Country Club Management (looking for work/Ideas)

[brussolino]

So a little background. I have a Master's Degree in Business Administration and 6+ years of finance/accounting experience at a casino/resort. I also have some experience in small business consulting. Prior to and during school, I worked at various retaraunts, both in the kitchen and on the floor, and thought I might like to own/run a retsaurant one day? I was laid off a few months ago becuase the construction project I was working to help manage was closed out.

I am looking for work, and it is a tough market out there, but was looking to move a little away from the accounting functions, and use my education/experience to work on the operations side of things, and I love the outdoors and obviously golf. So I think a great fit for my skill sets would be a country club management type job. They are obviosly hard to come by, but if anyone has any experience in the industry, or knows anyone buying a course, and looking for someone to run the operations, or simply have any ideas on the subject.

Side Note:
Locally (RI) there is a course that was purchased by foxwoods, maybe 7 years ago, and was subsequently closed down when they built a 36 hole championship course closer to thier property. I cannot figure out who owns the property, and I am comming up short researching on the net. It was a beautiful course years ago when I played it, and I think that if marketed correctly, and brought back to life, the club, restaurant and banquet facilities could do very well. I just cannot imagine that someone owns such a nice course, and it sits unplayed for years...doesnt make sense. Anyone interested in buying the course, and having me run it? lol.

Thanks for the ideas/comments/concerns...

B

[uttexas]

Best wishes to you on your new endeavors.
The medical industry is performing relatively well. With your business background, see if there are any doctors looking for an office manager. Office managers can work offsite (and the job isn't that difficult compared to what you are used to) It's accounting, marketing, cost cutting, and HR. Anticipate a relatively lower salary than what you may be accustomed to. But, it is usually a half day, then do whatever you want in the afternoon. You can combine golf with marketing. I suppose you could also do billing and collections (which is are more difficult to be good at, the industry standard is 7% of collections)

Now, as far as a golf course management career, Texas golf course rounds per year continues to increase during these tough times (one of the few states this is occuring). Look for states where rounds per year is steady or increasing. You might be able to find a job there.

You could start small. Run a driving range/par 3. See if you like it, then take the jump to managing an 18 hole or resort. With resorts, I suspect there might be more buraeucracy to deal with.

[uttexas]

As an aside, I somewhat know some people at Elmridge. http://www.elmridgegolf.com/proshop.php They are nice folks.

[Pinseeker81]

...I cannot figure out who owns the property, and I am comming up short researching on the net...

Try with the taxing authority/appraisal district over the property. You may even be able to look it up online.

For example, I can look up the owner of a piece of property here just by typing the address into http://www.hcad.org

[SasQuatch<3]

Good Luck! I actually wanna get into something like this for the future, of course I still gotta go to college... But it would seem like such a good job, hard to get into but let us know how it turns out!