Gallaher buys Adobe Creek Golf Club

<p>Petaluma golfers are hoping the new owner of Adobe Creek Golf Club has plans to revitalize the course and return it to the bustling golf center it was a few years ago.</p><p>They may be in luck. The buyer, Sonoma County developer Bill Gallaher, is no stranger to the sport. He is one of the founding members of the Fountaingrove Golf & Athletic Club in Santa Rosa.</p><p>Gallaher, a contractor and developer since 1979, purchased the course at auction when the previous owner, JG Orbis of San Francisco, filed for bankruptcy in March 2010.</p><p>Orbis defaulted on a $6 million loan to develop the golf course with its management company, Golf Solutions.</p><p>Open since 1990, Adobe Creek is a 120-acre, 18-hole course designed by Robert Trent Jones. It was Petaluma's only public golf course until Rooster Run opened in 1998 and at one time had about 60,000 users a year.</p><p>It closed in December and was auctioned at foreclosure earlier this year. The price was undisclosed.</p><p>Steve McCullagh, a spokesman for Gallaher's Adobe Investments LLC, said the future of the club hasn't been determined.</p><p>“We are really still in the stage of looking at our options and trying to figure out what type of improvements we need to do,” he said. “For now, we are looking at maintaining it as it has been maintained over the past few months.”</p><p>He said a decision on the club's future will likely be made in two to three months.</p><p>Asked if Gallaher was looking to develop the land or keep it as a golf course, McCullagh said: “We're just looking at all the options.”</p><p>A portion of the land has an open-space agreement with the county Open Space District, he said. </p><p>Given that, and because the back nine holes are in the flight path of the Petaluma airport, the development options could be limited.</p><p>McCullagh said no date for reopening the course has been determined.</p><p>The course was built as an amenity to about 300 homes surrounding the course. </p><p>John O'Connor, vice president of the Adobe Creek men's golf club, said players hope Gallaher has improvements planned.</p><p>“We hear good things about him, so hopefully he's going to do good things,” he said. “We're hoping someone comes in and takes care of the course and gets it back in good playing condition. It's been lacking the last couple years.”</p><p>At one point, the men's club had about 500 members, O'Connor said, but the course was ignored by managers.</p><p>“They didn't maintain it like they should have. It's a shame because at one time, we probably had the strongest men's club in the area.”</p><p>Gallaher, one of the region's most prominent developers, started First Community Bank in 2005, which at the time was the first new bank in Sonoma County in 14 years.</p><p>He has built more than 400 homes in Oakmont and 600 elsewhere in the county. He now oversees a collection of real estate companies that own and operate senior facilities across three states.</p><p>Adobe Creek's former course managers, Golf Solutions, also managed at least three other bankrupt golf clubs, Peacock Gap in San Rafael and two in Arizona.</p><p>The owners of those three courses, Kabuto Arizona Properties, filed for bankruptcy in 2009.</p><p>Kun Sam “Ken” Kim is listed as the president of both Kabuto and Adobe Creek's former owner, JG Orbis.</p>