Construction crews soon will pour concrete over the greens and sand traps at Oakland Park's long-closed Oak Tree Golf Course to make way for 405 single-family homes and townhouses.

The development follows the fate of Hollywood's Hillcrest Golf Course, now home to over 300 residences with more to come. The story is the same at Boca Lago Country Club, where one of two courses will be built on.

South Florida golf courses are the latest construction frontier as developers home in on financially strained greenspace. The courses are welcomed by builders facing land scarcity.

Brent Baker

"It's probably a combination of the struggle of the golf industry, where there's just too many golf courses in South Florida, combined with the lack of developable land in South Florida because you have natural constraints with the ocean and the Everglades," said Brent Baker, who leads the Southeast Florida division of homebuilder PulteGroup Inc. "There's a lot of natural constraints. There's not a lot of land. Some of these closed golf courses become sites that developers like ourselves want to look at to see if there's any viability in converting it from golf course to residential."

PulteGroup, based in Atlanta with an office in Palm Beach Gardens, is developing on four South Florida golf courses.

The old Oak Tree course will have 273 single-family homes and 132 townhouses on 139 acres southwest of Commercial Boulevard and Prospect Road. Pulte plans to start sales next year.

The former Hillcrest course near Memorial Regional Hospital South is set to become Parkview at Hillcrest, 645 single-family homes with half already completed. They range from three to six bedrooms, according to Pulte's website.

Pulte also is building the 130-home Boca Flores, a 55-and-older community on an 18-hole course at Boca Lago Country Club northwest of Palmetto Park Road and Lyons Road. The country club kept another 18-hole golf course.

Similarly, Pulte's the 152-home Enclaves at Woodmont is rising on part of Woodmont Country Club outhwest of University  Drive and Southgate Boulevard in Tamarac. About 20 homes are completed. The houses vary from two to six bedrooms.

Woodmont closed nine holes where Pulte is building the homes and kept a 27-hole course open.

"There is too much golf in South Florida," Baker said. "They wanted to lessen a little bit the amount of golf."

GOLF INDUSTRY

Indeed, "too much golf in South Florida" is what's driving the course closures.

A golf course building boom during the game's heyday from 1986 to 2005 turned out to be unsustainable, leaving oversaturation. Over 4,500 courses opened during that time across the U.S., more than the number of courses in any other country, according to Erik Matuszewski, editorial director at the National Golf Foundation trade organization in Jupiter.

Florida was at the heart of the construction boom as the state for years boasted the most courses in the U.S. The state still is in the lead with 986 in 2018 despite all the course closures in recent years.

Golf course development was driven by a robust economy, the rise of Tiger Woods and the popularity of golf course communities where single-family homes often were built around courses, according to the foundation. The market started to reverse with more golf courses closing than opening each year since 2006. Last year, 199 18-hole-equivalent courses closed in the U.S. and 12.5 opened.

The 36-hole Inverrary Country Club in Lauderhill said it will close next June after opening in 1970. The 36 holes sit on 292 acres northwest of Florida's Turnpike and Oakland Park Boulevard.

"After many years of operational losses where revenues have not been sufficient to cover the expenses, the club ownership has determined that golf course operations are no longer viable at Inverrary," said David Husman, a partner at Inverrary owner Victorville West LP. "It is time to redevelop the entire property to other permitted uses."

As courses were closing, developers like Pulte started taking a hard look at them in 2015, Pulte's Baker said.

The closures don't necessarily mean there's less interest in golf, just too many courses for the players. The number of golfers ticked up 1.6% to 24.2 million last year, up from 23.8 million in 2017. But they played fewer rounds at 434 million, a 4.8% decline from the prior year, according to the  foundation. Part of the drop is blamed on a rainy year.

Florida has seen nearly a 1% increase in rounds through August this year compared with the same time last year, according to the foundation.

In Miami-Dade and Broward counties, August rounds were down 3.6%, although plays increased 2% year over year. In Palm Beach County, plays dropped 14% in August compared with August last year but increased 2.4% year over year.

Course closures are due to a market stabilizing after the boom era and the land's high value as a development site.

"When courses close whether in South Florida or elsewhere, it's typically because there's enough existing supply in the area. Often, it is also tied to the value of the land itself," Matuszewski said. "Many owners sell as part of a planned exit strategy, and that valuable land is then used for higher and better uses, whether that's development or open space.

THE FINANCIALS

Pulte paid $10.2 million for 44 acres at Woodmont, or $231,818 per acre, and $25 million for the 150-acre Hillcrest, or $166,667 per acre.

The price is not necessarily cheaper than other land deals. In the biggest deal this year, homebuilder Kolter Homes LLC paid $52 million for 270 acres at the new Westlake residential community, or $192,582 per acre.

The houses sell at market rates: Hillcrest homes start at $321,990, Woodmont at $419,990 and Boca Flores at $408,990, according to Pulte's website.

Still, golf courses making way for new housing could be good news for the affordable housing crisis by expanding the housing stock.

Florida Atlantic University professor Ken Johnson in Boca Raton said golf course redevelopment, although often opposed by neighbors, is generally good news for nearby property owners and public coffers.

"If you are on a course that's been poorly maintained or it's vacant, it's not helping your land value," said Johnson, associate dean and professor. "To have new housing developed around you is probably all else equal positive as long as I have housing quality and style" similar to what's around the golf course.

But it won't be seen as good news for existing homeowners of manicured $750,000 homes to get a next-door condominium development at $250,000 per unit.

"Golf courses in general are a net positive to the supply of land to develop property. Without them, things would be worse than they are," Johnson said. "If golf had stayed wildly popular, then it would make it even more difficult to solve the housing problems we have in Southeast Florida."