GOLF C(O)URSES?

An Opinion By Jan Bergemann

Published March 10, 2026

In the 80’s and 90’s many retirees from up North flooded to Florida to play golf in the sunshine. Fancy community associations with country club atmosphere and golf courses were built – and quickly sold out. Folks paid extra for homes located directly next to the greens of a well-manicured golf course. But then the same folks complained that golf balls hit their coffee cups and/or their windows. I guess they forgot that not every retiree from up North was playing golf like “Tiger Woods”!

But over time it happened what had been predicted from the very beginning: Older golf courses need a lot of expensive maintenance and the initially budgeted cost for golf club maintenance quickly doubled.

And the folks, who initially favored playing golf, got older and older, and their enthusiasm for playing golf vanished with age. These HOA owned golf courses saw less and less players and rising cost. The enthusiasm for playing golf quickly changed into a fast increase of expensive lawsuits, because the folks still playing golf needed folks who helped paying for the quickly growing cost. Association boards tried to force their neighbors into mandatory golf club membership, creating lawsuits all over the state. But that only helped to make attorneys rich – and made homeowners even poorer. And it was not only the many lawsuits – no matter the outcome – but as well the fact that the property values in these communities quickly went down the drain. Who wanted to buy into a community where neighbors were fighting neighbors with a golf course that had fallen into disrepair and showed more weeds than lush greens?

The new retirees now buying the homes of the former owners, who loved to play golf when younger, who had passed away or had moved into retirement homes, didn’t like to play golf and were not interested in paying for maintaining a golf course just a very few neighbors still used.

We saw golf courses going bankrupt – and community associations desperately trying to find solutions to pay for the ever growing cost of maintaining the golf course. For most associations the only way out: SELLING THE GOLF COURSE!

And we all know what that meant in the end: A developer buying the many acres and is quickly building another community, often with apartment buildings and multi-story homes. And instead of the view of the greens of a golf course, the same homes, where owners initially paid extra for the great view, are now looking at neighboring buildings blocking their view.

And that’s latest the moment when the GOLF COURSE became the GOLF CURSE!