Hard times have fallen on Hawai'i's golf industry
By Dan Nakaso
Advertiser Staff Writer
KAILUA — In the days before Sept. 11, when dozens of golfers would surround her little starter's window at the Pali Golf Course, Carol Morikami would have to squeeze as many as 180 players onto the course in two hours.
She only needed a few, low-key moments to get the 25 players who showed up yesterday morning into their carts and onto the course. For the six hours that remained in the day, Morikami faced the prospect of only three more bookings.
"Big-time slow," Morikami said, flipping through her reservation sheets to make sure she hadn't overlooked anyone. "We're lucky if we get half of the business we used to get."
The same scenario's being played out in some similar fashion nearly every day at most of the 89 golf courses spread throughout the Islands. Golf course operators and industry experts say that in recent months business is down 15 percent to 40 percent as free-spending Japanese golfers and tourists stay away and Hawai'i's troubled economy has some residents reconsidering how much money they spend on golf.
The drop continues a decline that began last year and only accelerated after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Although there is no complete data measuring the drop in Hawai'i, national research firm Golf Datatech reported that last year business fell across the Pacific as much as 25 percent in some months for an overall 5 percent decline from the year before.
The drop portends potentially deeper, more troubling issues for an industry that has been estimated at $1 billion a year and markets itself around the world as a golfing paradise. To cope with the downturn, some golf course operators have been cutting employee hours — and, in some cases, course maintenance — in a move that could ultimately hurt Hawai'i's golfing reputation and nudge international golfers to other cities and countries that had gone on golf-course building sprees.
"Anything we do to compromise our product is going to have a long-term, negative affect, there's no question," said Mark Rolfing, an NBC golf analyst and former chairman of the Hawai'i Tourism Authority events committee. Rolfing lives near the Kapalua golf resort on Maui.
As business falls, so do the prices of Hawai'i golf courses. The Hawaii Country Club in Kunia was put on the market last year for $16.7 million. In December, the owners dropped the price 53 percent to $7.8 million.
"Golf courses are being looked at and relooked at to see if they make economic sense," said Guy Kidder, senior associate with Colliers Monroe Friedlander, which represents the owners of the Hawaii Country Club. "Today people are buying golf courses strictly based on their cash flow. If you have less players, you have less cash flow so courses aren't worth as much."
Or as Rolfing said: "The question is how long people can operate at a deficit before they decide they can't operate at all."
Kama'aina discounts
But hard times for Hawai'i's golf courses also mean opportunities for residents, who have sometimes felt neglected as courses catered to Japanese golfers willing to pay more than $100 a round.
Greens fees for kama'aina are falling by as much as a third at some courses and golfers can often pick from prime tee times. Many courses are offering special weekday and afternoon rates that have put the cost of 18 holes at around $30, including the cart, although prime weekend rates can still top $50.
"We don't have to make reservations or anything," said Donald Wong, 70, taking a break yesterday at the ninth hole of the Bayview Golf Park in Kane'ohe, where he and his three friends pay the $18.72 senior-citizen rate.
"We just come," said one of his golfing buddies, Gil Chang, 73. "We don't worry about tee times."
Their friend, Dr. John Taylor, remembers the days when Hawai'i courses were filled with "hordes of Japanese tourists who were brought in on buses. They don't do that anymore."
Taylor, an 88-year-old retired doctor, looked back over the course where only one other foursome played.
"We don't have to worry about disturbing anybody with our slow play," he said. "We're not in any hurry because we're all old."
Before Sept. 11, Bayview Golf Park used to see 50 tourists a day. After, "we didn't have a single one for several weeks," said Tony Kanzic, the head pro. Lately Kanzic said he has been getting 16 to 20 tourists a day and only 80 percent of his old local business.
"It's tough," Kanzic said. "We're cutting hours. We're cutting wages. We're cutting out spare parts or fertilizer or herbicides or whatever you need to keep the course running."
Some exceptions
Not all golf courses in the Islands are feeling the pinch. Private country clubs, with their captive audience of members, don't rely on tourists and have seen little drop in the number of rounds being played, said B.J. Dorman, executive director of the Hawai'i State Golf Association.
And the city-run Ala Wai Golf Course, often cited as the world's busiest, attracts mostly residents and has seen little change, said starter Darrell Lee.
But many of the dozens of other courses are left struggling, whether they're high-end resorts, municipal courses like the Pali Golf Course or smaller public operations like Bayview.
"I've talked to golf directors throughout Hawai'i and everybody's off," said Dennis Rose, director of golf for the Turtle Bay Resort Golf Club on the North Shore. "There's no doubt that everyone's having problems."
In addition to the drop in tourism and Japanese travel after Sept. 11, Hawai'i also was hit with an unusually wet winter that hurt some golf operators.
The weather hurt business at the Kapalua resort on Maui as much as anything else, said Marty Keiter, director of golf. "It's been the wettest winter I can remember," Keiter said. "We've had players here, but the weather took its toll."
Maintenance cutbacks
Some courses have no option but to cut back on maintenance, said Robert C. Hastings, a consultant with the O'ahu Golf Course Association, a group of 20 public, private and resort courses that formed in November to appeal their tax appraisals.
"Without any cash in the drawer, what are you going to do?" Hastings asked.
But neglecting the quality of the courses could damage Hawai'i's golfing reputation to potential tourists, said Chuck Gee, dean emeritus of the University of Hawai'i's Travel Industry Management School.
"That would be a serious mistake," he said. "Once a course is overrun with weeds and is poorly maintained, you begin to destroy the image. You can't afford to do that."
Hawai'i's top resorts are still impeccably groomed, Gee said. "But people can't come here and find a gap between the reality and the image," he said. "It would be a very, very destructive thing to do."
But until the tourists come back in larger numbers, Jehu Fuller, assistant pro at the Koolau Golf Club in Kane'ohe is left to wonder how the Islands' golf courses can survive.
Fuller puts the pressure back on Hawai'i's own golfers, the same people who felt overlooked a decade ago.
"If the residents can't support golf here," Fuller said, "courses are going to close. And that's going to mean a lot less golf for everyone."
Reach Dan Nakaso at dnakaso@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8085.
