Bayou Din Golf Club will close after 57 years in business, according to an employee.
Guiseppe Barranco/Photo Editor
Bayou Din Golf Club will close after 57 years in business, according to an employee.
Guiseppe Barranco/Photo Editor
After 57 years of serving golfers in Southeast Texas, Bayou Din Golf Club will close on November 28. A golfer drives along the cart path at Bayou Din on Monday. Photo taken Monday, October 31, 2016 Guiseppe Barranco/The Enterprise
Guiseppe Barranco/Photo Editor
After 57 years of serving golfers in Southeast Texas, Bayou Din Golf Club will close on November 28. Golfers drive toward their balls at Bayou Din on Monday. Photo taken Monday, October 31, 2016 Guiseppe Barranco/The Enterprise
Guiseppe Barranco/Photo Editor
Thomas Moss walks toward the tee on hole 1 at Bayou Din Golf Club on Monday. Club officials announced Monday that the course will close its doors on November 26. Photo taken Monday, October 31, 2016 Guiseppe Barranco/The Enterprise
Guiseppe Barranco/Photo Editor
Mark Lee talks Monday about regularly playing golf Bayou Din Golf Club for the past 15 years. Club officials announced Monday that the course will close its doors on November 26. Photo taken Monday, October 31, 2016 Guiseppe Barranco/The Enterprise
Guiseppe Barranco/Photo Editor
After 57 years of serving golfers in Southeast Texas, Bayou Din Golf Club will close on November 28. Golfers drive toward their balls at Bayou Din on Monday. Photo taken Monday, October 31, 2016 Guiseppe Barranco/The Enterprise
Guiseppe Barranco/Photo Editor
Bayou Din Golf Course Photo taken Monday, October 31, 2016 Guiseppe Barranco/The Enterprise
Guiseppe Barranco/Photo Editor
Bayou Din Golf Course Photo taken Monday, October 31, 2016 Guiseppe Barranco/The Enterprise
Guiseppe Barranco/Photo Editor
After 57 years of serving golfers in Southeast Texas, Bayou Din Golf Club will close on November 28. A golfer swings from the tee box at Bayou Din on Monday. Photo taken Monday, October 31, 2016 Guiseppe Barranco/The Enterprise
Guiseppe Barranco/Photo Editor
After 57 years of serving golfers in Southeast Texas, Bayou Din Golf Club will close on November 28. Golfers drive toward their balls at Bayou Din on Monday. Photo taken Monday, October 31, 2016 Guiseppe Barranco/The Enterprise
Guiseppe Barranco/Photo Editor
After 57 years of serving golfers in Southeast Texas, Bayou Din Golf Club will close on November 28. A golfer swings from the fairway at Bayou Din on Monday. Photo taken Monday, October 31, 2016 Guiseppe Barranco/The Enterprise
Guiseppe Barranco/Photo Editor
John Jeffrey arrived to work at the pro shop at the Bayou Din Golf Club on Monday morning, as he has since 1996, and learned the 58-year-old golf course will close on Nov. 27.
Regular golfers shared the news with each other outside the clubhouse, some having just finished their daily rounds.
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“Pretty depressing,” said Port Neches resident Mark Lee, 68, who said he has played the course five to six days a week with his friends for 15 years. “We don’t know what we’re going to do. We all kind of gather here.”
Lee’s 200-300 rounds a year represent a dedication to Bayou Din that has been in overall decline since 2005, according to owner George Brown III. There are only a few annual members and 35 quarterly pass holders. The number of rounds played at the course peaked at 54,000 in 2005 and has dropped below 30,000 the past two years.
Brown sold an undivided interest in the course’s real estate more than a year ago, with an agreement that the course would remain open as long as Brown desired. Now he will divide the 227 acres into eight smaller tracts to sell as ranches and estates.
“My hope was that 2016 would be the year the business turned around,” said Brown, who purchased 60 golf carts and made clubhouse and golf course renovations this year. “I just don’t see an enthusiasm for golf. … Revenue has been on the steady decline. It just doesn’t make any sense to continue because we keep losing money.”
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Thomas Moss, 34, was just beginning his round Monday when he heard the course was closing. He used to clean the golf carts for $8.50 an hour while he was a student at Port Neches-Groves High School.
“It sucks. I can’t believe it,” Moss said. “It’s going to hurt a lot of people in this community.”
Bayou Din opened in 1958 and was the course many locals grew up playing on. Current PGA Tour member and Groves native Chris Stroud, 34, used to play the course with his father, Jimmy, and grandfather, James.
“Bayou Din was one of my favorite courses to play growing up,” said Stroud, a Lamar grad who tied for 27th at the Shell Houston Open in April. “Bayou Din was one of three courses we would regularly play at during my four years at PN-G. I probably have somewhere close to 600 rounds out there. I hate to hear it is closing the doors.”
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The course was host to several tournaments each year, including the Jay Bruce tournament – which will still be played on Nov. 19. The date was factored in when Brown decided to close the course, he said.
“I knew I didn’t want to pull out the rug on them,” Brown said. “And the day after Thanksgiving is a good day (for people to golf). Nov. 27 is a Sunday, and that felt like the right day.”
Golden Triangle Emergency Center held a tournament at Bayou Din each of the past two years and organizers were already budgeting for the tournament next year.
“Hopefully we can find another course that worked with us the way that Bayou did,” said Golden Triangle Emergency Center’s Kari Busch. Busch said the tournament made “around $7,000” last year.
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Alan Bihm, a fund developer for Bob Hope Charter School, hosted tournaments at Bayou Din to raise scholarship money for financially disadvantaged students.
“We’ll continue to have a tournament, but where, I don’t know,” Bihm said.
Brown hopes to attract all the Bayou Din tournaments to the Babe Zaharias Golf Course in Port Arthur, where he has a management agreement with the city.
Beaumont resident Dennis Sedtal, 57, has played at least 400 rounds at Bayou Din since 2009. He called Babe Zaharias a “goat pasture.”
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Scott Brannin, 28, who finished a round at Bayou Din on Monday, said it was the highest quality golf course in the area.
“To get the same quality of golf, we’re going to have to drive out to Baytown and Lake Charles,” Brannin said. “It’s really upsetting that this is closing down. They kept it up the best.”
Golfers played the Bayou Din at a regular weekday rate of $28 a round – a dollar more than the Zaharias’ rate (with a cart).
“You’re not going to play anywhere that’s like this for that much,” Jeffrey said. “The amount of money people pay to play golf here, it’s hard to maintain.”
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Jeffrey’s job at the pro shop was his main source of income.
“I have no idea,” Jeffrey said of what he’ll do when the course closes. “I just found out this morning, I hadn’t really thought about it.”
“The hardest part of reaching the decision to close was knowing the effect it would have on employees,” Brown said. “I want ones that need to put food on the table find a job. My plan is for several of them to go work at Babe Zaharias.”
Brown said he might hire others to work on a ranch.
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There are no current farewell plans for the course, which will close after nightfall on Nov. 27.
“We may be there after dark sharing stories,” Brown said.
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