Gold Creek owners to shrink golf course by almost 40Ha.

The Canberra Times reported last week that the owners of the Gold Creek Country Club are planning to downsize the golf course, in the hope of stemming half million-dollar operating loses per year.

Harry Konstantinou, director of Gold Creek’s managing Konstantinou Group, has defended the plan by pointing out that other Canberra courses occupy far less land than Gold Creek. Designed by Bruce Devlin in the mid-1990s, the current course at Gold Creek sits on an approximately 88Ha parcel.

Responding to criticism from Gold Creek golfers and residents, Konstantinou was quoted in the article as stating, “We’re not coming here with a proposal and saying all this 88 hectares is going to go. The golf course is going to stay, it’s just going to stay in a smaller format. Yowani is 47 hectares, what’s wrong with that?”

The owners of the golf development are hoping to have a portion of the back nine currently zoned as green space converted for residential use. Presumably the golf course would be re-routed and altered to accommodate the new housing lots, though the golf redevelopment plans were not currently available. Konstantinou stated that the intention was to retain 18 holes, but on a footprint that was reduced from 88 Ha down to around 50 Ha.

As Konstantinou explained to residents during a public meeting on the proposed redevelopment earlier this month, the Gold Creek owners have continued to invest in a well-maintained product but the golf course struggles to break even. Without the redevelopment and a reduced golfing footprint members would almost certainly face maintenance cut backs.

Golf in the ACT is at an interesting stage, with Royal Canberra recently unveiling a dramatic and expensive facelift but other clubs like Federal and Yowani, along with Gold Creek, looking to add retirement units or house sites as a means of securing their financial security.

 

From the Canberra Times article:

Kingston Heath Golf Club in Melbourne, which has hosted the Australian Open seven times, has 18 holes on 49 hectares. Canberra's Fairbairn Golf Club also has 18 holes but on about 75 hectares while Royal Canberra Golf Club, in Yarralumla, is home to 27 holes on 54 hectares. Federal Golf Club in Red Hill has 18 holes on 86 hectares.

The group was losing $500,000 a year on the golf course and could not afford to keep losing money.

The golf course used 1.5 million litres of water a day in summer, and 300 million litres a year and could save $200,000 a year on water by shrinking the size.

“It’s a cost thing, we’re subsidising this golf course to the tune of $10,000 a week … This is a business. It needs money to move forward ... and that’s the decision we’ve made [that] one of the ways is for the course to be shorter which will still be competitive, and cost significantly less in water, in chemicals, in labour to look after it ...

“So it’s still predominantly a golf course. We’re talking over 60-70 per cent of it will be a golf course.”

He told residents to “remember that this is privately owned land”.

The Konstantinou group bought the golf course from the ACT government 12 years ago for $3 million. Mr Konstantinou said he had bought the golf course in an open tender, with “a straight purchase agreement” and “no contractual obligation” to do any particular work on the site.

“Twelve years down the track you may sit here and say it was a great deal ... I can’t change that,” he said.

It was a full commercial lease and not a concessional lease, he said.

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