PGA deal no sure thing

Running Horse lacks tour commitment.

Published online on Saturday, Nov. 24, 2007

Critics, including many on the Fresno City Council, have challenged Mayor Alan Autry over how much risk the city should take in helping billionaire developer Donald Trump revive the stalled Running Horse golf course.

But few have questioned a key premise behind the effort -- that a successful project will attract a PGA Tour event and provide a big economic boost to the city.

Completing the original Running Horse vision of a Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course will attract the PGA Tour, along with all the dollars such an annual event would bring, its supporters say.

And the 780 high-end homes to be built around the course will raise property values and spur additional development in southwest Fresno, they contend.

But the city has no commitment from the PGA Tour and has conducted no study to show how much it will help the local economy.

Autry has said a finished Running Horse development won't just bring new homes, but also new commercial development to serve those homes. The project also will bring jobs and help raise incomes and reduce crime in a long-neglected part of the city, he believes.

He considers the goal of completing the project so important that he is asking City Council members to allow the city to buy some parcels at Running Horse and sell them to Trump -- a step the celebrity developer has said is essential to keep him involved in the project.

"A championship golf course in southwest Fresno, by a proven developer with the resources to carry through the bad times, not just the good times -- they just don't come wandering down the dirt road that often," Autry said.

There is little doubt that bringing the PGA Tour to Fresno would help boost the city's image, said Steve Geil, president of the Economic Development Corp. serving Fresno County.

"You'd have positive national exposure for Fresno, which highlights our region," he said.

Leaders of the Fresno Chamber of Commerce, the Regional Jobs Initiative and the Fresno Visitors and Convention Bureau also have said a Trump-built golf course community could burnish Fresno's reputation and attract visitors and development to the region.

But developing the project in the midst of a housing downturn could be difficult, and anyone who takes on the task likely will take many years to complete it, developers say.

And the economic punch of bringing a PGA Tour event to Fresno -- with its promise of television exposure and tourist dollars from visiting golf fans -- may not be as great as PGA Tour officials and Running Horse backers previously have estimated, according to the results of other similar events around the country this fall.

This year, for the first time since the mid-1960s, Fresno was supposed to have a PGA Tour event -- the Running Horse Golf Championship. But this spring, it became clear that Running Horse would not be completed in time.

Original Running Horse developer Tom O'Meara first brought up the possibility of a PGA Tour event in an interview with The Bee in 2002. The PGA Tour committed to Fresno in 2006 -- on the condition that the course was complete.

But O'Meara's ambitious project stalled early this year when the developer ran into financial difficulties. In March, O'Meara transferred ownership of Running Horse to one of its builders, Mick Evans, who then placed the project in bankruptcy.

That forced PGA Tour officials to move the event planned for Fresno this year to Port St. Lucie, Fla. Now PGA Tour officials say the organization is still interested in Fresno, but they aren't making any promises Fresno would be put back on the list if the project is completed.