BERLIN – Following a meeting with three management companies, the Ocean Pines Association Board of Directors is expected to make a decision regarding the golf course’s future this week.
The board is scheduled to meet Feb. 20 to choose a company to manage the golf course. Potential management firms include Billy Casper Golf, the company that’s been managing the course for the past four years, as well as Landscapes Unlimited and Haley/Marshall.
“They give us some choices, which is all we’re really asking for,” said Dave Stevens, president of the Ocean Pines Association Board of Directors. “They’re different and they’re all qualified.”
Each of the three companies made presentations to the board Feb. 14 and answered questions from directors as well as the golfers in attendance. Stevens said he was pleased with the way the presentations went but indicated he would have liked to have seen more residents in the audience.
“We all expected to have more people there,” he said.
Officials from Casper Golf made the first presentation, focusing on the growth the course has experienced during their time there. Although an extensive greens reconstruction project limited course play for some time, Joel Gohlmann, senior vice president of Casper Golf, said numbers were on the upswing. A $539,000 loss in 2013 dropped to a $326,000 loss in 2014. He said the course was expected to lose just $88,000 in 2015.
“We need at least average weather in March and April but we feel those numbers are realistic,” Gohlmann said.
He said that though work on the course had hindered revenue growth, at first, that had changed in the past 16 months.
“We’re really proud of what we’ve been able to deliver on the financial growth side,” he said.
Gohlmann’s presentation was followed by one from Mark Mattingly, vice president of business development for Landscapes Unlimited. Mattingly said the Nebraska-based business, founded in 1976, currently manages 30 clubs in 18 states.
According to Mattingly, one of the company’s focuses in Ocean Pines would be rebuilding the golf membership base, which is now slightly above 200.
“We think it’s vitally important to focus on the fact that you had a thriving membership base seven years ago,” he said.
Mattingly said his company had been successful at growing membership at courses it managed in the past five years in spite of reports of a struggling golf industry.
“You can grow memberships today,” he said.
Mattingly pointed out that there were 16 public courses in the immediate area and only two private courses. While Landscapes Unlimited wouldn’t suggest making the course in Ocean Pines completely private, the company would put more of an emphasis on attracting OPA members.
“We’re sitting in the middle of 8,000 rooftops,” Mattingly said.
Bob Haley and Mike Marshall wrapped up Saturday’s meeting with their proposal for the Pines golf course. Haley, former owner of the Bay Club in Berlin, began by pointing out his history with Ocean Pines. He spent years as the golf pro at the Ocean Pines course.
“Ocean Pines gave me my start,” he said, adding that he even met his wife there.
He’s partnered with Marshall, son of one of the association’s former general managers, who runs the Salisbury-based Marshall Hotels and Resorts.
“If we can get the hospitality of his people here, this would be an extremely successful project for us,” Haley said.
He stressed the need to stabilize the course financially.
“For this golf course to lose money is ridiculous because it doesn’t owe anybody,” he said.
A key to increasing revenue, he believes, is bringing back members who left the club within the past decade. He said that if he and Marshall are selected to run the course they will work toward making it a private club, perhaps with a day or two each week permitted for public play.
Haley also said he and Marshall would focus on improving customer experience at the course. He pointed out that the Ocean Pines course didn’t rate as high as other local facilities on websites such as www.golfnow.com.
“Ocean Pines is not terrible,” Haley said. “It’s just that the other ones are better and they shouldn’t be. You can’t accept mediocrity.”
According to Stevens, the board will choose a management company in a closed session on Friday, Feb. 20. Contract negotiations will take place after that.