October 13 — Pleasant Valley Country Club will become the latest in a string of Massachusetts golf courses to end up at a foreclosure auction.
The Bank of New England will reportedly foreclose on the Sutton, Mass.-based Pleasant Valley property soon, according to the Worcester Telegram & Gazette. JJ Manning Auctioneers, which has recently handled two other notable golf club auctions, will begin taking bids on November 16 at 11 a.m., according to the Manning website.
Mired in debt. Mingolla, who has owned the nationally renowned club since the death of his father, Cosmo Mingolla in 1979, fell deeply in debt and put the property up for sale a few months ago. Telling the Telegram he received several offers of up to $4.5 million from other course owners, Mingolla said he needed $5.8 million to pay back the bank.
The club will reportedly stay open through the end of the 2010 golf season and Mingolla said he hoped the new owner would honor wedding receptions and other functions already booked.
National acclaim. The 40-year-old Pleasant Valley gained fame when it hosted 33 PGA Tour and 14 LPGA Tour events way back when. Mingolla’s crushing debt occurred some years ago when he could not sell significant acreage across the road from the clubhouse, said the Telegram.
Mingolla refinanced a higher-interest loan with Bank of New England and could not pay it off, according to the Telegram. Despite drastic measures, including reportedly maxing out his credit cards, he went even deeper into arrears and could not climb out.
Manning Auctioneers is an old hand at selling golf courses, having auctioned Sterling National Country Club for $4.2 million and The Georgetown Club or $3.2 million earlier this year. Both Georgetown and Sterling have since reopened under new owners.
Much interest. There’s a great deal of interest in Pleasant Valley, Justin Manning, president of the auction house, told the Telegram. The sale will include the 18-hole golf course, practice facility, pro shop, 35,000-square-foot clubhouse, and ballroom and function facilities.
What all this means for Pleasant Valley’s reported 410 members is difficult to say. Mingolla and Manning did not respond to requests for comments.
Serious economic challenges. Pleasant Valley is hardly alone in its struggles with financial woes that continue to affect the golf business, and private clubs in particular, across the country. As the number of golfers have dropped from 30 million in 2005 to 27.1 million, so have private club memberships, which plummeted to 2.1 million from 3 million in the early 1990s, according to the National Golf Foundation.
Indeed, some 15 percent of the country’s 4,400 or so private clubs face severe financial issues, says the NGF.
Bankrupt courses reopen. Boston golfers need look no farther than their own backyards to see the impact that the economy has had on courses in the Bay State. Sterling National Country Club and The Georgetown Club are just two of many golf course businesses struggling to deal with the realities of the economy.
Bankrupt Sterling National reopened in June as a public course under new ownership after the Jan Companies of Cranston, R.I., purchased the operation at a foreclosure auction in May. Club managers expect the central Massachusetts course to be private again next year.
On the North Shore, the Georgetown (Mass.) Club closed suddenly last fall after the owner declared bankruptcy. New owners Black Swan Country Club LLC reopened the formerly private club to public play in June after buying it for $3.2 million at a foreclosure auction.
(Emily Kay is a regular contributor to New England Golf Monthly. Check her out at the Boston Golf Examiner and National Golf Examiner websites.)
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