Before buying golf course, Oakmont Village residents must agree to raise their own dues

Of the many voices heard at a surprisingly civil neighborhood meeting involving the pending sale of the Oakmont Golf Club, the loudest belonged to a man who was out of the country.

Larry Galloway is president of Advance Golf Partners, which has joined forces with the Oakmont Village Association to help keep the golf club in the family, so to speak, and transform it into a profitable enterprise.

Galloway was on vacation in Italy, said his subordinate, Chris Hamill, who read what amounted to a courtship letter from his boss to Oakmont homeowners. It included his vow to “reinvent this club as rapidly as possible to what it can and should be.” It also promised better pizza and a possible name change. He threw out such possibilities as the Wine Country Golf Club and the Valley of the Moon Golf Club.

The letter met with sustained, but not unanimous applause, from the throng of residents at Tuesday afternoon’s meeting at Oakmont’s East Rec Center. The charged topic: the sale of the money-losing golf club, two 18-hole courses which wend their way through the heart of this 55-and-over community.

Passions on the subject ran high. Twenty minutes before the 1 p.m. meeting started, all 180 or so seats in the building were taken.

Outside, perspiring septuagenarians and octogenarians complained bitterly that those inside were “saving seats.” Many were turned away, and invited to return for the day’s second meeting, at 3:15 p.m.

In February, the golf club informed its 260 members that the club, which has been unprofitable for the last six years and is carrying over $3 million in long-term debt, would soon be put on the market. Bids were due on June 27.

Oakmont Village’s board of directors announced last month it had made an offer on the golf course, which had an asking price set at $4.8 million by the club, a business entity separate from the homeowner’s association.

Some 80% of its members live in Oakmont.

There’s a chance the golf club will go with a more attractive bid.

The Oakmont Village Association’s bid is contingent on the board’s ability to raise residents’ association dues by $23, up to $98 per month. Of that increase, $17 would go to golf. Ballots to vote on the proposal are being mailed to the village’s 3,200 homeowners Friday, and will be due in early August. The deal needs only a voting majority to pass.

The news coming out of the meeting was the board’s decision to retain the services of a lease partner. Advance Golf will step in and pay the golf club’s operating costs. If and when Advance Golf transforms the club into a highly profitable operation, it would keep the lion’s share of those profits.

The arrangement, said Tom Kendrick, the board’s vice president, “gives us a level of insulation” and “the maximum benefit for the minimum cost and risk.”

While his company’s plan was “not overly complicated,” Galloway wrote from his Italian vacation, “it will take some time and patience to achieve.”

When Hamill read his boss’ plan to convert the east clubhouse “into a pizza hangout,” approving murmurs could be heard throughout the room.

This would not just be any pizza joint. One member of the Advance Golf team, Galloway said, is a decorated chef from the Piedmontese region of Italy who would “oversee the pizza experience” at Oakmont.

Speaking after Hamill, Advanced Golf’s Josh Smith assured listeners his company intended to make the golf course an asset “for everyone that lives in the community.” Whether they play golf or not, he went on, “everyone eats.”

Advance Golf also will offer a social membership to every Oakmont resident, including dining discounts and special events like wine dinners, murder mystery dinners, and trivia night.

Outside, even some staunch opponents of the sale admitted it was a good presentation.

“I just want this to be behind us,” said Mona Reeder, “so we can get back to worrying about our usual things, like, Have I taken my pills today? And can I have a drink now?”