When the Fairway Dies: Golf Course Conversions, a National Playbook, and What It Means for Bayside Lakes
Palm Bay, FL -- Approximately 1,500 golf courses have closed across the United States since 2014. Each one sits on an average of 150 acres of land zoned for recreation or open space. In state after state, a pattern has emerged: an investor buys a struggling course at a discount, lets it deteriorate, then files for rezoning to residential. Academic papers from MIT, Touro Law, and Villanova Law have examined the cycle. 1000 Friends of Florida documented it in a 2021 special report. Companies have built entire business models around it.
In Palm Bay, the former Majors Golf Course, an Arnold…
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