Investors from China add Colonial Charters to Myrtle Beach area golf course holdings
A group of investors from China, who have established themselves locally as the Founders Group, have purchased yet another golf course in the Myrtle Beach market.
Founders Group completed a purchase of Colonial Charters Golf Club on Thursday, giving the investors a total of nine Grand Strand golf courses, including five purchased in the past two weeks.
Since Dec. 8, Founders Group also purchased TPC Myrtle Beach, International World Tour Golf Links, River Hills Golf & Country Club and Aberdeen Country Club.
Founders Group representatives said they intend to keep Colonial Charters in operation, which is consistent with the company’s policy for all of its recently-acquired courses.
“The plan will be to bring it into the family of the golf courses and see if we can offer some multi-plays and reciprocal agreements and see if we can build on the momentum it has right now,” Founders Group general manager Rick Taylor said. “The golf course is in good shape. They have a really supportive membership and we just want to be part of that.”
According to company representatives, Founders Group is an extension of the Chinese company Yiqian Funding, which has been represented in the sales by New York City immigration attorney Nick Dou and China resident Daniel Liu of the parent company. Black Bear Golf Club owner Kang Zou also has become part of the investor group.
In late September, Founders Group purchased the last three courses in the area owned by GGG of Myrtle Beach and operated by Classic Golf Group – Burning Ridge Golf Club, Indian Wells Golf Club and Founders Club at Pawleys Island.
Taylor was the Classic Golf Group GM and was retained as GM of Founders Group, which is both the ownership group and a golf course management company that is operating its nine courses.
More golf course purchases by Founders Group are probable, though Dou said Tuesday the frenetic pace of acquisitions will be slowing considerably.
“I know they are still looking for other opportunities [in the golf market],” Taylor said.
Dou also expressed some misgivings about the way he believes his group has been received and treated by some business people in the area, however, that he said might lead it to scale back on its investments in the marketplace or stop them altogether.
“In a short time we invest almost $40 million, which is good for local people’s jobs and local government tax, but we want to be treated back with trust,” Dou said.
“… We are from outside. That’s why we worry about it. For six months now we feel something so we might stop and pull back. Sometimes we feel we are not being treated as normal, like locals. If we feel good, we feel we’re treated fairly, we will move forward. Now we feel something, we don’t feel good. So we want to maybe stop or move back.
“We hope people treat us nicely too. As we trust them, they trust us. Just doing business.”
Many in the market have expressed a belief that the recent spending spree by investors from China will be good for the market.
“I think with the [invested money] and new golfers that we’ll see, the whole community is going to reap benefits from it,” said World Tour director of golf Tom Plankers, who has been in the market for 26 years at facilities including Sea Trail Plantation and Ocean Ridge Plantation. “Myrtle Beach golf has been flat going on three, maybe four years. Now we’ve got an opportunity to bring a new set of golfers to town, which is fantastic as far as I’m concerned. … They care about Myrtle Beach and what’s going on in Myrtle Beach. They love Myrtle Beach. I think it’s a positive.”
Colonial Charters was purchased for $1.3 million, according to the Horry County Register of Deeds, from Colonial Golf Club LLC, whose managing partner is Van Watts, who also heads the multi-faceted Myrtle Beach development company Pace Group.
Founders Group investors have spent approximately $30 million acquiring eight of their nine courses over the past six months. The purchase price of TPC Myrtle Beach has yet to be disclosed.
In June, Kang Zou, an engineer who has moved from New York to Longs, purchased Black Bear in Longs along with his parents, restaurateurs Chun Lan Li and Shi Lin Zou, for approximately $1.5 million.
Investors from China now own 13 courses in the Myrtle Beach golf market. A businessman known as Mr. Pan purchased the three-course Sea Trail Resort in Sunset Beach, N.C., for $8.5 million at a Chapter 11 bankruptcy auction in June 2013, and China resident Shengwen Lan purchased Crown Park Golf Club in Longs early this year for between $1.5 and $2 million.
Watts’ involvement with Colonial Charters began in July 2013, when his group entered into a lease-purchase agreement with former owner Mike Matheny and hired East Coast Golf Management to operate the course, which it has done through Thursday’s purchase.
Lienholder New Peoples Bank purchased the course at a foreclosure auction in May that Watts said was part of a sales process to clear the title. Watts said his group didn’t gain ownership of the course until November.
“We didn’t plan to sell it as soon as we did, but who knew a group of Chinese were going to come to town and buy up nine or 10 courses?” Watts said. “We’re not really in the golf business, we’re in the real estate business, but we like the property and thought it was a good opportunity. We were able to bring something back that would have just sat there waiting for the foreclosure process to run its course.”
Colonial Charters was originally a John Simpson design that opened in 1988. It was redesigned into a shorter 6,427-yard par-71 layout for a reopening in 2008 as Pametto Greens Golf & Country Club by Matheny with the help of designer Rick Robbins. The redesign featured increased water hazards, more open space on and around fairways, and more undulation in greens with surrounding mounds as backdrops. The course, which was renamed Colonial Charters again last year, is on the low end of green fees in the market but has enjoyed a resurgence of support from resident members.
Approximately $250,000 was spent on renovations to the course and clubhouse in the summer of 2013, according to East Coast Golf Management president Mike Buccerone, and the number of members has increased from a meager amount to about 165 already registered for 2015.
“It’s in a good position moving forward for 2015, and it’s a good membership that supports the club,” Buccerone said.
Colonial Charters head pro Chris Jones and his staff have been retained, and Black Bear superintendent Jim Brown will oversee both Black Bear and Colonial Charters.
Colonial Charters is the second management contract East Coast has lost in the past month. The owner of Heron Point Golf Club closed his financially-struggling course on Nov. 28.
East Coast still manages Strand courses Azalea Sands Golf, Rivers Edge Golf Club and Indigo Creek Golf Club, as well as Rose Hill Golf Club in Bluffton and King’s Grant in Fayetteville, N.C. It also has a 16-course marketing partnership that includes a dozen on the Grand Strand. Masonboro Country Club in Wilmington, N.C., joined the partnership Tuesday.
This story was originally published December 19, 2014 at 8:50 PM with the headline "Investors from China add Colonial Charters to Myrtle Beach area golf course holdings."