The province was very close to inking a deal to sell the premiere Crowbush course last year, but after months of negotiations both the province and the prospective buyer agreed to walk away from the deal.
Negotiations were also underway for a lease arrangement for the Mill River course last spring, but those talks too have since ended.
“It just seems like a very difficult thing to sell golf courses where the golf industry has been struggling North America wide,” said Tourism Minister Robert Henderson.
The province hoped to strike a deal by December for one or more of the courses in order to allow new private operators time to mount a proper tourism and marketing plan for the 2015 golf season.
“I would say we’re still in discussions, but things are starting to slow down on that,” Henderson said.
“December was kind of the deadline. We’ve now surpassed December and we still don’t have a deal so it’s not looking like there will be any changes.”
With this deadline now past, the province has informed unions that represent various course employees the four golf courses will operate at a status quo for the 2015 season, with P.E.I. taxpayers once again footing the bills.
And those bills have been adding up over the last several years.
In 2012, government had to issue a $1.4-million special warrant to cover golf losses.
Henderson says last year’s poor weather and slow start to the golf season meant another poor year for golf in 2014 and another loss in the same $1.4-million range.
That’s why government issued a request for proposals in 2012, looking for private operators to manage, lease or buy Crowbush, Brudenell, Mill River and Dundarave golf courses.
Henderson says there are still some interested potential buyers, but government does not want to sell the courses for a bargain basement price after all the public money that has gone into developing and operating them year after year.
“There’s a sizeable provincial investment in our golf courses over the years,” Henderson said.
“We can say that a lot of the premise of these (courses) were about economic development in rural areas, but there’s still an investment there and we have to be respectful of the taxpayers’ investment when we look at working out some arrangement on selling or leasing our provincial golf courses.”
The courses are still for sale, but with the imminent resignation of Premier Robert Ghiz, there could be a change in the overall direction for their future, Henderson added.
In the meantime, the courses will reopen and be operated by the province when the 2015 golf season begins.
“The golf industry has been struggling North American-wide, so it makes for a tough investment for somebody to get into this. And it makes it tough for us to get out of it,” Henderson said.
