George Brown III, after much agonizing and loss of sleep, finally came to the conclusion that the 215 acres upon which Bayou Din Golf Club sits would serve him and partner — Dr. Glen Rhodes — better as a real estate development.
As a result, the 27-hole layout off LaBelle Rd. near Beaumont will be closing its doors Sunday, Nov. 27. Bayou Din, which opened in 1959 with 18 holes, and added a Links 9 in 1993, will become the sixth golf property to shut down since Hurricane Ike roared through Southeast Texas in 2008.
“I am doing this with great reluctance,” said Brown, who bought the course from his father in 1983 and operated it under the umbrella of Aquila Golf. “As recently as last year, after I sold equity to Dr. Rhodes, I poured a lot of cash into improvement on the golf course and into clubhouse renovation.
“I did it in hopes of generating more interest among area golfers,” Brown continued. “But our numbers of rounds have remained in a steep decline. We are on target to do less than the 30,000 rounds from last year. At our peak we did 54,000 rounds.”
The dropoff in play Brown referenced is a troubling sign throughout the golf industry. More than 800 courses have closed over the past decade in the United States, and studies suggest the number of younger players coming into the game is in a serious downward spiral.
Other golf courses that have gone under in Southeast Texas since Hurricane Ike include Belle Oaks (formerly Port Arthur Country Club), The Palms at Pleasure Island, Port Groves, DERA in West Orange and Riverwood in Vidor.
“Our numbers are down to what they were in the late 1980s,” said Brown. “Those numbers went way up when Tiger Woods was at his peak and creating so much interest. The decline started around 2005 and hasn’t stopped.”
For Brown, the most troubling part of pulling the plug on Bayou Din was the impact it will have on long time, loyal employees who are losing their jobs.
“I hate it for the golfers who have been with us for so many years, but I lost sleep over employees being without work,” he said. “We are going to be able to move a few of them over to Babe Zaharias, but there are going to be some that don’t have a job.”
If there is a winner in such an unfortunate situation, it looks to be Babe Zaharias. Brown, whose Aquila Golf operates Zaharias, plans to relocate 60 new golf carts he bought for Bayou Din last year to the Port Arthur course.
Zaharias will also be getting course maintenance equipment used at Bayou Din.
“Anything and everything they need at Zaharias they will get,” Brown said. “They need another tractor and it will be on the way after we close. We had been sharing a top dressing machine and greens mowers. Now they won’t have to share.”
Bayou Din’s history dates back to former Beaumont Country Club pro Jimmy Whitcher teaming with Brown’s dad to build the course in the late 1950s. The highlight was Bayou Din hosting an LPGA tournament in 1967, with the likes of Carol Mann, Kathy Whitworth, Marilyn Smith and other big names of that era participating.
The course fell on hard times in the late 1980s and Brown’s dad was ready to close it then. Current Zaharias head pro Ed Campbell, who was at Silsbee Country Club at the time, talked Brown into hiring him and Campbell helped turned things around.
A few years later, George III made a deal with his dad to buy the course.
“I had worked at the course cutting greens and mowing while I was going to Lamar,” said Brown. “I liked being around the golf course and talked my dad into setting up a note for me to buy the course from him. Ed and I made a great team and have had a great relationship.”
Brown’s land development plan for Bayou Din calls for eight tracts of land from 15 to 80 acres for development. His selling points include having cart paths for running trails and country road access.
He chose the Sunday after Thanksgiving for the last day because that is usually a heavy weekend for play and he’d like to see one last hurrah. He had to stay open until at least Thursday, Nov. 17, because Beaumont baseball star Jay Bruce is hosting a charity tournament on that date.