Golf courses closed, golf shops followed

T.J. Walton watched as one of his customers scanned the aisles in his golf shop.
She didn't look happy like most people shopping for a new set of clubs or balls. She was more sullen. She learned he was weeks away from shutting down the business.
"I feel bad about this," Walton said she told him. "I feel like I'm cleaning off the bones of your store."
He was touched. He didn't have the words to make her feel less guilty. He might have made her feel worse.
"It's not my store," he said. "It's your store. It's the community's."
Walton ran a hometown golf shop - complete with one-on-one customer service, hands-on instruction and a wealth of information about the game of golf. It is the kind of treatment shoppers can't find at the Sports Authority, he said.
"They're going to have to go down to Tampa," said Walton. "They (at the Sports Authority) don't have the right knowledge to put the right club into a person's hands ... There's a science to golf."
Divots Golf Shop, located at 13771 Linden Drive, is technically still open during the next two weeks, but Walton works elsewhere Monday through Friday. It's a one-man show, so it is locked during normal business hours.
He will be open during the next two weekends and is running a slew of specials in an effort to clear out his inventory, he said.
The worst of his troubles began in early July, about two weeks after Seven Hills Golfers Club and Spring Hill Golf and Country Club closed.
He didn't realize how many of his customers used the popular public courses. For a while, people came into his store and complained about the abrupt closing. After that, he rarely had any visitors.
Walton sometimes went days without seeing a single customer, he said.
Golf Etc., a chain store located at the corner of Mariner and Cortez boulevards, closed its doors earlier this month due to slowed sales.
Walton has since learned the owner of Seven Hills Golfers Club plans to reopen in November.
The other Spring Hill course, which is owned by the same person, will remain closed, he said.
Tom McCain, who lives off Fairchild Road near the Seven Hills clubhouse, said he has seen the grass mowed and watered recently. The landscaping along Mariner Boulevard also has improved, he said.
"I think it is great news," he said. "It really started to look terrible. It really was an eyesore for those coming down Mariner."
The owner of Seven Hills Golfers Club, Michael Kahanyshyn, could not be reached for comment Friday.
Walton said he has spoken to some former employees at Seven Hills and they were relieved to learn the facility would be reopening. They also told him Kahanyshyn intends to quell some of the bad feelings between him and the local residents by publishing an apology letter in some of the local neighborhood newsletters.
"That would be a good step in the right direction," McCain said. "This golf course, when it's run right, is a goldmine. It's a very nice-looking course ... We want it to be successful."
Kahanyshyn might have known he had a better chance putting the business on hold through the summer, Walton said.
"During the winter months, you sometimes see three times as many people on the golf course," he said.
The reopening of Seven Hills won't be enough to coax Walton back into the golf retail business - although he said he would continue to fix grips, clubs and spikes out of his home.
"I'm really going to miss it," he said of owning Divots. "Maybe in another economic time I would've been more successful."