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Egg Harbor Township golf club files for bankruptcy, will open to public
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EGG HARBOR TOWNSHIP — Ballamor Golf Club, a private course since it opened in 2001, has filed for bankruptcy and will go public next year, its owners said Friday.
Ballamor, which covers 340 acres off English Creek Avenue, was one of 12 18-hole golf courses to open in Atlantic, Cape May and southern Ocean counties between 1991 and 2004, when golf was a boom business around the country. That boom has since cooled considerably, starting well before the national recession began.
Ballamor was also one of three private courses to open in Atlantic County within 15 miles or so of each other between 1994 and 2002. The others are Hidden Creek Golf Club in Egg Harbor Township and Galloway National Golf Club in Galloway Township.
Ballamor’s lawyers filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Thursday. The management plans to start running it as a daily-fee course Jan. 1, said Liz Norton-Scanga, the course’s marketing director. She blamed the club’s troubles on a simple shortage of members.
“When the current ownership purchased the club in May of this year, it found out almost immediately that it was going to be impossible to maintain it as a private club,” Norton-Scanga said. “We started marketing programs to entice people into joining the club. But given the current economic conditions, we could not get enough people interested in becoming members.”
Chip Ottinger Sr., the owner of Scotland Run Golf Club in Williamstown, bought Ballamor in May from the original developer and owner, Patrick J. Delaney.
Ballamor plans to charge greens fees starting at $50 off-season to $100 during the prime local golf season, including carts.
A study by the National Golf Foundation found that from 1999 to 2008, 387 private golf clubs across the country converted themselves into public courses, and 39 more private clubs closed entirely. But over that same period, 343 new private clubs opened nationwide, and 288 more courses switched from public to private.
The foundation’s 2008 study also reported that around the country, membership had fallen at private golf clubs by 13 percent from their peak years, and the number of rounds played was off 17 percent from the peak. But the peak years varied from club to club, the study’s authors said.
“I wouldn’t say it’s an epidemic,” said Joe Rice, of the National Golf Course Owners Association, speaking of clubs making the change from private to public.
“I don’t think you can say it’s a trend, but it’s certainly not uncommon,” Rice added later.
Among Ballamor members, the news drew widely mixed reviews Friday. Several said they were surprised to get letters from the club announcing the bankruptcy.
“The new management had assured us they were going to try this year and next year to keep it a private club,” said Jack Feinberg, a four-year member who lives in Egg Harbor Township. “They talked to nobody (about bankruptcy) as far as I know.”
Feinberg, a lawyer, said he hasn’t had a chance to talk to the circle of 15 or so friends he plays with at Ballamor about what they’ll do for a golf home next year. But he also said he plans to do some legal research on whether there was any “consumer fraud” in the owners’ move.
“It seems totally unfair to lead everyone down a certain path and then do a 180” degree turnaround, Feinberg said.
Ballamor’s Norton-Scanga said current members will be reimbursed for part of the deposits they paid — ranging from $500 to $13,500 — at the discretion of the bankruptcy court and creditor committee. The course’s owners said opening to the public is better for the members than closing the course, which would cost the members all their up-front money.
Ralph Paolone, of Linwood, who started his membership before the course even opened, said he was “bummed out, very disappointed” about the changes. But he suggested it continued a pattern that started at the beginning, when he based his decision to join Ballamor partly on promises of a new pool and clubhouse where he could bring his young family.
The pool and new clubhouse still aren’t there — even though land behind the 18th green was cleared for a clubhouse at one point, he said.
Paolone estimated that Ballamor had 200 to 225 members at its height — of the 350 the course’s original management said they hoped to draw.
He added that the course had already started becoming more public in the last couple of years, with Ballamor regularly advertising a “member for the day” option to nonmembers. The new owners also gave all their members from Scotland Run playing privileges at Ballamor, and vice versa — a policy they plan to continue with any members who remain or join now.
Paolone said Ballamor’s condition had suffered somewhat with the expanded public play, because nonmembers weren’t as careful about repairing divots or ball marks on the green. Still, he believes that “the course is one of the best golf courses around.”
But on the course itself Friday, members Bill Smith and Steve Levine said they were happy about the move as their group got ready to play the 15th hole.
“I don’t think it was getting enough play to support itself, which means the quality would only diminish,” said Smith, 61, of Egg Harbor City. “This could only be positive.”
And they said their loyalties will stay with Ballamor — even if it is less exclusive.
“We’re still members,” Levine, 56, of Margate, added. “We love this place.”
Sal Chillemi, 59, of Washington Township, Gloucester County, agreed after he finished his round Friday.
“I think it’s a great idea,” he said. “I don’t care about the exclusivity. This is a great course with so much to offer and hopefully this a way to keep it open.”
Ballamor’s Norton-Scanga called the management’s decision part of “a national trend, for sure. Years ago there were lists pages long to join a private club, but you don’t see that any more. Private clubs are waiving deposit fees and reducing their annual dues just to keep afloat,” she said. “I think it’s due to a combination of the economy and the quality of some of the daily-fee public courses that people can utilize. And (by playing at public courses) they can change it up, they don’t have to play the same course every day.”
Ballamor will still sell memberships next year — as most public courses do — with associate memberships starting at $495, the owners said.
18 hole courses opening in southern New Jersey
Cape May National, Lower Township, 1991 (Headline: “First course to open in southern New Jersey since Avalon in 1971”)
Blue Heron Pines, Galloway Township, 1993 (Blue Heron Pines East opens 2000, closes 2005)
Galloway National, Galloway Township, 1994 (Private)
Harbor Pines, Egg Harbor Township, 1996
Sand Barrens, Middle Township, 1997 (Opened 9 more holes in 1999)
Sea Oaks, Little Egg Harbor Township, 2000
Ballamor, Egg Harbor Township, 2001 (Private)
Twisted Dune, Egg Harbor Township, 2001
Hidden Creek, Egg Harbor Township, 2002 (Private)
McCullough’s Emerald Links, Egg Harbor Township, 2002
Shore Gate, Dennis Township, 2002
Vineyard Golf at Renault, Egg Harbor City, 2004
(Atlantic City Country Club, Northfield, formerly private, sold 1997, memberships expired 1998) Galloway National, Galloway Township, 1994
Contact Martin DeAngelis:
609-272-7237
Contact Robert Spahr:
609-272-7283
Posted in ATLANTIC on Saturday, November 21, 2009 3:00 am Updated: 10:43 pm.
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