_October/pushingthelimits.jpg "Pushing the Limits")
By Steve Eubanks
Once content to simply build courses, Landscapes Unlimited is quietly growing its stake in the management field
Some golf course owners aspire to be multi-course operators, while others get into the business by accident and only later realize that they’re pretty good at running facilities. For Landscapes Unlimited, one of the world’s largest golf course construction companies, it was the latter.
In the late 1990s, founder and owner Bill Kubly found himself in the position that a lot of architects and contractors have experienced: A client couldn’t pay the bills, the work was already done, and the options were to either take an ownership stake in the golf course or walk away empty-handed.
“That’s how we ended up with ownership positions in five or six properties scattered around the country,” says president of operations Tom Everett. “Soon, we had a small portfolio of courses, many of which we partnered with existing management companies [to run].”
Everett was employed by one of those companies, Eagle Golf, which managed three courses partially owned by Kubly and Landscapes Unlimited. During that time, he was approached by LU executives about the prospect of joining their group. Everett made the move and the management arm of Landscapes Unlimited was launched.
They weren’t in any rush. Many of LU’s clients were other management companies, so it didn’t make sense to jeopardize the core construction business by competing against the company’s customers.
“We were content to manage what we owned,” Everett notes. “But as the world of golf changed, we realized we weren’t getting a lot of construction business from management companies. So, we began quietly marketing our management services to courses where we had no ownership or construction stake.”
In a twist of fate, the first third-party management contract LU signed was with Belleview Country Club in Nebraska, the course where Everett learned the game as a boy. Now, the company’s website lists 20 courses under management from all corners of the country.
“We work in Oceanside, California, Baltimore, Maryland, and everywhere in between,” Everett says. “Owners come to us because they know us. We might have had an ownership presence [in a particular market]—certainly we like to work where we already are—but that doesn’t preclude us from helping out someone in need anywhere.”
The keys to LU’s growth have been twofold. First, Everett lets clients piecemeal the services they want. “If a client only needs our purchasing, our accounting and our food-and-beverage services, for example, we will provide those fractional services as part of something we call our Landscapes Select product,” he notes.
Secondly—and perhaps most importantly—LU can leverage the infrastructure of an $80 million construction company to help provide capital improvements at a fraction of the cost of what a facility would normally pay. “There are a lot of clubs that have significant deferred capital expenditure needs, whether it’s bunker or irrigation renovation or just general upgrades,” Everett says. “A good number of those operators aren’t in a financial position to do those on their own. So we come in and maximize their operational efficiencies while doing that construction work ourselves.”
Everett’s office is in the company headquarters in Lincoln, Nebraska, but he has regional managers who handle the West, Midwest and East Coast. A new partnership in Canada is also in the works. “We hope that opens opportunities for us in markets like Buffalo and Detroit, where we can make a big impact,” he says.
Market forces have aligned in LU’s favor. Deferred construction and capital improvements continue throughout the industry, and third-party management is more popular now than ever. Expertise in both puts Everett and his team in a position to make further inroads in the field.
Steve Eubanks is an Atlanta-based freelance writer.