(upbeat music)
- As far as I'm concerned,
it doesn't get much better than this.
If you wanna play golf in a lovely setting
with weather, probably 325 days a year,
then you've come to the right
place because you can't beat,
you can't beat those vistas.
- [Host] You wouldn't
know it from those vistas,
but golf is in a crisis.
The sport's popularity has
declined in recent years
as younger generations
haven't taken to the game
with the same level of
enthusiasm as their predecessors.
There's also an issue of
too many golf courses.
In the last decade, about 800
golf courses have closed down
across the country, with
200 of those taking place
just in the last year.
These closures have freed
up large swaths of land,
leaving towns with the
problem of what to do
with that land that is left behind.
One town that is
struggling with this issue
is Oro Valley, Arizona.
Located outside Tucson,
Oro Valley is known
as one of the best destinations
for golf in the Southwest.
That's because until last
year, the suburb of 44,000
had seven golf courses,
which along with warm winters
in the Catalina Mountains, attract golfers
from around the country.
But lately, golf in Oro
Valley hasn't been doing well.
Last June, Rancho Vistoso, a private club,
declared bankruptcy,
shutting down its 18 holes.
And this year, the town has
been struggling to decide
what to do with its
unprofitable municipal course,
the El Conquistador.
Mike Schoeppach lives down the street
from the El Conquistador, where
he plays three days a week.
Like many Oro Valley
residents, he's concerned about
the prospect of redevelopment.
- Why would you abandon this?
I mean, this is a treasure.
Not continuing to make
a reasonable investment
in this property is insanity.
- [Host] Ironically,
it wasn't that long ago
the developers viewed
building along a fairway
as a surefire way to gin up home prices.
- These courses have been
here since the mid 1980s.
They were built initially for the purpose
of selling real estate.
There's no question about that.
- [Host] In the 1980s
and 90s golf was booming.
Spurred on by the success of
the sport's biggest ever star,
Tiger Woods, the National
Golf Foundation encouraged
the industry to build a
course a day for 10 years,
and that's what happened.
Over a 20 year period more
than 4,000 new golf courses
were built in the US, in large
part thanks to home builders
who made new golf courses
the central amenity
in the communities they
built around the country.
- Well a hot topic to discussed
tonight in Oro Valley.
The fate of the town's golf courses.
- The justification over
a town owned golf course
has divided the community
for several years now.
The controversy continues
with the council set
to vote on the issues
in the upcoming weeks.
- [Host] The question of what to do next
with the El Conquistador has split
the town of Oro Valley into two camps,
those against redevelopment
and those for it.
- If you're asking me whether
seven courses are too many
for the town of Oro
Valley, I would say yes,
and that's because some of the courses
have gone out of business.
That tells you that there's
more supply than demand.
- [Host] Richard Furash's Hyperlocal blog
LOVE Let Oro Valley Excel has
been scrupulously covering
the El Conquistador issue.
- The people that wanna keep the courses
wanna keep the courses
cause they're their courses.
They don't wanna change.
It's simple.
- [Host] Leading the
opposition to redevelopment is
Jennifer Lefevre, an Oro Valley resident
who lives on the El Conquistador course.
- So we're behind the street
that I live on right now,
and unfortunately we have had
some neighbors put their homes
on the market due to the
uncertainty of what's gonna happen
with the golf course.
They moved here for their retirement.
They made the home exactly
the way that they wanted it,
and they're walking away
cause they can't deal
with the stress of what may
happen behind their home.
- [Host] In 2014 Oro Valley
purchased the El Conquistador
Golf Club for $1.2 million.
Since then it has been
unable to turn a profit,
and has been subsidized by local taxes.
Recently the council outlined two options
for the town to consider moving forward.
Keep all 36 holes and try to
make the course profitable,
or reduce the number of holes to 18
and transform the other 18 into a park.
- Mayor Joe Winfield who
was elected last November
in part on a platform to bring
changes to El Conquistador
says the town council will vote
on the fate of golf in Oro Valley.
- [Councilman] Mayor Winfield?
- Yea.
(crowd applauds)
- [Reporter] Well some
people were celebrating
in Oro Valley last night.
The town council there
finally made a decision
about its three golf courses.
- [Host] After months of
contentious debate the town
of Oro Valley voted to
buck the national trend
and preserve its 36 holes of golf,
but this was a compromise
that reflects the new
realities of the sport.
As part of the deal to save the courses
club members agreed to pay
higher membership fees,
and two homeowner associations agreed
to increase their fees
to keep the courses open.
