For $6,000 a year, Tom Bennett enjoyed the privileges of being a member of an exclusive, private golf course in northeast New Jersey. He golfed pristine grounds and reveled in socializing with other duffers.
But last year, Bennett ended his six-year membership at the private Stanton Ridge Golf and Country Club in Whitehouse Station, N.J.
"Cost was part of it, but service had fallen and upkeep was suffering because membership was down, a death spiral if you will," says Bennett, 48, who runs a financial-management consulting firm in California but still owns a house at the club.
"The recession (hurt) membership, and that affected the social aspect," Bennett says. "With fewer people and dues, the club didn't do as good a job taking care of non-golf parts of the course." As Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and other members of golf's royalty prepare to tee off at the PGA Championship — the fourth, and final, major championship of 2010 — in Wisconsin next week, the business of golf faces an economic outlook that is sinking like a downhill putt.
Recession-battered golf courses aren't just coping with lighter crowds. Some are edging perilously close to bankruptcy. Courses from Florida to Arizona, where golfing was once a daily exercise, face major cutbacks or foreclosure.
Plow up all the golf courses and plant potatoes and corn. It is a little silly for grownups to chase a tiny white ball with a stick for hours on end anyway. It isn't about golfing, it is about keeping up with the Jones'es in a $100.00 polo shirt and $1000.00 or more bag of clubs, whilst riding the newest cart, with your latest Caddy SUV parked in the lot at the clubhouse where you will have your expensive drink and fillet Mignon later that night, while trying to capture someone else's wife for an afternoon romp.
ReplyDeletePLOW those greens under and plant something to eat!
An excellent suggest, 3:39!
ReplyDeleteI agree with 3:39, and I used to play quite a bit of golf in my day. Let's fertilize those corn and tomato courses with the remains of the elite, kind of like they did in this movie, but on a grander scale.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNPSHydODoI
Wow, exactly what I was gonna say too! Give those sanctimonious assholes weed wackers instead of golf clubs and make em earn the priviledge of breathing the same air as us commoners... lol
ReplyDeleteYou people have it all wrong. They will build houses on it and tell all the misfits what a great deal to live on a Golf course played on by Tiger Woods.
ReplyDeleteIf all you fine educated varmints want to know what those golf courses are really good for, go down to the nearest one and start screaming, "We're all doomed! I can't make a hundred dollars an hour screwing lug-nuts in a factory anymore! I'm too good to live in less than a 4500 square foot house! I can't be out of money, I've still got checks! What do I do when my forty pairs of shoes all get stratches? God hates America because I can't have my Starbucks three times a day! We're all doomed, doooooommmmeeedddd!"
ReplyDeleteThen you can all fall down kicking and screaming and let a procession of golf carts driven by dirty politicians, dirty banksters, dirty Illuminati and dirty bill collectors run over our clean unblemished forms again and again and again while you scream louder and louder until you pass out,"Run over me, that's ok, do it again, ok. One day you'll be sorry, again, that's right, I'm gonna have to be paid what I'm worth, oh, boo hoo, there is no God and it's all their fault! I'm so smart and slender and hard working and honest and good, goo goo goo goooood gooooooooogoooooooogoooooooooddd!"
Feel better yet? Maybe one more time. Wahhhhhhh!
Corn field? tee hee
It`s like 5:56 said- f*e*r*t*i*l*i*z*e*r*- wee! wee! wee! wee! - bwaa haa haa haa!!
ReplyDeleteOh boo. oh boo hoo....we are to feel sorry for these rich assholes who can't golf at the privey places anymore?
ReplyDeleteIt's a waste of time to begin with,lol
No one is doing ANYTHING anymore, forget golf.
ReplyDeleteNo one drives around on weekends, the malls and plazas are ghost towns, as are many neighborhoods.
When going to the grocery stores it seems like husbands are always with their wives and children, usually the wife was always alone - husbands are out of work now so they have nothing else to do.
Vacations like Disneyland and Vegas are out of the question. Birthdays and Christmas people will be receiving cheaper/less presents from now on.
Anyone wonder why myspace and forums are becoming so popular? People today are so empty in life that they'll sit on the internet talking about their lives and making all kinds of stuff up about it. We are in the Age of Derangement.
Nobody is doing anything in real life, they're just pretending to in cyberspace! Go one many myspace pages I'm not kidding, most of the people will have as their income 125,000. Some of these people will even be 18 or 19, with a photo of them with a beer in their hands!
It's quite sad how insane people have become in this country. I guess that's what excess on a mass scale leads to.
Just a comment on Atlantic City. I went there a few years after they passed gaming laws and a bunch of casinos were built along the boardwalk. The city thought gaming would bring it lots of money and tourists and really help other businesses.
ReplyDeleteIt didn't work out that way. If you walked just one block away from the boardwalk, past the fancy casinos and tourist traps, the rest of the city looked like shit. I talked to some of the small businesses not associated with gambling and they all told me gambling hadn't helped them one bit.
Here in northeastern PA, they passed gambling laws and we've had a few casinos built. The money was supposed to help lower our property taxes or help the elderly or something. I haven't seen any of that--I have no idea where the money goes.
Back to my stockpiling...I'm partial to bags of sugar. I need it for canning jam.
I think the best way to deal with these conniving money hungry bankers would be to steal the batteries out of the golf carts and make them walk the course. Maybe we could take the batteries and bury them all over the golf course with explosives so as they come tottering along on their little spindly banker legs or huffing and puffing past with their big fat banker bellies they could get blown up as they ran away. Hope any gophers don't get hurt though.
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Make sure you only use clean balls for playing on indoor simulator.
ReplyDeleteSolution Options: It was decided to use a web services simulator to simulate the exact functions of a web services backend.
At this time, and in a good location, the leader should set up
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Unfortunately, the series has been dormant for quite some time
and there isn't any indication that it will be returning anytime soon.