The rumors started to fly some three weeks ago. As the whispers grew louder and louder, it became increasing apparent that Aetna Springs Golf Course in Pope Valley was on the verge of closing its doors. Finally the word became official just one week after the start of the New Year. The last rounds at Aetna Springs were played this past Sunday.
Located just over the Lake County line off Butts Canyon Road in northwestern Napa County, Aetna Springs first opened for golf in 1891. The original layout at Aetna Springs was a five-hole golf course that evolved into a nine-hole layout by 1893. Way back when, Aetna Springs was a destination resort of choice for the rich and the famous. It had a resort hotel, equestrian trails, swimming pools, tennis courts, and most importantly, mineral hot baths. The elite of the Bay Area would take a two-day train and stagecoach ride to Aetna Springs to enjoy all that the remote resort had to offer. As advertisements in the Napa Valley Register used to proclaim, “Quit doctor’s drugs for a month and come and bathe in the royal baths and gloat among the wondrous mountain scenery.”
Lillie Langtry was a regular at Aetna Springs during its formative years. She was a silent movie star who doubled as a high society figure in England and America. I have often described Langtry to the high school golfers who played Aetna as “the Madonna of her era.” In those days, silent movies were filmed on site in the Niles District of Fremont where director and producer Charlie Chaplin had his studios. On one of her many visits to Aetna Springs, Langtry purchased land in the Guenoc Valley and started a winery, which remains in business to this day.
The resort at Aetna Springs remained in business until its closure in 1973. The Unification Church owned the property from 1976 through 1997. The new owners attempted to expand the nine-hole course and to build another 18-hole course onsite, but futuristic plans kept being nixed by the Napa County Planning Commission. Finally in 2006, the county agreed to allow Aetna Springs to build a new clubhouse and to re-do and expand the nine-hole facility.
Tom Doak was brought in to revise Aetna Springs at that time. The course Doak built had little similarity to the original design. Doak is a well-known golf course architect (Pacific Dunes, Old Macdonald) from the minimalist school of golf design. The new course had double-tiered greens, was beautifully framed, and was an instant hit. At various times, Golf Digest and Links Magazine rated Aetna among the top 10 of their best of list for nine-hole courses in America.
Two years ago Aetna Springs was sold to a new ownership group, namely the Dallas Police and Fire Department Pension Fund. The pension fund brought in Troon Golf, a management company that runs high-end golf courses, including regional courses such Marin County Club in Novato and the Yoche de He Golf Course at the Cache Creek Resort and Casino in Brooks. It’s not unusual for entities like pension funds to invest in golf courses. For instance, the 11-site Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail is owned by the Alabama Teachers Pension Fund.
However, the reality of pension funds is that they need to generate profits for their members’ future retirement plans. If they should invest in stocks and bonds that don’t turn a profit, then they unload them. In the case of the Aetna Springs Golf Course, the Dallas Police and Fire folks were bleeding red. Regardless of its history, its beauty, its reputation and its layout, the golf course was losing money and it had to be sold. It was a bad pension fund investment.
In 2017, fewer than 5,000 golfers teed it up at Aetna Springs. That pencils out to less than 14 golfers per day. During the active golf season running from May through September, there were normally 20 weekday rounds per day. Golf course revenues couldn’t keep up with payroll, course upkeep, equipment maintenance, property taxes and the rest. There is a party interested in buying the facility, but he has plans to build home sites. With Aetna’s recent history with Napa County Planning, it’s hard to imagine that the county would be willing to turn the golf course or the land around it into a residential community. Only time will tell.
David Cage has been the PGA Director of Golf at Aetna for the past 15 months. A longtime employee of Troon Golf, Cage stated he was informed of the course’s closure just 10 days prior to last Sunday. Cage was quoted in the Napa Valley Register as stating that “It’s very sad. It’s such a great little golf course with beautiful scenery. People have come from all over the world to play it. It’s a shame it’s in such a remote location. It’s hard to get to for most folks. I think that’s the drawback of the facility.” When I reached out to David this weekend, he piggybacked on his comments, adding, “Aetna Springs is a great nine-hole golf course. I really enjoyed the challenges.” Cage expects to be transferred to a Troon Golf facility in Oklahoma.
In the end, the game’s downward trends have hit so very close to home. During the past five years, we have observed the closing of such golf courses as Stevinson Ranch, Sunol Valley, Adobe Creek, San Geronimo, Roddy Ranch, and Rancho Canada. Entities such as Chardonnay have figured out that they can generate more revenue turning nine holes of golf into wine grapes. Others such as Adobe are taking advantage of housing demands. Fewer new golfers are being introduced to the game and the current generation of baby-boomer linksters is getting older. Finally, Aetna Springs was probably the victim of one’s of business’ bigger axioms, namely “location, location, location.” Aetna Springs was truly in the middle of nowhere.
Since the Valley Fire of September, 2015, the Langtry Farms Golf Course at Guenoc has closed down as has the nine-hole course in the Riviera. The remaining three nine-hole golf courses in Lake County, namely Adams Springs, Black Rock, and Buckingham, have seen a decided decline in rounds played since 2015. It’s probably only a matter of time before one of those facilities decides to close its doors in light of the financial hits they’ve taken since the Valley Fire. When asked about Aetna Springs’ future, David Cage said “It’s too hard for an owner to continuously every month write a check to keep it going.” The game of golf is in a downward spiral financially and this time around the closing of Aetna Springs has hit way too close to home.
