October 27 — Reports of Wentworth Hills Golf Course’s demise may have been premature, but the future looks bleak for the semi-private facility in Plainville, Mass.
After shutting down abruptly last week, the 18-hole course reopened Saturday under new management and will book tee times through November 15, said an owner’s friend who answered the pro shop phone and asked to remain anonymous. Whether Wentworth Hills will open next season is anyone’s guess, since no one in charge is talking.
Deafening silence. Wentworth general manager Steve Landi and executives with Potomac Realty Capital (PRC), the company that owns and now manages the club, have not returned repeated calls to discuss last week’s events and the club’s future.
Billy Casper Golf, which operated the course for 13 months until it’s brief closure October 20, left PRC on friendly terms amid what may have been disparate philosophies about how to manage the course going forward.
“Billy Casper Golf and the owner of the property mutually agreed to go in different directions,” Casper Golf VP Brian O’Hare told New England Golf Monthly. “We parted amicably.”
Except, maybe not.
Heavy debt. The official word from PRC, which has taken on the task of managing the course, is that a brief gap in insurance coverage forced the closure. Not so, according to a person with intimate knowledge of the situation.
The company operates under heavy debt and halted payments to Casper Golf, which then terminated the relationship. “[Casper Golf] said, ‘If you don’t pay us, we won’t provide our services,’” the source reported.
O’Hare, who declined to comment about the financial viability of his firm’s former partner, said the corporations did not divorce suddenly. Casper Golf and PRC had been in talks about separating for “a few months,” he said.
Fuzzy employment status. While O’Hare said PRC did not fire any of Wentworth’s key managers, it was unclear what befell the rest of the staffers, whom PRC laid off when it closed up shop last week.
“After that, I don’t know what the employment status was,” said O’Hare.
What is clear is that employees and members showed up last week to find a chain across the driveway and a sign that read, “Closed today,” according to the Sun Chronicle. The owner’s friend told NEGM that he was “just helping out,” while the source familiar with course events reported that PRC let its entire greens department go.
Shaky history. If PRC plans to reopen Wentworth next season, the Needham, Mass.-based firm will have to rebuild public confidence in an operation with a history of financial woes and revolving-door management.
The eight-year-old club is hardly the only New England golf course to experience financial difficulties. Sterling National CC, The Georgetown Club, Pleasant Valley CC, and others have been on shaky ground as well.
Wentworth’s original owners sold the club at a foreclosure auction for $3.7 million to Forewinds Hospitality in 2006 and PRC provided the funding. Jeffrey Robinson, Forewinds’ sales and marketing director, said he had no knowledge of Wentworth’s current status.
“We owned and operated it many seasons ago,” Robinson said. “We haven’t been involved since.” Forewinds, also based in Needham, briefly owned Sterling National.
Sound familiar? The Sun Chronicle reported that course managers sent e-mails to golfers updating them on current plans, reassuring them about the future, and discussing their search for “a new, local, ‘hands on’ management company” to operate the club.
Pleasant Valley’s debt-ridden owner Edward Mingolla reportedly sent similar e-mail messages to members before acceding to a foreclosure auction slated for next month.
Outdated liquor license. Among Wentworth’s immediate hurdles is removing former GM Jay Sapovits’ name from its liquor license. (Sapovits, who left Wentworth in August 2009, would not comment, saying he signed papers prohibiting him from discussing the club.) PRC has until December 31 to update the license, said Joseph Fernandes, Plainville town administrator.
Fernandes, for one, hopes the property remains a golf course. He’s concerned that a developer will buy the acreage and build houses on its fairways.
“That was my fear then [Wentworth’s foreclosure in 2006],” Fernandes said, “and it’s my fear now.”
In the meantime, Boston golfers may want to take advantage of Wentworth’s season-ending $39 greens fees (call the pro shop at 508-699-9406; the website no longer functions). They may also like to know that nearby Norton (Mass.) CC will offer current Wentworth members free play for the rest of the year at its 18-hole Brian Silva/Geoffrey Cornish-redesigned course.
“We want people to come and play golf, obviously at our property,” said Jeffrey Carroll, GM at Norton and Sterling National.
(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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