Struggling Heron Point Golf Club to close in December
With their golf course struggling to even break even financially and some capital improvements on the horizon, the owners of Heron Point Golf Club are closing the course.
The final day of operation has been set as Dec. 14.
“I do regret it,” said Heron Point majority partner Roy Clyburn. “It’s no fun to close something you hoped would be successful, but common financial sense tells us that’s the thing to do.
“We’ve made some improvements, but no matter what we did to improve it, I think the results would be just about the same. I don’t think it would ever be profitable, not in this market. Every course to some degree is struggling.”
Clyburn, who owns Condo-World Resort Properties, one of the largest property rental companies on the Grand Strand that is also heavily involved in the golf package industry, owns the 155-acre golf course property off S.C. 707. He’s unsure of its future use. The property is zoned general residential, so the current zoning would allow for a single- or multi-family housing development.
“At present I have no immediate plans,” Clyburn said. “I think it will sit there for awhile and give me some time to think what I’ll do with it. It will either be my farm or maybe a developer will come around and see what they can do with it.”
The course has a lot of housing around it, and the board of directors of the Myrtle Beach Golf & Yacht Club Homeowners Association has called for a special homeowner meeting at 7 p.m. Oct. 28 in the community center to discuss the effect the course closure will have on the community.
The 6,477-yard course is one of several Willard Byrd designs on the Grand Strand and opened in 1988. It has been on the low end of Myrtle Beach area green fees and has been managed for the past three years by East Coast Golf Management, which manages six other courses, including four more on the Strand.
“It’s the right business decision,” East Coast president Mike Buccerone said. “The golf course in the past few years hasn’t been in better condition, but the clubhouse needs repair, the golf course still needs work with cart paths and things like that. The future improvements needed in terms of cost outweigh the current revenues. Revenues are down across the beach and it’s time to close it as a golf course.”
The course ownership and management is announcing the closure a couple months in advance to give the course’s employees an opportunity to seek jobs. Buccerone said he is trying to move some employees to the company’s other properties, which include Strand layouts River Edge Golf Club, Indigo Creek Golf Club, Colonial Charters Golf Club and Azalea Sands Golf Club.
East Coast also manages Rose Hill in Hilton Head Island and King’s Grant in Fayetteville, N.C., which is owned by Methodist University, Buccerone’s alma mater, and has an additional 15 courses in a cooperative marketing group.
“We’re trying to help out everybody the best we can given the circumstances,” Buccerone said.
The course has a small membership of more than 30 golfers who are being offered membership at other East Coast courses, and a Platinum membership card encompasses its other six courses. “We’ve created some concessions and other opportunities to keep them in the family,” Buccerone said.
Heron Point will be the second Strand course to close this year, joining Cypress Bay, which closed in March after being purchased by Mungo Homes for a planned housing development. Wicked Stick Golf Links is also under a sales contract to a housing developer and could close in the near future if the contract comes to fruition.
Cypress Bay was the first Strand course to close since approximately 20 18-hole equivalent courses closed between 2005 and 2007 for planned redevelopment, though many remain undeveloped.
“The owners managed the course for a few years and lost money every year,” Clyburn said. “East Coast took over and tried to make a go of it and couldn’t make it work.”
This story was originally published October 10, 2014 at 2:39 PM with the headline "Struggling Heron Point Golf Club to close in December."