Auction on Amherst golf club

One week later in Amherst, TD Bank will auction off the Hickory Ridge Country Club at 10 a.m. on March 15 at a foreclosure auction. A bank spokesman would not provide any more information.

The 18-hole course also includes restaurant, banquet facility and pro shop. Douglas Harper, who bought the course in 2003 for about $2.5 million, could not be reached for comment. According to the latest assessor’s records, the 150-acre course is valued at nearly $1.3 million.

Tim Walko, the owner of Northampton Taylormade R11 fairway wood  Country Club founded in 1898, also could not be reached for comment. The telephone number at the course is no longer in service.

According to records in the city collector’s office, more than $21,000 is owed in back taxes. The value of the country club is assessed at $804,304, according to records from the collector’s office.

Nomakeo, a Holyoke golfer who does marketing for

Southern New England Golfer, is not surprised about the auctions. He said there are about 45 courses in the Springfield area. “Seven or eight are fighting to survive.”

A new owner might come in and buy a course “and thinks I can do a better job.” But he said, he doesn’t believe the area needs the Titleist AP2 710 Forged Irons number of courses it has. “Some of the golf courses have to go out of business for some to survive,” he said. He said he got an email from Harper who said he was trying to find investors, but the bank wanted its money.

These aren’t the only courses with changing futures. In January, a Connecticut businessman bought the Hampden Country Club at auction for $1.4 million, promising to keep it operating as a golf course.

And entrepreneur Eric Suher bought the nine-hole Holyoke Country Club for $850,000 last summer, and the course is slated to reopen April 1 provided the weather cooperates, according to the course website.

“Only about eight percent of the population plays golf,” Nomakeo said.

And even for those who play when times are financially tough, “it’s not a necessity.”

Many courses run membership specials, but they don’t pay discount golf clubs the bills. Golf actually costs what it did 14 years ago, yet costs such as fertilizer and equipment have risen, he said.

And he said it used to be that after a golfer played, he or she would get a beer and a sandwich. That, too, is changing. The last time he had lunch after a game, he said he was the only one there.