Ballamor Golf Club, an upscale, eight-year-old private club in Egg Harbor Township, N.J., announced Friday it will begin operating as a daily-fee course beginning Jan. 1, 2010, after filing for Chapter 11 restructuring earlier in the day.

 

"Ballamor has a bright future as a daily fee club," Liz Norton-Scanga, Ballamor’s director of marketing, said in a press release. "The market for traditional private club memberships has become severely limited due to the current economic conditions. There was no way that Ballamor could remain club and be a financially viable business."

 

Norton-Scanga could not be reached for comment but a Jersey Shore golf insider, who knows Ballamor well and has followed the club’s recent difficulties, said the Chapter 11 filing comes as a bit of a surprise but not the move to daily fee.

 

"They’ve been running it like a quasi-public course since it was sold last spring," said the insider.

 

A little background.  Opened in 2001, Ballamor is a Brian Ault, Clark and Associates design, that in the past was named by New Jersey Golf Magazine as one of the state’s Best Private Courses.

 

Par 72, it measures 7,200 yards, with a 72.5 course rating and 130 slope.  It has a full service clubhouse, pub and grill room, outdoor dining, range and short-game practice area.

 

While it was not quite in the league of the two premier private clubs at the Jersey Shore, Galloway National Golf Club and Hidden Creek Golf Club, Ballamor was not far behind.

 

"It is was truly golf club, with none of the social activities you’d expect to find at a country club," said the insider.  "It was for guys who wanted the best golf course they could get for the least money and they didn’t care about Mother’s Day brunches."

 

Early on, said the insider, there were two levels of initiation fees at Ballamor, which is non-equity club.  Members had a choice of paying a $13,500 initiation fee that was refundable or a $6,500 initiation fee that was non-refundable.

 

In time, the original owner, Pat Delaney, put Ballamor on the market, where it remained for about two years, until it was bought last spring by Chip Ottinger, who also owns Scotland Run Golf Club, the upscale daily-fee course in Williamstown, N.J.

 

When Ottinger began to allow some outside daily fee play, said the insider, some members began to grumble that Ballamor was no longer a private club and that they were entitled to a refund on some or all of their initiation fees.  When he balked, litigation ensued.

 

The reason for the Chapter 11 filing, speculated the insider, is to halt that litigation, leaving it up to a bankruptcy judge as to any refunds due members.

 

"Before, it was debatable whether the members had a right to get their deposits back," said the insider.  "Now, it’s not debatable, because there is no pretense any longer that it is a private  club."

 

In the press release, Norton-Scanga said restructuring was in the best interest of the club’s current members.  "It gives our existing members the opportunity to receive a portion of their deposits back," she said. "Had the club simply closed, all of their despites would be 100 percent lost."

 

As a daily fee course, green fees will range from $50 off-season to $100 in-season, cart included.  Annual memberships will also be available, beginning at $495.  All memberships will be offered on an annual basis with no deposit required, said the announcement.

 

In addition, regardless of the level of membership at Ballamor, each membership will include at no extra cost dual membership at Scotland Run, about  45 minutes away, the release said.