Golf is an expensive sport. But it is not expensive because it is a rich man’s game. Precisely the opposite: golf is a rich man’s game because it is an expensive undertaking. What I mean by this is, not only is it costly to operate and properly maintain a golf course, but the opportunity cost of doing so is often tremendous. In order to be economically justifiable as an investment, a golf course needs to be more profitable than the sale of the underlying land might turn out to be. It is because land, especially in developed areas, is expensive, that golf is an expensive sport in which to participate.

Let’s say you own a golf course, as does the City of Detroit, and because as a municipal corporation, you’re financially strapped, you think it would behoove you to sell said course. Selling the course might reduce your budget deficit in the neighborhood of 10% for the year. Setting aside the obvious fiscal woes, that without further cuts in municipal spending, the sale of the course does nothing to boulster your financial position next year, or the year after, the sale of the Rackham golf club sounds like a good deal.

Except, the city was given the golf course, which lies in Huntington Woods, hence outside the jurisdiction of the City of Detroit and concomitantly, Wayne County, where Detroit is located, (Huntington Woods is in Oakland County,) as a gift, from a wealthy benefactor decades ago. And the deed conveying title to the golf course carves out a very specific restriction: The land must be maintained as a public golf course, and in the even that it does not, the property reverts to the heirs of the Rackham family.

And the City of Detroit is now offering the course on a no-bid contract to a private developer, who wishes to thereupon construct houses or condominiums? Quite a predicament, no?

More on this later tonight…