Buying a course with my lotto money

[ejimsmith]

How much $$ would I have to win?

[Boyder]

Obviously depends on where you want to buy ... but if you win the lotto - why bother with the headaches of ownership? If it were me, I'd find a course or 3 I really liked and buy memberships ...
If you want to buy however - there are plenty out there for sale:
http://golfcoursesforsale.com/

[Slammin' Sam]

I agree with Boyder for the most part. To me it makes more sense to buy a condo in a golf community that has nice weather year round. Let somebody else worry about the maintenance, taxes, etc. and just show up to play golf.

[wrx_junki]

If you win the lotto and buy a golf course, we demand that you have a sandtrap outing annually.

[stealthduffer]

Going on the theory that you would WANT to own a golf course (lots of good reasons not to) the answer depends on a lot of factors. Course, location (taxes, market), condition, equipment condition, seasonality (what is your income stream), other sources of income (property that you can sell), etc.

Instead - buy a nice place up north somewhere for the summer months. Somewhere south or southwest for the winter. Use your private jet to go between them as you see fit. That would be more in line with my dream.

[Peleus]

If you win the lotto and buy a golf course, we demand that you have a sandtrap outing annually.

Only annually?

[Krullpes]

1.35m GBP will get you a 9 holer with a house....well an 18 bedroom mansion in Scotland!
See here

[zeg]

The real issue isn't going to be the upfront costs, it's going to be the long-term expenses. This is (part of) why so many lottery winners wind up broke a short time later: owning property creates ongoing costs. I'd wager that a typical golf course purchase price will be cheap compared to the maintenance and staffing costs over a couple of years, so you need not only enough money to buy it but to cover any gap between income and expenses until the net result is positive (since it's probably not already terribly profitable if it's for sale).

So it looks like ~ a million (after taxes) would get you a property. But I wouldn't even think about it unless I hit a jackpot of a few tens of millions, which could be expected to generate enough ongoing investment income that you could maintain an extravagant lifestyle even if you have to foot the course costs. Of course, that's because I'd be interested in it for the golf rather than for the business opportunity. If I were buying it to treat as a business, I might be more willing to buy in with a larger fraction of my wealth.

Of course, I'd probably just follow the advice above and join a couple of clubs if I just wanted the golf...

[HAZARD MAGNET]

I read somewhere that the average break-even point for a course is 40,000 paid rounds per year !! That seems like a long time to wait for the profits to kick in.

[ejimsmith]

I read somewhere that the average break-even point for a course is 40,000 paid rounds per year

yeah, that's 109 rounds a day average. that seems like quite a bit. especially since i'm buying it so i can enjoy it w/out lines.

[SWBYPS]

How about just getting a membership at some very exclusive club? There wont be very many members so there will be no lines.

[TN94z]

No way I would buy a course. That would be a bad investment, IMO. I would just do like others have stated and get memberships everywhere that I wanted to play. I would do that and make a list of all of the courses that I wanted to play and start checking them off. Along the way, I would get lessons from the absolute best teaching professional that I could and get my handicap as low as possible.

[The Road Dog]

Better to take your money and invest in real estate companies that own Golf courses. There are a few in the US, being an owner of a few choice courses around the country lets you travel and check on your investments. Other than that the headaches are too great to consider. If it were me I'd get a investment counselor and work with them for a while learning the opportunities out there, and play golf wherever I wanted each week. After a year or so looking at options then maybe I'd invest in something but at that point I'd have a lot more options I'm aware of and some may be courses I can invest in. For now the economy is too tentative with the political branch sinking us and scaring folks into holding their money.

[David in FL]

One of the courses in our local area outside of Orlando was purchased a few years back. I still have an article that was in the Orlando paper about the sale because it has a picture of my then 5 year old daughter hitting golf balls on the newly re-opened range.

The course sold for $1.2M. As a comparison, the same article referenced 4 other courses that had changed hands over the previous 10 years. The prices listed for them were $1.3M, $2.2M, $3M, and $7M.

The $7M course is one of the nicer private courses in the area (Legacy Club at Alaqua Lakes for those familiar with the area) while the others are all open to daily play.

Hope that helps. Good luck with those lotto numbers!

[ejimsmith]

How about just getting a membership at some very exclusive club? There wont be very many members so there will be no lines.

I have a specific course in mind. And I want it to myself..

I got to say many of you in this thread are major buzz kills. You'll be paying full price at my club, the rest of you get the sandbagger discount of -90%

[nikeman6]

I have a specific course in mind. And I want it to myself..

wow..............

[alf174]

Any single golf course I would consider buying would have to have one whopping bit of cash flow to keep the day-to-day operations from sucking my bank account dry. And if that actually exists, the purchase price is going to be on the high side.

I like the idea of investing in a company that owns a bunch of courses and moving around and playing them - in one of those monster RVs.

[ejimsmith]

Any single golf course I would consider buying would have to have one whopping bit of cash flow to keep the day-to-day operations from sucking my bank account dry. And if that actually exists, the purchase price is going to be on the high side.

sigh.. yeah.. winning the lotto means never working again, not working my a## off trying to keep a golf course afloat.

gotta dream though!