Two SoCal Golf Clubs Trade for $122M to Undisclosed Buyer
By Nick Trombola July 24, 2024 1:17 pm
reprints
A pair of golf courses in Orange County, Calif., has sold for well over par at $122 million. (As a bogey golfer, one can relate.)
Dallas-based Invited Clubs, formerly known as ClubCorp, sold the 36-hole Coto de Caza Golf & Racquet Club and the 18-hole Aliso Viejo Country Club for $81 million and $40.6 million, respectively, according to the Orange County Business Journal. That’s just over $2.25 million per hole.
Two Irvine-based limited liability companies that share the same address are the buyers, though the true identity of the buyer or buyers (and their handicap) was not immediately clear. An individual named Sanghoon Lee is tied to both LLCs, records show, and the buyer has connections to a “wealthy Korean family that owns a multinational conglomerate,” per the OCBJ, citing confidential sources.
Invited Clubs will continue to manage both properties as part of the sale conditions, per OCBJ.
Representatives for Invited did not immediately respond to a request for comment, while a representative for the LLCs could not immediately be reached.
Located about 18 miles east of Laguna Beach, Coto de Caza was Orange County’s first private 36-hole golf club when its South Course was completed in 1995. Aliso Viejo Country Club is about seven miles northeast of Laguna Beach — effectively forming an elongated triangle with the famed coastline and Coto de Caza — and was designed by golf legend Jack Nicklaus.
Demand hit the golf industry by storm in the wake of COVID-19, with roughly 123 million Americans engaging with the sport in 2023, or 30 percent more people than in 2016, according to the National Golf Foundation.
Such demand is fueling investment in America’s 16,000-odd courses and transforming its spaces into a full-blown asset class. The fact that many investors and businesspeople notoriously play golf anyway probably doesn’t hurt.
Nick Trombola can be reached at NTrombola@commercialobserver.com.
