Economic Driver

Brian Pilsl is standing in the middle of a conference room looking at some of the biggest players in Lee County’s golf industry. It is just after 2 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 29, and Pilsl has been summoned to a private meeting at the Embassy Suites in Estero.

The air wall separating two conference rooms is open, making the space seem unnaturally large for the roughly 20 people gathered. M.J. Scarpelli of Carroll Property Investments Inc., co-owner of Embassy Suites, is there; so is Joe Pavich, president of Bonita Springs and Estero Area Realtors and Lee County Sports Authority Executive Director Jeff Mielke.

Most of the others assembled represent premier Lee County country clubs. Many are unwilling to make themselves known publicly for fear of stirring outrage among their club members. “They’re not ready to come out,” Mark Iwinski, general manager at Old Corkscrew Golf Club, says of the secretive attendees. So here they are, some of the leading figures in local golf in a clandestine meeting at an Estero hotel, listening to Pilsl’s pitch. The question they want him to answer is this: How to reverse the sputtering golf industry?

Ten years ago, it was flush with cash. Golf strapped itself to real estate and private country clubs, making money on rich members willing to pay large initiation fees. Now that the housing market has crashed, however, golf has lost a significant portion of its market.

Pilsl hopes to change that. He’s a rep for EZLinks, a golf software company that runs three popular golf-tourism destinations. He wants to make Southwest Florida No. 4. He tells those assembled that if seven to 10 high-end private golf courses banded together, EZLinks could provide global marketing as well as a central booking agent for the conglomerate.

Lee County could be another Myrtle Beach, which bolstered the South Carolina economy with $2.72 billion in golf tourism dollars in 2007, according to a study commissioned by the South Carolina Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism. Tourists would sleep in otherwise empty hotel rooms, pay hundreds of dollars to play golf and eat at local restaurants. They would buy houses.

This, Pilsl tells the group, will be the Calusa Golf Trail of Southwest Florida—a copycat of the successful Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail of Alabama, which draws more than 500,000 golfers and $300 million annually to the Yellowhammer State.

Some love his answer. A steady flow of new, rich people would boost these courses. Realtors would benefit from their clients being allowed to preview courses before investing a down payment. Hoteliers could tempt new tourists to the region and lure others away from the beaches. Iwinski, the trail’s co-creator, notes the possibilities of off-season revenue—actually making money when the snowbirds are back North.

Since the inception in 1992 of the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail, Alabama’s tourism revenue has increased by 80 percent, from $1.8 billion to $9.3 billion, according to the Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser, and it appears to have weathered the recession in good form. Sunbelt Golf Corp., which manages the trail, told the Birmingham (Ala.) News that rounds played on the Trail decreased only 1 percent from 2008 to 2009.

There are also some in the room who don’t like Pilsl’s answer—those from private country clubs. For the trail to succeed, Pilsl needs them to open their gates and welcome tourists. Their answer is no.

It’s a problem Pilsl hasn’t encountered until now. The Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail was constructed specifically for tourism. The Audubon Golf Trail of Louisiana selected 12 existing public courses through a stringent application process, as did the Natural State Golf Trail in Arkansas.

Although the Calusa Golf Trail has the support of several Lee County officials, government can do very little to carry the venture until an official proposal is made, and an official proposal cannot be presented until private country clubs agree to be included.

“That’s their idea: ‘We have our place,’ even though Rome is burning,” Iwinski says. “It’s like reshuffling the chairs on the Titanic, because it’s going down.”