(Second of a two-part series)

When the nationally acclaimed golf course The Links of North Dakota went to public auction in February 2002, the original owners said they had taken the course as far as they could. Golfing industry experts pointed to the fact the course has no lodging and quality food service as two big reasons why the remote layout struggles to be a golfing destination, despite its continued world-wide popularity with course reviewers and golfers.

As Williston attorney Marv Kaiser organized a group of area businessmen to form Save Red Mike LLC that ultimately purchased the course at auction, he said it didn’t have a single long-term vision.

“I think probably we had a number of visions,” Kaiser said of the future at that time.

The “links-style” 18-hole layout that is also known as “Red Mike” continues its struggle to attract an adequate level of play to solidify its financial outlook. Located about 25 miles southeast of Williston, the majestic, scenic and challenging course is naturally carved into the Missouri River valley above massive Lake Sakakawea. Kaiser and partnership group members Dave McAdoo and John MacMaster say the Links’ challenges are associated with the abundance of golfing opportunities in the immediate area and its distance from major population centers. Williston has two public golf courses and adjacent area communities also have golf courses.

“There was the hope it would maybe gravitate that we would only have one main golf course in town and then you could recapitalize it in a membership kind of constituted base,“ Kaiser said of early prospects.

Seven years later, however, that hope hasn’t materialized. So what does the future hold for the Links and its current ownership group?

McAdoo said the partners had talked about the idea of adding to the course amenities.

“But I guess what we mostly concentrated on was putting our dollars back in the course, course equipment, updating and just wanting to be sure we maintained that top 100 status,” McAdoo said.

He said the partners that form the ownership group are businessmen, not golf promoters.

“We don’t have that drive I guess; we don’t have that expertise to push it to the next level,” McAdoo said.

MacMaster said he and McAdoo have traveled to the South Dakota’s Sutton Bay golf course, which also is remotely located about 30 miles north of Pierre and sits adjacent to the Missouri River.

“They have lodging for about 60 people, nice clubhouse with a restaurant, a top-quality restaurant,” MacMaster said. “Ideally, that would be great to have that (at the Links). But I think the distinguishing factor is we are open to the public. We haven’t rounded up enough capital to enhance our clubhouse or build a little lodge out there.”

McAdoo said honestly that a good share of the owners are getting close to retirement age, which has possibly tempered desires for additional significant investment.

“I think Dave is pretty accurate in that we’re all in other businesses and we take most of our time in our businesses and this has been kind of a side business venture,” MacMaster said. “We’d have to bring in a lot of extra capital. We haven’t had that burning desire to do it, but it’s something we can dream about, that is for sure.”

Kaiser said the partners at the beginning did look at the possibility of adding lodging and a top-quality food service and did a small feasibility study.

“I had somebody contact us and they had an idea about doing it. It pretty well disintegrated quickly when they looked at the current level of traffic,” Kaiser said. “We’ve had people who franchise a Hilton hotel or something like that who were kind of fired up until they got into the population, which is really the driver.”

Kaiser said anybody who has been on a country club board knows the food side of the operation doesn’t work financially in the best of conditions.

“Even the best clubs in the state have to have minimums and assessments and whatever because the food service just drags everything down,” he said. “It’s an expensive component.”

The other way people make today’s golfing operations work is to sell real estate around the course, like what Bismarck’s Hawktree Golf Course did.

“Quite frankly, that is against our vision and what makes this golf course unique is that there isn’t housing,” Kaiser said. “Housing would be detrimental to the course and its ranking and its visual presentation.”

Kaiser’s experience with golf courses and their adjacent real estate developments in Arizona shows the course is a loss leader.

“There used to be this game of we’ll sell you the golf course when we get it developed, we’ll sell it to the membership,” Kaiser said. “Well, they’ve gone now to the reality world that we will give it to you, and then the housing is sold. Because there is no market for a golf course that makes virtually no money for what it would cost to build. They had to contend with that reality and they want out at that point.”

Kaiser has talked with golf industry experts like Robert Trent Jones Jr. and representatives of Troon Golf about options.

“If we were a regular business, most of these would have been built close to an area and they would have just sold the whole thing for a housing development,” Kaiser said.

He said every once in awhile, someone comes inspired with a concept for the Links.

“We would certainly partner with somebody that could find a way to enhance it,” he said. “Most all of us (partners) went in as a community thing. I think there are some people that feel like a little self preservation wouldn’t be terrible. But I don’t think as a group we’ve come close to making any kind of feeling like that.”

Instead, the partners hope for the best every year and give their best effort to improve the course, “which I believe we have,” Kaiser said. “The golf course is in much better condition than it was when we got it.”

The condition is reflected in the fact that about 220 new golf courses open each year and the Links remains in the top 100 of all golf courses built since 1960. The course also is highly ranked for affordability, garnering the top spots.

“We do have the capacity on a special-event basis to bring a caterer on site,” Kaiser said. “I don’t know the answer to would we significantly enhance the number of rounds played if we could offer a better menu. If you really knew that, it would be easier to program that.”

McAdoo said having a marina on the lake, along with a lodge and restaurant, would be the ideal situation that would allow a year-around aspect to involve golfing, hunting and fishing.

“But you can’t count on the lake,” he said of the fluctuating levels on Sakakawea.

McAdoo said some promoters and developers have talked to the partners about building a hotel/motel structure at the course but, “They have kind of fizzled.”

Long term, Kaiser said one option is there would be a desire to find some way to introduce new owners and make the course work generationally.

The other option is the “play-and-stay” approach that everyone says the partners should do.

“Well, it’s not so easily done,” he said. “You come with the plan. You commit to build the hotel and put in the restaurant and we’ll certainly partner up the golf course with you because that would enhance the total thing.”

But the current owners aren’t interested in putting up the $2 million to $3 million it would take for such a plan, he said.

“Even a 25-bed hotel with all of the compliments and doing all of this stuff, you can still get into some pretty serious money,” Kaiser said. “Nobody’s quitting, but we don’t have a ridged plan.”