Is Oakmont a Golf Course Community?
Berger’s undeniable intent was to create a golf course community. He had the golf course (now the west course) designed first, and then the housing layout around it.
But is Oakmont now a golf course community?
The answer to this question is a simple and emphatic NO.
There is a community of golfers within Oakmont, comprised of about 300 OGC members, plus an unknown number of less dedicated golfers who pay greens fees whenever they play. But Oakmont has over 4,700 owners, so OGC members comprise less than 7% of Oakmont owners. More to the point, Oakmont owners rejected the purchase of the golf courses almost 30 years ago; it was at that time that it became clear that Oakmont is not a golf course community, if it ever had been. The golf courses exist within the geographical boundaries of Oakmont, but they do not have broad participation of the community. Oakmont is a senior community with golf courses as window dressing.
There is, of course, a community of golfers in Sonoma County, a small number of whom live in Oakmont. When OGC was formed, it had around 900 members, each of whom had put up $5,000 and owned a share of the club. In 2005, according to a Kenwood Press article [1], club membership was still 839. But since that time, despite the facts that the price of an equity membership has dropped to $500 and that OGC began soliciting memberships from the larger community outside of Oakmont, membership has dropped to less than 400. The golfing community has voted with their feet: Oakmont is not the best golfing value available to them. OGC has made substantial marketing efforts without turning this trend around, and I see no evidence that the trend will reverse in the future.
Another way of looking at this is to ask, what is the value of the equity owned by each member of OGC? Let’s assume that the appraised or market value of all OGC property was $4.5 million when the property was purchased in 1992 (900 members x $5,000) and that it remains the same today. Over half of the equity memberships, i.e. shares in the club, have been retired, as club membership has waned, so there are now only 350 memberships [2]. Today you can buy into the club by purchasing an equity membership for just $500. If the club appraised value was still $4.5 million, then each member’s share would be worth about $12,850! It is a telling statistic that the cost of an equity membership has dropped from $5,000 in 1992 to $500 today, at the same time that the underlying equity value of a membership has gone up dramatically (by virtue of there being far fewer equity memberships now than there were when the club was formed).
I contend that there are two requirements for a community to be a golf course community. First, it must have a golf course within or adjacent to the physical community – obviously – and Oakmont does. Second, the golf courses must have substantial participation from the people of the community, and by this criteria, Oakmont fails dramatically, and the trend is that the participation will get worse, not better. Not only did Oakmont reject golf course ownership long ago, but OGC has been unable to attract enough memberships to replace inevitable attrition as older members age out, and interest from the larger community beyond Oakmont has not filled in the shortfall.
REFERENCES
[1] Empire Golf hired to run Oakmont Golf Club, Kenwood Press, 15 April 2005, reprinted at https://oakmontobserver.com/empire-golf-hired-to-run-oakmont-golf-club/
[2] Economic Benefits of the Oakmont Golf Club to the Community of Oakmont, OGC presentation at Town Hall Meeting, 26 February 2018, http://cdn.cybergolf.com/images/1503/TOWN-HALL-POWERPOINT-FEB-26-2018.pdf
Excellent summary, Bruce. Thanks.
You make a strong case for continued separation. Golf course communities, to my mind, are ones in which most homes abut a golf course. The opposite is the case with Oakmont, and people living on the west side can enter and leave Oakmont and use most of our central plaza facilities and never see a fairway.
John Williston’s history Oakmont golf reports that value of the club was estimated at $10 million in the early 90s (though a footnote offers the possibility of exaggeration). If so, that may have been the begging of a long history of exaggeration, and a long decline.
Base on your criteria Bruce most of the gated communities in Palm Springs, Palm Desert, La Quinta, etc., should NOT be referred to as ‘golf course communities.’ Of course, they are. Integrating a golf course with homes is a developer’s way of selling a housing development — the design offers low density and ‘landscaped’ green space and no homeowner is required to play golf. Oh, my, what a revelation!
Oakmont is called a ‘retirement community,’ a subdivision of Santa Rosa, and a Golf Course community – so what? My takeaway from your article is that either the OO is desperate for filler or you have too much time on your hands – perhaps you should think of taking up golf.
Jim — I’m sure that you are right about the reason that developers include golf courses in their plans, though there is a move toward “AgriHoods” to appeal to millennials who don’t want golf. From what I understand, most of the gated communities you refer to have far higher dues than does Oakmont and contribute large amounts of funding to their golf courses. I would tend to count that financial involvement as “participation” by the community, even if the folks don’t golf, and we are headed that way if OGC gets what it wants. I just don’t think that is what most Oakmonters want. Most Oakmonters don’t seem to understand that OGC’s initial ask is just a foot in the door that will lead to much more massive dues increases in the future.
It would be interesting if someone were to study how much the average home owner in all the golf course communities (by your definition) in California contribute toward the golf courses, and to correlate it with the total dues. But I do not have enough time on my hands to attempt such a study! I would bet that Oakmont is far cheaper than most, and I don’t want Oakmont to go in the direction of becoming a high-income-only community — I like it middle class.
You are doing good work Mr. Bon (better than I did on the course today). I apologize. I just think the headline should have been: ‘Historical Data Shows OGC Membership Declining.”