MOUNT WILLIAM, N.S. – Brian Affleck doesn’t want to sell Eagle’s Chance golf facility in Mount William, but he feels there’s no other choice.
Citing cash flow problems due mainly to bad weather this year – a cool, wet spring was followed by brutal heat and humidity this summer – Affleck has started looking for a private buyer with the hopes that the course and driving range will continue in 2019.
“It’s business as usual until the end of this season, but it is for sale,” said Affleck.
“With the structure of my loan, I don’t have the capital to have bad seasons, back to back. It’s too bad that we’re heading in the direction that we’re headed.”
Under Affleck’s guidance, the junior golf program blossomed in the past three years.
He said there are about 300 members at the facility in 2018, down significantly from recent years, when well over 450 members was common. The driving range has done a solid business, but the par-3 course itself has been virtually empty on many days this year.
“I think there’s a misconception in the community that business is booming,” Affleck said. “We depend on daily cash flow and the weather didn’t help us this summer. The business has grown every year until this one.”
Affleck purchased the facility in 2014 – it originally opened in the early 1990s – and it has since become a family-run business, along with his wife Charlotte, with whom he has three young daughters.
“It’s sad to have to put it up for sale, I put everything I had into this place,” he said.
“If the course closes, my hope is the golf academy will continue somewhere, but at this point the future is unknown.”
