At least around here, there’s 3 types of golf courses
Mosquito-infested exurban swamps without sewers (that are often trying to sell out to developers)
Floodplains or dumps where you can’t build anything. Often overlapping with #1. Which in fairness *could* be parks instead of pay-to-use single-use parks, but can you raise taxes for it?
Literally holding a US Open on obscene budgets, but like…. ok fine, US Open course. Top 1% quality right there.
Around my home there’s “course an assembly of local town elite came together to found a country club around to validate themselves in the 30s-40s; course a town government established in the 50s-60s in the course of building out as an executive-class-and-aspiring suburb of Philadelphia (both of which were basically built on whatever land was available at the edge of town) and "course built on scouted and sited land in the ‘90s serving a whole exurban region of golfers”
Yup, that maps.
Remaining 1930s/40s -> #3, rarely #2.
1950s/60s -> Sold #1, #1 or #2, but often built by private interests for 5 figures in 1960s money.
1990s -> New golf courses run 8 figures instead of 5 which means they have to be very good, probably part of an executive real estate development and as you say serving a region. Or they converted a dump.
The flip side of that is that the 1950s/60s courses just about print money if you can get your hands on one.
I gotta say, it turned out there was one of those 1950s/1960s type courses shockingly close to me. I don’t care about golf, but the clubhouse has got the most idyllic outdoor dining in town, because it’s overlooking a golf course in a park area instead of the usual urban outdoor dining experience of huffing exhausted while being serenaded by motorcycles. The food is decent and the prices reasonable.
It’s definitely worth looking into the dining options at the public golf course if you are in a dense area and don’t otherwise care about golf
If it’s a country club your food expenditures often count towards your dues for the period, they (like Elks clubs, VFW halls, etc.) represent a pre-restaurant model for (class-appropriate) single life. Which sometimes means it’s provincial-elite-worthy food subsidized by the less clubby or more domestic members but sometimes it’s “you already paid for it anyway” adequate… but “adequate for the provincial elite” can often still be the best offer around.
