selling a golf course, writ large, is essentially the same as any other piece of real estate: get your house in order, fix the things that are deal breakers, make it attractive to the right people and stay out of your own way.
But sometimes a golf course is an entirely different beast.
The recent sale of The Links at Carillon Club outside of Chicago is one such example. It’s the type of golf course one would expect to encounter in the Midwest, with one exception: the club has a snowplowing business.
Chris Charnas, principal at Links Capital Advisors, brokered the sale and said the process took far longer than normal. It’s likely that the snowplowing business scared a lot of lenders, and then once a lender came onboard, there were other elements that made it challenging.
“It got across the finish line, and those guys are going to kill it there,” Charnas said. “But it took forever to finish.”
Golf asset challenges
The Links at Carillon Club may be an outlier, but the sale of any golf course is going to come with its own challenges, because golf is still a complex animal that differs radically from other real estate types.
“With golf, you’ve got so many different things; the terrain is different, the makeup of the length of the golf course is different,” said Chris Karamitsos, senior managing director and partner at Leisure Investment Properties Group. “All of that affects the expense load. There are so many factors associated with a golf asset as compared to your garden variety commercial real estate property.”
Rob Waldron, also senior managing director and partner at Leisure Investment Properties Group, agrees. He said that besides the underlying real estate value of a course, which is always going to be desirable to buyers such as private equity investors, there are other things that boost the value, such as course improvements, the design itself, the irrigation system, the clubhouse, cart storage, the maintenance building and any other type of amenities.
“You’re also dealing with multiple businesses,” he said. “The golf business, which is membership/daily fee, outings, driving range, golf instruction. Then you have a food and beverage business, which could be anything from a snack bar, a la carte dining, events, functions, weddings or beverage carts. The last piece of that is your tangible assets. which is your equipment.”
Each of those operating businesses has different metrics, performances and returns on the investment, Waldron added. Golf is a fixed-cost business, and once the cost of maintenance, operating the pro shop, golf carts and equipment leases is covered, most incremental revenue falls straight to the bottom line.
Evaluation starts with the course
Heritage Golf Group knows a thing or two about acquiring golf courses, having expanded its portfolio from a mere five courses in 2020 to its current slate of 59.
Jim Oliver, chief operating officer at Heritage, said that while factors such as membership trends, clubhouse condition and infrastructure are extremely important when evaluating a property, for them it starts with the golf course itself.
“Clubhouses and amenities can be improved over time, but the golf course and overall property fundamentals are critical,” he said. “Membership trends help us evaluate the long-term health and momentum of the club, while clubhouse condition and infrastructure provide insight into both the member experience and future capital requirements. We focus on identifying clubs with strong fundamentals and meaningful opportunities for growth.”
Performance data is essential
Once negotiations for a sale are imminent, operational and financial data becomes more significant.
In Heritage’s case, they work to gain a strong understanding of a club’s financial performance and ownership expectations even before negotiations begin. They tend to focus on the upside they could potentially create through strategic capital investment and operational enhancement in the property, as well as how those can be supported by the benchmarking capabilities across their portfolio.
“As negotiations progress, we spend more time evaluating payroll structure, capital expenditure history, deferred maintenance, membership composition, initiation fee trends and the consistency of EBITDA performance,” Oliver said. “We also look closely at leadership culture and operational discipline.”
Due diligence is nonnegotiable
There are some common mistakes that come up when a seller is preparing a course for sale. Waldron and Karamitsos said that a common one is not preparing at all or doing any due diligence.
“In a lot of cases, we’re involved with sellers a couple of years before they’re ready to sell,” Waldron said. “They have no idea what it’s going to cost to fix an irrigation system. They have no idea what it’s going to cost to fix bulkheads. They have no idea what it’s going to cost to put in a new pump station. In a lot of cases, we’ll advise the seller to clean up that stuff ahead of time. Make it show so that the less questions someone has, the more aggressive they can be with their pricing.”
Deferred maintenance is a big issue, because that kind of infrastructure takes a lot of time and money to fix. Once those issues — irrigation, cart paths, bridges and so on — are taken care of, a buyer is far more likely to be interested. If all they have to worry about is operational issues, it’s a far easier path to sell.
Another issue that comes up during due diligence is surveys of the site. These can take a variety of forms, all of which are vital to ensuring a smooth sale. Environmental site surveys determine the state of the property and disclose such items as underground tanks or chemical spills, irrigation issues or the existence of protected flora and fauna. Other general surveys will cover tax records for the property, as well as whether certain areas will be included in the sale at all or are worth more in a valuation.
The art of the sale
For anyone that’s looking to buy or sell a golf course, Oliver has some advice which echoes the wisdom of the brokers.
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- Preparation and transparency are extremely important.
- Owners should have a clear understanding of their financial performance, capital needs, membership trends and operational strengths before entering the market.
- Buyers should look beyond short-term results and focus on the long-term potential of the club, the surrounding market and the overall member experience.
- Have experienced legal counsel on both sides of the sale with a deep understanding of golf club transactions.
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It’s all about the money
Sometimes, a deal will simply fall apart. In most cases, it usually comes down to money.
“They either don’t have the financing — they said they had it and are patching it together and then all of a sudden they don’t have it — or they thought they were going to get a lender and the lender says they’re either not going to finance it or are only going to finance this much,” Charnas said. “If you don’t have the money, you don’t have the money. And a lot of people go into deals thinking that they can find the money.”
Charnas said that there’s an old rule in real estate that “every deal dies three times.” You just have to keep working to make it happen.
“Lately, it seems like that’s four or five times,” he said. “You just sort of expect that you’re going to get a call at some point. And then my job is, well, why are you done? What can we do? How do we solve this? Every day it happens in every deal.”
This article originally appeared in the July/August 2026 issue of Golf Inc.