There was a time when Jim Brown, the director of golf for Nampa’s two city courses, could count on sold-out tee times from 6 to 8 a.m. every summer weekend.
“Now, it’s not full,” he said.
One reason for the open tee times is the rapid expansion of golf options in the Treasure Valley — and particularly in Canyon County.
With the opening of TimberStone Golf Course in Caldwell on July 1, Ada and Canyon counties now have a combined 423 golf holes for a population of 581,288.
Rounds have dropped considerably in Idaho since the peak year of 2007 — leaving more courses competing for fewer customers.
“It’s as challenging as I’ve ever seen it,” said Brown, who started at Nampa’s Ridgecrest Golf Club more than 13 years ago. “… There’s too much golf in the entire Valley. There’s just too much for the demand of what the market has to produce.”
Canyon County has 135 golf holes. That includes the recent additions of TimberStone and Hunter’s Point. Plus, Broadmore Country Club opened to the public a few years ago.
All of the golf growth has come on the western end of the Valley because of the vast supply of open land. Nearly every new course has been tied to housing developments — and that area also is where the Valley’s housing boom thrived in the 2000s.
“Compared to when I was a kid, it’s just insane,” golfer Rich Ledyard of Boise said after a round at TimberStone. “We didn’t have that many courses in 1970.”
The increased options have been a boon for golfers, who enjoy some shockingly low rates ($13 Mondays at Purple Sage, $25 weekdays with a cart at Hunter’s Point) and have several discount cards from which to choose.
“I’m stunned how many people you bring into this Valley and they can’t believe the golf value that we have,” golfer Tom Cory of Boise said. “I don’t think you can beat that anywhere in the country.”
But it’s unclear whether all of those courses will survive.
The PGA of America tracks rounds played per golf course on a state-by-state basis. In 2007, Idaho averaged 25,773 rounds per course.
That number tumbled to 19,816 in 2010 — a 23 percent decrease. Rounds were down another 9.2 percent through May of this year.
Idaho has the 17th most golf courses per 100,000 people in the nation, according to PGA research, which doesn’t help those numbers.
But the Boise area isn’t necessarily overrun with courses. The area that includes Reno, Carson City and the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe boasts 576 holes of golf for 579,683 people — much more golf for a similar-sized community.
“I think it’s sustainable,” said Jerry Breaux, who along with partner Clint Travis runs BanBury and has taken over struggling operations at Lakeview, River Birch and TimberStone. “There’s a lot of people and a lot of new people are going to play golf.”
And there probably won’t be any more new competition for a while because of the depressed housing market. TimberStone was started before the housing bust and nearly withered before new ownership revived it.
It joins a growing list of low-cost courses trying to carve out a niche.
“You probably have to say, at the end of the day, somebody’s probably going to end up getting challenged, going out of business,” Ledyard said. “Certainly at $18 a round, you have to wonder.”
Chadd Cripe: 377-6398
