Pinnacle Golf Properties, a Charlotte-based golf course management company, is teaming up with Weaver Investment to buy and revamp up to 12 courses over the next few years, the company announced last week. This is the third such group that has announced intentions to buy ten or more distressed courses.
“It feels like there are a lot of opportunities to make acquisitions of golf courses at values that make sense,” said David Taylor, Pinnacle’s managing partner, referring to the myriad of bank-owned, foreclosed and developer-owned courses up for grabs nowadays.
Taylor has seen sales prices range from $800,000 to $2.5 million per course. Instead of dealing with the headache of borrowing money to make the purchases, he said they will plunk down cash to buy up the courses.
The firms have already had a successful test run of working together. Weaver tapped Pinnacle to manage its 18-hole Stoney Creek Golf Club near Greensboro six years ago, and the firms completed a multi-million dollar makeover of its course and clubhouse last year.
Through their new long-term partnership, Weaver invested to become a managing partner in the nine-year-old golf management firm. Pinnacle’s experience building and renovating golf courses, paired with Weaver’s expertise on the clubhouse side, will unite the talents and resources of each firm.
“We had been discussing where the golf industry is going and it made perfect sense for us to come together and join forces,” Taylor said.
Founded in 1939 as the W. H. Weaver Construction Co, Weaver Group has expanded into the windows and doors business, apartment management, general contracting and restaurants and hotels, including a partnership in the eco-friendly Proximity Hotel in Greensboro.
Because Weaver has its hands in a range of industries, Pinnacle can play in a real estate space it never has before, whether it’s purchasing a golf course attached to a resort or golf course tied to a residential community.
Pinnacle currently manages six courses in the Carolinas, including the Bryan Park Golf & Conference Center in Greensboro, host to the 2010 U.S. Amateur Public Links Championship, and Green Valley Country Club in Greenville, S.C.
The partnership is limiting its search to courses in the Southeast to keep the travel time between courses low and is currently setting its sights on five bank-owned properties in the Carolinas.
“Whether we can do it, we do not know yet,” Taylor said.
He said the market for buying recession-hit, unfinished and renovation-ready golf course properties will eventually dry up.
“We feel like the window is 24 months, but we don’t feel like it’s a mad rush to be acquiring. We feel like it will be another two to three years,” he said.
The partnership plans to make four acquisitions in the next 12 to 18 months and eventually build up its portfolio to 12 in four years.
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