Investors put PGA on the green at Colorado Golf Club

Mike Taylor //February 12, 2010//

Investors put PGA on the green at Colorado Golf Club

Mike Taylor //February 12, 2010//

With the 71st PGA Senior Championship less than four months away, officials announced Wednesday that Colorado Golf Club in Parker had reached agreements with investors, overcoming difficulties the Club had in securing funds to support the activities required of the prestigious PGA event.

Discussions with prospective investors had been ongoing as the CGC sought to ensure that facilities and tournament-critical activities were adequately funded throughout the spring in the run-up to the tournament.

“There were some thorny issues,” said Colorado Golf Club spokesman Tom Ferrell. “There were some critical production issues that we had not been able to 100 percent resolve without this agreement.”

Ferrell described the investors as “a handful” of club members.

“It’s a small group of members who came forward,” he said. “It was not a membership-wide solicitation or anything like that.”

As for the nature of the investment and the expected return on it, Ferrell described it as “basically the same kind of return you’d expect for any short-term loan.”

An infusion of capital in the course undoubtedly came as a relief to the PGA as well as Colorado Golf Club: Venues for the PGA’s major championships are decided years in advance, with support staff typically spending more than a year on-site and within the community tending to every detail of the tournament.

While PGA championship events are known to have specific clubhouse requirements, Ferrell said in regard to CGC’s agreement only that “facilities were certainly a major topic.”

The recession has played havoc on golf- and real estate-related projects. Private clubs in particular have felt the impact, as the stream of affluent members on which clubs rely has diminished and as financing, especially involving real estate, has become increasingly difficult to secure.

The PGA of America is experiencing the tough economy, too, but with letters of intent in hand from CGC investors announced Wednesday, there came assurance that for a few days in late May, the economy and its effects will take a back seat to golf.

“Everybody, including the PGA, Colorado Golf Club ownership and the member group has worked under the belief that holding this tournament here is a great thing for us, for Colorado and for golf.”

On the Colorado venue, the PGA concurs. “The PGA of America has worked closely with the owners of the club and its new investors to assure that all the pieces are in place for a wonderful Senior PGA Championship in May,” said Kerry Haigh, senior director of championships for the PGA of America.

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