If they don't buy, the developer could simply close the course and let it revert to brush. Or an outside investor could buy it and try to wring some profit out of it.

Either way, homeowners should look before they leap, said Richard Singer, director of consulting services for the Jupiter-based National Golf Foundation, who often is hired as a consultant by residents facing the decision.

For one thing, he said, the homeowners often assume they can keep the course going and play golf for the same price as they do now, but that's probably not the case because most developers heavily subsidize their operations.

"You dig into this thing and they're losing $800,000 a year" that the residents would have to come up with out of their own pockets, said Singer, who represented some of the homeowners' associations in that situation at communities belonging to Bonita Springs-based WCI Communities, now in Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Typically, he said, residents split and "they just have to vote it out" to reach a decision. Avid golfers, for example, are more willing to shoulder the financial load than those who just bought for the view.

Even non-golfers, however, run the risk that the golf course will be shut down, "and what kind of view do you have then?" he said.

The most recent examples in Lee County came last week as The Bonita Bay Group announced it would be selling off seven recreational clubs in five communities: at Verandah in east Fort Myers, Twin Eagles in Collier County, Bonita Bay in Bonita Springs, Shadow Wood in Estero and Mediterra in Collier County. Another Bonita Bay community, Sandoval in Cape Coral, has no club and is not affected.

Bonita Bay is under pressure from its lenders to dump the clubs, and a consultant has been brought in to do just that, said Kitty Green, president of Bonita Bay, who resigned Wednesday and expects to leave soon.

Most likely of the Bonita Bay communities to accept ownership are the more established, affluent ones that are largely built out, said Fort Myers-based commercial real estate broker Jim Simon of The Simon Group.

"If it's going to happen, it's most likely going to happen at Bonita Bay," the oldest of the communities and one that has a lot of well-heeled residents, he said.

Others, such as Verandah and Twin Eagles, likely don't have enough residents yet to share the financial burden, Simon said.

It's increasingly common for investors to buy and operate golf courses and other amenities from the developer, said Randy Thibaut, CEO of Fort Myers-based Land Solutions, which specializes in sales of raw land or assemblages of lots.

Stoneybrook South in Estero and Westminster in Lehigh Acres are local examples, he said. "It's a trend that is building and will be commonplace in the future."

Other communities aren't so lucky. Paradise Cove in North Fort Myers, for example, never opened as scheduled in 2005 and its abandoned golf course has since reverted to scrub. Nervous neighbors now mow the parts of the course adjacent to them in case a wildfire roars through.

It doesn't take long for the carefully manicured greens to deteriorate, Naples-based commercial real estate broker Ross McIntosh said. "Unfortunately they go to ruin very quickly."