Once popular Beaufort Co. golf course, shuttered for a year, is sold in foreclosure
A once-popular Beaufort County golf course has sold in a foreclosure auction, a year after it closed.
The golf course and associated property at Sanctuary Club at Cat Island sold at the high bid of $425,000 in a foreclosure sale Monday, Beaufort County court records show. The buyer, listed in records as LRG SC LLC, paid the required 5% down payment and has 30 days to pay the balance and accrued interest to close the deal.
A phone message for a representative of the winning bidder wasn’t returned Wednesday.
The 18-hole golf course in the waterfront community on Lady’s Island has been closed since January 2019. Owner Jeff Fischer at the time said the business struggles included a decline in play, competition from the golf course on Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, and adverse weather.
Cat Island is one of three golf courses in Beaufort County auctioned recently. A new owner is expected to close this month on a deal for Crescent Pointe and Eagle’s Pointe in Bluffton, said Barry Fleming, director of the Lowcountry Golf Course Owners Association.
The Bluffton courses had been operated by management companies and were sold after the most recent operator stepped aside, Fleming said.
The number of rounds played in Beaufort County was up slightly in 2019 over the previous year, Fleming pointed out. Golf business nationwide has struggled since the Great Recession, but Fleming said it seems to have stabilized locally, where the golf market is supported by the exposure from the RBC Heritage television coverage each year.
Courses have looked for other ways to draw visitors and boost revenue. Hilton Head National is developing an upscale RV park on vacant property around its golf course.
“I think it’s just leveled off the past couple of years,” Fleming said. “I think you’re going to have like we’ve had, some attrition of golf courses like Cat Island has experienced. It’s not an inexpensive venture to be in.”
Grant Golf LLC filed foreclosure papers on Cat Island last year, saying Fischer and his Cat Island Investors Inc. owe $191,340.35 on a $300,000 mortgage from 2016, court records show.
Fischer also owned Lady’s Island Country Club, which was sold last year and its name changed to Olde Beaufort Golf Club.
Cat Island Investors, of which Fischer is president, and Lady’s Island LLC, of which he is managing member, also owed International Golf Maintenance $375,000 as part of a settlement related to contracted work for the golf courses’ maintenance, according to court records.
Fischer had bid $235,000 at a foreclosure sale for the Cat Island club in November, but the deal didn’t close because the balance of the money wasn’t paid, a county foreclosure clerk said.
The course was then put back up for bid Monday at the Beaufort County Courthouse.
