Oakmont Golf Club in Santa Rosa, Calif., can’t catch a break.
Advance Golf Partners, which had agreed to manage the course, has backed out of the deal — for a second time.
According to Sonoma Index Tribune newspaper, the Florida-based management company recently pulled out of an earlier agreed-upon 20-year lease.
It did over the phone, no less. Advance Golf Partners founder, Larry Galloway, called the Oakmont Village Association President, Steve Spainer, to deliver the bad news earlier this summer.
Nobody wants to talk about why the deal soured.
“Our lawyers have told us upfront, we can’t talk about what happened,” Spainer said. “You can try to get that information from AGP.”
A reporter with the Index Tribune tried that. Galloway’s response: “No comment.”
In an emergency meeting held by the Oakmont Village Association’s board, a temporary solution was put in place: It hired CourseCo to run the property on a temporary, 60-day basis to get the two golf courses through the busy season.
At the end of those two-month term, the homeowner’s association will negotiate a long-term deal with either CourseCo or Billy Casper Golf, the newspaper said.
CoursoCo’s Chief Operating Officer Tim Bugbee was at the property and told a reporter, “We’ve always been aware of Oakmont and interested in partnering with its owner. It’s a gorgeous, unique setting,” he said.
When Bugbee was asked if he was confident CourseCo’s 60-day deal could be extended, Bugbee said, “We wouldn’t be here if we weren’t.”
And Bugbee says CourseCo has plans for the club and most of them don’t revolve around driving or putting on the green.
“Eighty to ninety percent of your residents want something non-golf related. They want a good food and beverage experience” spiced up with social ingredients such as wine-tasting dinners and “murder mystery dinners,” once the pandemic has passed, Bugbee said.