As 3 CT golf courses go up for sale, advocates say slide in course numbers is

While many golfers have put away their clubs for the cold winter season, activity on some Connecticut courses is heating up on the real estate front.

At least three courses have been put up for sale in recent months, raising the possibility they join a long list of U.S. golf courses that have gone offline over the past 15 years.

Golf advocates and professionals are hopeful whoever buys the privately run courses in Torrington, East Granby and New Milford will use them to tap into a resurgent interest in the game following the pandemic.

“I think we have reached the bottom of the trough of oversupply (of golf courses), making these courses a very viable business activity once again,” said Allen DePuy, a vice president with real estate services firm Colliers International.

DePuy specializes in golf properties and is part of a team marketing the 18-hole Candlewood Valley Country Club in New Milford and nine-hole Copper Hill Golf Club in East Granby.

Both sit on potentially valuable redevelopment land.

Candlewood, with 157.5 acres, is being marketed as a “turnkey” course and golf shop with a popular pub and banquet space. The Colliers listing also notes zoning allows for other business uses on the property, including kennels, offices, warehousing and manufacturing.

The East Granby course is being offered as a “historically strong cash-flowing” property with a bar and grill.

The course sits in a zoning district that could allow for single-family homes, agriculture, a school, day-care center, church, hospital or nursing home, according to its listing.

In Torrington, Executive Real Estate is offering the 50.6-acre Eastwood Country Club — along with an adjacent, undeveloped 46-acre parcel — for $4.3 million.

Executive’s listing says the property offers a “grand-scale” redevelopment opportunity that could blend recreation and residential, or commercial development.

Resurgent interest

The supply of U.S. golf courses has taken two major dips in the past century: first during the Great Depression, and then leading into and following the housing market meltdown of 2008, according to the National Golf Foundation.

It took an economic boom following the end of World War II to reverse preceding declines in course numbers.

Golf experts and advocates say the latest decline in courses is slowing thanks to a resurgent interest in the game sparked by the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused a recreation-starved public to turn to an outdoor pastime that conformed with social distancing mandates.

The National Golf Foundation predicted the number of active golfers in 2023 would increase by 3%, up to 26.4 million players, said Thomas E. Hantke, executive director and CEO of the Connecticut Section of the PGA. That’s the largest increase…