An investor group that operates several other Michigan clubs has acquired the 99-year-old Adrian, Mich. property and plans to rebrand it as the Hills of Lenawee Golf Club. “Experienced operators can negotiate today’s business climate and still provide a service,” said lead investor and acting General Manager Greg Hodges.
The new year meant a new beginning for Lenawee Country Club in Adrian, Mich., which has taken on new ownership, The Daily Telegram of Adrian reported.
The club changed hands at the beginning of the year to a group of investors headed by Greg Hodges and David Walters, who operate several area golf courses, The Daily Telegram reported.
And with the new ownership will come a plan to change the name of the club to the Hills of Lenawee Golf Club this spring, The Daily Telegram reported.
Lenawee CC has been operating since 1920, but due to national trends of lower membership in private clubs, the owners, including CC Properties, which acquired the real estate of the course in 2011, and the Board of the country club had been looking for a buyer for about a year and a half to keep the course and club operational, The Daily Telegram reported.
“It was an opportunity that was presented to myself this last summer,” Hodges, who is serving as acting General Manager, told The Daily Telegram. “The club was looking for some new direction and someone to help lead them into their next chapter of life. I met with my partners and we decided it was something we’d like to pursue to ensure the survival of a private club in Lenawee County.”
Hodges and the investors hope that their experience running golf courses could help the club survive during a tough period for public clubs and golf courses, The Daily Telegram reported.
“The golf business is really hard, there’s no doubt. But I think experienced operators can negotiate today’s tough business climate and still provide a service and be able to pay their bills and survive,” Hodges said. “I think the golf business has bottomed out and is actually starting to grow a little bit. There’s certainly been a number of golf course closings and so with the consolidation, there are opportunities for well-run golf courses.”
The group headed by Hodges, The Daily Telegram reported, currently owns other Michigan clubs including Woodlawn Golf Course in Madison Township; Whiteford Valley Golf Course and Legacy Golf Club in Ottawa Lake; Pine View Golf Course in Ypsilanti and Rustic Glen Golf Course in Saline.
David Mulligan, a former President of Lenawee CC told The Daily Telegram that the country club’s golf course is one of the most challenging in the area.
“I’ve been a member there for 35 years,” Mulligan said. “I never get tired of it, and I play almost every day when the course is open. But it’s just enough of a challenge that it never becomes boring, always anxious to play again.”
While he has 50 years worth of business experience, Mulligan acknowledged that he and the club’s staff lacked golf business experience, which is different in today’s environment, especially as it pertains to private country clubs.
“We don’t have the businesses in town to support it that we once had,” he said. “People don’t have the time that they once had. Young families have kids that are too involved in sports, and people just don’t have every Saturday and Sunday to come out and play or twice during the week kind of thing that they used to have. And so the model needed to change.
“The Hodges group knows the industry and the business, and now we’re looking for them to take some new directions for the club,” he added. “It’s sad to see it change hands after 99 years, but you know, it was time.”
Lenawee has “a beautiful, old, golf course,” Hodges told The Daily Telegram, and he and his partners are hoping to take advantage of economies of scale with the group’s other courses to help the club’s maintenance budget.
“I don’t think the golf course conditions have really suffered,” he said. “I just think that, you know, a different point of view from somebody can help the golf course.”
CC Properties Vice President Dane Nelson told The Daily Telegram that Lenawee had reached its maximum members of 400 in the 1960s, but has seen a steady decline in membership since. ″[It] takes around four hours to play a round of golf and a lot of people don’t have the time as they once did for leisure, I think,” he said. “Primarily, I think people don’t like to join and commit as much as they once did.”
Nelson said that declining membership has been effecting clubs nationwide — not just country clubs but private facilities of any type.
The club’s membership has recently fallen to about 150 members, Hodges told The Daily Telegram, but for the time being, it will remain a private club with limited public hours.
The new ownership group will look at renovating the lounge and expanding outdoor service on the patio, The Daily Telegram reported, and also to expand the club’s relationship with the local community to continue hosting community events, such as the Adrian Noon Rotary Club’s weekly meetings, weddings and charity golf outings.
The club is “an asset and a real treasure for Lenawee County,” Hodges added. “We would have hated to see it go away.”
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