Golf course consultant John Wait told the county board that Superior National at Lutsen has the potential to be one of the best public courses in the country. It is a rare gem, with an amazing combination of Lake Superior, mountain, and white water river views. Wait said upgrading it to a resort-caliber course would bring a profit but also bring a lot of new tourism to the county.
The county board spent four hours with consultants on Tuesday, July 26, 2011 talking about how Superior National at Lutsen golf course could become a valuable asset to Cook County. John Wait, president of Sirius Golf Advisors, and golf course architect Jeffrey Brauer of GolfScapes, Inc. brought good news.
According to John Wait, Superior National has tons of potential. A summary of the 175-page preliminary evaluation states that Superior National “has one of the most beautiful natural settings of any public golf courses in the country. Where else can you find a golf course with both a mountain and essentially a sea view and have a white water river running through it?”
Three Minnesota golf courses are ranked among the nation’s top 100 public courses: The Legend at Giants Ridge, The Quarry at Giants Ridge (rated 16th in the country right now among public golf courses), and The Wilderness at Fortune Bay, and they were all designed by Jeffrey Brauer, who is ready to put Superior National into competition with them.
Minnesota has the highest golf participation rate of any state in the country, Wait said, and given the number of tourists who visit Cook County, 220,000 golfers drive past Superior National each year.
The mission
The original mission of Superior National was to bring new tourism to the area, Wait said, and he believes that sticking to that mission is in the best interests of the course and Cook County as a whole. “Superior National has to have tourist play to survive,” he said. A summary of the evaluation says, “An average quality course is simply not good enough to do the job. …Superior National Golf Course must be a resort quality facility to survive.”
The problem is, Superior National is not up to resort course standards. “We found a golf course suffering from a ‘municipal mentality,’” the summary states, “seemingly catering to the local market, even though the local market is nowhere near sufficient to support it.”
“When golfers travel,” Wait explained to the county board, “they are looking for an experience that is different from what they play at home. …They’re looking for something that can give them memories. They’re looking for a resort-caliber golf course.” Lots of things go into making a course resort-caliber: the design of the holes, the condition of the fairways, the quality and placement of bathrooms, service out on the course, a good irrigation system, an upscale clubhouse and grill, etc.
“This course cannot survive trying to cater to the local market,” Wait said. The local population has an estimated 209 golfing households. He was told that 35 locals showed up when a day of free golf was offered this spring. “I don’t want to ignore the local market,” he said. “That’s not what I’m saying.” Superior National could draw golfers from around the country if it was upgraded properly. Wait is from Texas, and he said a lot of golfers would go to great lengths to golf at a top-notch facility with “air conditioning” in July.
Improvements needed
While the county has invested money in the Cook County-Grand Marais Economic Development Authority (EDA), which was created to facilitate Superior National, the course itself has never been subsidized by the county and has made a profit each year since it started in 1991. Sales tax generated from the course brought $89,205 to the county last year, and property taxes from the houses built right around it brought in $57,000.
The course is, however, in what Wait called a “death spiral,” when expenses are cut that are directly tied to revenue, such as the maintenance and marketing budgets. According to the summary, “Expenses have been cut as far as they realistically can (and then some)!”
Course Superintendent Mike Davies has done a “remarkable” job with the resources he has had to work with, said Wait. In addition, he said, “standards have increased greatly in the last 20 years.” Superior National’s resort competitors are spending three times more per hole on maintenance, said Wait, and it is spending less per hole than the Enger Park or Lester Park courses in Duluth even though they get twice as much play.
Wait plotted on a graph the marketing dollars that were put into the course between 1998 and 2010 and found that they had a direct correlation to the paid rounds of golf that were played. Wait said he had never seen such a direct relationship between marketing and rounds, and every dollar spent on marketing brought in $32.50 in revenue.
Wait made numerous suggestions for how to improve the bottom line. One of them was to build a new clubhouse with banquet facilities and a beautiful view. This would draw wedding parties, and that could generate a lot of revenue, he said.
Recommendations
Who can be trusted to help the course reach its potential has been a matter of contention in Cook County, with some people skeptical of whether private groups such as Friends of Superior National, which offered to manage the course, would really be looking out for the best interests of the entire county. Others aren’t convinced the EDA or the golf course committee it appointed can turn things around for the course. John Wait said he has consulted on many municipal golf courses throughout the country, but “this has been a particularly interesting political climate.”
“Given the current political situation,” his summary states, “we strongly recommend that the county/EDA hire an outside third-party company to manage the course. We do not believe that it is purely coincidence that the sharp decline in performance coincides with the EDA taking over self-management of the facility.”
Wait recommended a professional golf course management company with experience successfully managing a resort-grade facility and no connection to any local interest. He also recommended a “hybrid” agreement in which the management company would assume some of the risk for the success of the course along with reaping some of the financial rewards for its success.
Wait suggested that the course could maximize profits by going back to 18 holes but said it could be even more competitive if it could obtain some adjacent land and go to 36 holes.
Wait outlined financial projections for staying with the status quo versus three different improvement scenarios ranging from making infrastructure repairs without design upgrades to making Superior National “equivalent or better than Giants Ridge and Wilderness courses, making it the best public course in the state and region.”
The third scenario would eventually turn a good profit and bring a lot more tourist dollars to the county, with golfers eating at local restaurants, staying at local lodging establishments, and buying souvenirs from local gift shops.
Wait believes the money to accomplish these things could come from numerous sources, including the 1 percent sales and use tax, grants from the Iron Range Resource and Rehabilitation Board, and creative fundraising, such as giving bigger donors the opportunity to name certain parts of the course.
According to the preliminary report, “…The better the golf course, the more it will attract new visitors to the area. And the better the course, the more likely they will want to stay longer and play it more. …They may come here for the golf, but once they experience the area, they may want to return again and again and with their families!”
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