FORE BETTER OR WORSE
The Gold Coast loves its golf courses but it’s not always been a hole in one for their operators
GOLF courses have long been a key plank of the Gold Coast’s image as a tourism city.
For decades they have been a key magnet for travellers and business trips, with some of the world’s top players brought in to design the pristine fairways.
This week saw one of the city’s best-known golf courses close.
The company behind Arundel Hills Country Club, Zhongsheng Management, was placed in external administration on Tuesday morning.
It was the latest sad turn of events for the course, which had been dogged by complaints from members about the poorly-maintained facilities.
While there have been courses in the city for decades, the 1980s brought an explosion of courses to cater to the booming Japanese tourist market.
Many were built through the 1980s and 1990s, including Royal Pines, Lakelands, Palm Meadows, The Grand, Hope Island and Sanctuary Cove.
But the 1997 Asian financial crisis largely curtailed the Japanese market and many of these cash cows hit tough times as overseas visitor numbers declined.
HOPE ISLAND GOLF CLUB
In 1999, Hope Island developer Shinko Australia fell into liquidation and was served with a wind-up notice after failing to repay a $700,000 loan.
The company had entered the market in the mid-1980s at the peak of the golf boom and bought the Hope Island site from developer Eddie Kornhauser.
But the massive changes to the economy and its own declining financial position forced the company to offload Hope Island for $20m.
The move allowed the course to continue operating.
KOORALBYN RESORT
Kooralbyn Resort in the Hinterland was a famous hangout for the rich and famous in the 1980s.
Media mogul Kerry Packer named it as his favourite holiday location and was a frequent visitor through his latter years, using its facilities to play polo and golf.
But the resort and its hotel hit tough times in the years following Packer’s 2005 death and in 2008 it went into liquidation and closed its doors.
Unfortunately, its mortgagee was MFS Group which itself failed the same year.
The resort remained closed for more than five years before it was bought in late 2013 by businessman Peter Huang for more than $6m.
Mr Huang started a $10m revamp of the course, hotel and facilities the following year. It reopened in mid-2016 only to hit tough times again in early 2020 when the pandemic forced the closure of Australia’s borders with China, cutting off its main source of income.
It went back on the market in 2021.
SURFERS PARADISE GOLF CLUB
In 2007, John Fish unveiled a proposed $500m redevelopment of the Surfers Paradise Golf Club, which included nine-storey buildings replacing the golf club.
The project was planned by Mr Fish and developer Edwin Yu and was made possible by a vote to sell the golf club land for $15m. Members were to move to the exclusive Glades golf course at Robina.
The project was opposed by residents and ultimately failed because of the global financial crisis.
HELENSVALE GOLF CLUB
An institution of the suburb, Helensvale Golf Club faced permanent closure in 2013 after finding itself in more than $700,000 of debt thanks to high overheads and declining revenue.
Keen to prevent the site from being snapped up by developers, the Gold Coast City Council took the unusual step of buying the golf club itself.
Area councillor William Owen-jones pushed the proposal after an election promise to support the cash-strapped organisation.
Cr Owen-jones said he would do “whatever he can” to save the club because he believed it was the council’s responsibility.
“This is a classic example of moving to assist a sporting club and if we’re a city big enough to be involved in the Commonwealth Games, we’re a city big enough to support grassroots sport,” Cr Owen-jones told the Bulletin at the time.
Council leased the operation of the course to Jigsaw Community Services. However, the company went into liquidation in early 2018.
The course remained closed while the council put the site’s operations to tender several times through 2018 and 2019.
However, it failed to secure an operator and maintenance bills topped $300,000 a month.
Finally, in late 2019, the lease was given to new operators Brett Lawton, his son Christopher, and daughter Danielle who reopened it in November 2019.