This golf course on the north end of the Grand Strand will close unless a buyer steps up
Brick Landing Plantation Golf Club in Ocean Isle Beach, N.C., is scheduled to close on January 1, though it appears a local group is interested in buying the course and keeping it open.
Course owner Larry Doyle has been trying to sell the golf course for about two years, and said Tuesday that he will close the course on Jan. 1 if he still owns it, though the clubhouse would remain open for the restaurant and events.
Doyle said he has two potential buyers. One that he has been negotiating with for several months plans to close the golf course, he said. A second buyer has recently come forward who would keep the course open.
He declined to name the potential buyers.
“I have one serious buyer and that buyer doesn’t want to continue it as a golf course,” Doyle said.
“There is another buyer out there that is contemplating running it as a golf course so we’ll see where they’re at. . . . We’ve come to terms, it’s just that they’re doing their due diligence and talking to the homeowners association and some other things.”
Doyle said he doesn’t believe the potential buyer that would close the course plans to build homes on the property. Instead, that individual may want to turn the clubhouse into a personal residence.
Terry Yow, president of the Brick Landing master property owners association, said the local group proposing to buy the course and operate it met with the POA board of directors on Friday afternoon and gave an informational presentation.
“We had a group that met with the board and they’ve got a proposal,” Yow said. “Hopefully we will get a chance to take a look at it. I would like to wait and see what they’re proposing and the homeowners will react to that.
“With any luck at all I’m hoping we can pull this from closing back into something that is open, and not only open but hopefully we can grow it and get the restaurant open more days of the week, more membership, that type of thing.”
Yow did not name the potential buyer, and Chip Smith, managing partner of Atlantic Golf Management, which has purchased Brunswick County properties Brunswick Plantation & Golf Resort and Cape Fear National in the past two years, said his company is not involved.
Doyle said he’ll close on Jan. 1 because he’ll lose money if he continues to operate the course in the winter.
Brick Landing is a scenic 6,600-yard, par-71 Mike Brazeal design along the Intracoastal Waterway that opened in 1987. Its grand clubhouse near the waterway’s banks is larger than 10,000 square feet.
Doyle is asking $1.25 million for the 125-acre course, and he also owns 71 undeveloped lots around the golf course that he’s trying to sell for an additional $750,000.
“I’ve had that offer for a couple months now, and I’ve been just trying to get somebody in there that wanted to run the golf course,” Doyle said, “not only to keep the course open which would be nice for everybody, but for my own self-interest I think it’s a better deal with my 71 lots.”
Doyle said the course was profitable after he first bought it in 2011 and made improvements, then it began to break even annually.
He lost money last year, he said, because he had to close for more than two months in the summer and spend money on new Sunday ultradwarf Bermudagrass greens after Brick Landing was one of the many courses in the market hit hard by winterkill on greens following a harsh winter.
“I think if somebody wanted to come in they could normalize it pretty quickly,” he said.
He points to “the lack of community participation” for a reason the course hasn’t been more successful.
He said based on his research about 33 percent of people who move into golf course communities actually play golf, and most buy in because of resale values and possibly views.
“My numbers have been much lower. I’ve only had about 18 percent at the high of membership that lives in the community. It has made it difficult,” Doyle said. “That’s one aspect of it. The other aspect is I’m an absentee owner, so a lot of that is my own fault not doing promotions and things I need to do. It’s difficult being an absentee owner.”
Doyle, 61, who was in Kentucky on Tuesday, said he lives in Puerto Rico during winters, has a son who lives in Los Angeles and a daughter who lives in New York. “It just doesn’t fit,” he said. “If I have a spare week I’d rather go visit one of my kids or do something else rather than go to North Carolina. That’s really why I’ve been more detached from it. I’m trying to move on.”
Doyle has had negotiations with “three or four” potential buyers over the past couple years, including one who lost a $100,000 deposit about a year ago when the deal wasn’t closed after about nine months of discussions.
“I tried to extend and extend and extend because I hated seeing someone lose $100,000, but they never came around,” Doyle said.
If a contract doesn’t come to fruition with either of the current prospective buyers, Doyle said he has already spoken to a company that would auction off the property, probably in early January. “They kind of think I’m in a distressed sale,” he said. “I think there are enough interested buyers, it’s just that they all think they’re just going to wait until they have me in some position or something, which they’re mistaken with.”
Brick Landing – the golf course and surrounding property – is zoned R-7500 within a Planned Development, which is a medium density residential with minimum lot sizes of 7,500 square feet, according to Brunswick County Planning and Zoning senior planner Marc Pages.
“Brick Landing is a Planned Development which allows some flexibility from the conventional standards of the R-7500 district,” Pages said in an email. “With planning board approval you could even have multifamily and some limited commercial uses. Any efforts to develop the golf course property would require planning board approval.”
The course was saved by Doyle in 2011.
Carolina Bank foreclosed on it then purchased it at auction for $1.3 million in September 2010, when the course had been closed for nine months. It foreclosed on Ocean Isle Beach Plantation, LLC, a partnership between course architect Dan Maples and Whistler Investment Group of Raleigh, N.C. The company defaulted on a $5 million loan received in 2005 from the bank.
Maples reworked a few holes in an attempt to improve the layout, but the project was abandoned before the default and foreclosure.
Doyle purchased the course in the summer of 2011, reopened it later that year after it had been closed 22 months, and made a number of capital improvements in addition to getting grass conditions ready for a reopening.
The interior of the clubhouse was painted, and Doyle added a new bar, air conditioning system, maintenance equipment, well and pumps for the irrigation system, and golf cart fleet. An Intracoastal Waterway bulkhead near the 18th hole and clubhouse was repaired and bunkers were renovated.
Doyle said he paid Carolina Bank about $800,000 for the course, which had a taxable value of about $7 million as recently as 2007.
Doyle is involved in several businesses and said he has tried to step more into retirement and remain an investor while others operate them.
He has been chairman and CEO of Katierich Asset Management LLC, a company named after his children and formed in 2010 to acquire post-financial crisis real estate holdings.
He also owns the Katierich Farms thoroughbred horse farm in Lexington, Ky., owns a hotel and golf course in Bermuda, and is a majority or minority partner in condominium, apartment, hotel or office buildings in several states.
Doyle took over Olde Point Country Club outside Wilmington, N.C., in May 2011 and extensively refurbished that course.
A husband and wife team operates Brick Landing for Doyle. Trey Ernstes is the director of golf and Jennifer Ernstes is the general manager.
Jennifer Ernstes sent an email to area residents last week acknowledging the Jan. 1 closing date, and the email read in part: “This decision was made based on numerous matters, one being the course cannot continue to operate and be profitable without the support of the community. The club only has 18% support from the community itself, the rest is from outside play and unfortunately it is not enough. Supporting the club means supporting all aspects of the club that includes, golf, events & the restaurant.”
Yow said he’s disappointed Doyle is choosing to sell the course.
“He’s been a very good owner,” Yow said. “He’s put a lot of money into the club and I do hate to see him walk away because he’s been a good owner compared to some we’ve had.”
This story was originally published November 13, 2019 at 12:20 AM.
