Article Courtesy of The Daytona Beach News Journal

By Tony Holt

Published February 17, 2014

PALM COAST -- Golf enthusiasts in Matanzas Woods don’t want a park.
  
They don’t want more houses or any condominiums or apartments.

They want their golf course back, even though it has been closed for almost seven years.

“It was a great course,” said Jim Cullis, owner of Grand Haven Realty, “but there are other great courses in Palm Coast ... The city owns its own course and it doesn’t make money. I just don’t know when that market is coming back.”

Cullis made a move last fall to buy the property. After he suggested turning it into a park or using some of the land to build new homes, he was met with so much resistance he decided to walk away from the deal.

Last week, Matanzas Woods residents met with Palm Coast City Manager Jim Landon and other city officials to discuss the future of the property. Nothing was agreed upon, other than Landon telling residents the city has no desire to take on the responsibility of operating another golf course.

“There’s no interest on our part to open a second municipal golf course,” Landon said. “That’s just not an option for us.”

During a workshop earlier this week, Landon told City Council members the city would try to work with property owners to come up with a solution.

“There’s a lot of vacant property back there,” he said. “There are a lot of ideas ... (but) it’s not something that’s going to happen overnight.”

The property is owned by the Golf Group of Palm Coast, which purchased the course in 2011 after the previous property owner filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Golf Group owns Cypress Knoll and Pine Lakes and when it bought Matanzas Woods, there was the expectation it would be renovated and reopened, but that never happened.

Local golfers have other options besides Cypress Knoll and Pine Lakes. There is the upscale Hammock Dunes Club, the city-owned Palm Harbor Golf Club and the privately owned Grand Haven Golf Club. All of them have seen declines. The course in Palm Harbor has operated in the red since the city took it over in 2009, according to the city’s financial department.

The News-Journal reported last year that the number of rounds of golf played from 2001 to 2011 had dropped by 5.7 percent. In addition, there have been more golf course closings than openings nationwide since 2006.

Golf course development was rooted in residential development, so when the housing market crashed, the golf industry suffered substantially.

“There’s a pretty healthy debate that the golf industry is not coming back,” Cullis said.

Matanzas Woods had the Arnold Palmer name attached to its design. It was known for being a challenging course. Those who played the 18 holes crowed about it and several people remain nostalgic about it.

Stu Einhorn, who lives along the course, has led efforts to reopen Matanzas Woods. He couldn’t be reached for comment Thursday.

Cullis, an avid golfer himself, said his initial proposal to turn the property into a park was set aside as soon as he noticed the first wave of opposition. While he had doubts, he agreed to pursue the possibility of reopening the golf course, but he looked at some of the sections of the 277-acre property that were not developed when the golf course was first constructed. He wanted to take those unused pieces of property and build about 100 homes on them, he said.

That, too, was met with outcry.

He said a “core group of folks” sent him angry emails. There were even threats of civil action.

“In the end, it just wasn’t worth it,” Cullis said. “It wasn’t a hard decision.”

The taxable value of the Matanzas Woods golf course in 2006 was $3.2 million. That value has since dropped to less than $205,000, according to the Flagler County Appraiser’s Office.