Not All Golf Course Closures Are Failures

“In a eulogy,” award-winning architect Tom Doak once stated, “there is always a tendency to dismiss the weaknesses of the departed and canonize him for the most basic of human qualities. I suppose the same is true for golf courses, especially since their mortality is not preordained…” No good golf course deserves to die, though many do -- and for many reasons. Course closures have outweighed new openings for 16 straight years during the ongoing balancing of supply and demand in the U.S. golf market, and Doak himself is no exception. No fewer than six of his course designs have ...