In the latter half of the millennium, golf course real estate became a huge business. People wanted the dream of living in one of the beautiful luxury houses that lined a golf course, where you could see the 9th green from your limestone veranda. In order to keep up with demands, golf courses and communities built around them sprung up across the nation, eventually eclipsing the actual demand for tee times.

This created a problem. The market was flooded with places to play golf.

Golf courses take a considerable amount of money to operate. You have course maintenance, which costs in the millions even for non-private courses. You have personnel that you have to pay. Cart maintenance and god forbid that your club has a restaurant—that’s just a black hole for money.

Needless to say, golf courses are expensive to run, and if you don’t have enough people coming out and playing golf—guess what?—you can’t compete. This is exactly what has happened to many golf courses across the country.

Given the recent economic crunch (homeowners paying under water mortgages, unemployment, credit crisis), people are finding it harder and harder to justify paying $100 for a round of golf. In an article published on NPR’s news blog, a Georgia golf course is struggling to stay open amid the financial crunch. The strange thing? Courses are still opening up despite others going out of business across the nation.