EDITORIAL:

Links Group Stumbles
Out of the Bankruptcy Gate

• Editorial: Links Group Gets Green Light to Expand
• Readers Respond to Links Group Editorial
• Links Group Receives an Extension (posted Nov. 27, 2001)
• North Strand Courses Sever Ties with Links Group (Dec. 5)

CALABASH, N.C (Dec. 4, 2001) - It took all of three months for the Links Group to stumble. True colors sometimes surface so fast, it makes your head spin.

And that is exactly what W.J. McLamb’s head is doing right now – spinning and spinning, and only the smoke coming out of his ears might stop it. The highly respected North Strand golf course owner hired the troubled Links Group – the largest golf course management firm in the Grand Strand – to operate his Meadowlands and Farmstead golf courses.

McLamb signed a 15-year lease agreement with the Links Group in September. As of this writing, the Links Group has already snubbed McLamb on a monthly installment. So now, McLamb has told the Links Group to get the heck out of his proshops, get off his fairways and greens, and crawl back into the immoral abyss from which they came.

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Good for him.

McLamb claims the Links Group forfeited the lease agreement by defaulting on its monthly payment. He has already brought in the behemoth, yet well respected Burroughs and Chapin to take over operations at Farmstead, the Meadowlands, and his other courses.

Unfortunately, sometimes it takes something like this to happen for us to wake up and smell the rotting bentgrass. We are a society known for handing out second chances, and the Links Group is no exception.

The company came charging out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy in August by fooling the U.S. Court with some smoke and mirrors expansion plan. Company president Ken Folkes told his creditors not to worry, an infusion of millions of dollars on the way from a limited liability company called MemberTee Management.

But wait a minute. Folkes (at right) and his cronies owe millions of dollars. They owe the Bank of America, they owe Myrtle Beach Golf Holiday, they owe the golf cart maker, and they probably owe any and everyone that has ever come into contact with them.

A few million from an LLC was going to clear this up and get the Links Group’s reorganization plan underway?

Turns out, it could be a moot point because the money has not even surfaced. The same court that bought the expansion plan tee, divot tool and golf glove, was sold on an extension earlier this month, giving the Links Group and MemberTee until Dec. 17 to come up with the money.

I’d like to see the Vegas odds on them making that deadline.

In a column a few weeks ago, we questioned the Links Group’s strategy of expanding its course base while recovering from bankruptcy. Admittedly, we are in the golf and travel business, not the golf course operation business.

 

But to the layperson, it seemed counterintuitive. The Links Groups’ existing roster of courses included some of the most poorly maintained and operated facilities in the Grand Strand, so didn’t they choose to improve upon what they already had before blazing a new trail?

The answer, it turns out, is simple. Read the fine print and you discover that Folkes and MemberTee president Cal Rogers are paid by the golf hole, and that crazy expansion plan begins to make sense. Rogers and Folkes already make about $150,000 a piece, according to the court papers, but before they clean up their existing cart barn, they are already looking for ways to make more money.

It is the kind of ridiculous plot you might expect to find in an old Scooby Doo episode, where the villains are trying to get away with some obvious skullduggery, until “those meddling kids” finally expose them.

But this even makes less sense.

The Links Group planned to take over the leases of up to 20 golf courses, including some additional courses in the Grand Strand. But to botch the entire comeback plan on courses No. 1 and 2 when so many others await just makes no sense, unless you are just flat broke.

And if Folkes and Rogers really wanted to start eliminating debt, why wouldn’t they take major paycuts until the company(ies) was out of the cellar?

Now everyone is in a pinch. The Links Group owes so much money, no one really wants to see Folkes just disappear because as long as he and Rogers are around, there is some hope that someone will get paid what they are owed.

But no one really wants them around, because these are hard times for the travel industry, and Myrtle Beach is ALL about the travel industry, and this whole thing is one big black eye that won’t go away.

What to do, what to do?

If you own a golf course anywhere within arms reach of this company, it’s simple. Run the place yourself, or get someone with a proven track record and a clean slate to run it for you.

Just ask Mr. McLamb.

Shane Sharp is a Contributing Writer with TravelGolf.com. Contact him at sharp@travelgolf.com.