Gulf Breeze’s City Manager Edwin “Buz” Eddy said Kissimmee-based Integrity Golf Company LLC is looking to pull out of their operating contract of Tiger Point Golf Club effective March 31, claiming a lack of communication between the city and the golf management company is to blame for their decision to leave in the middle of their contractual obligations with the city.
Eddy said back on Feb. 27, the city was notified via Integrity of their intentions to pull out of their contract, and the city has a short window to find a replacement for the management company, but they have their eyes set on a third-party manager of golf and club operations company called Honours, based out of Birmingham, Ala.
“(Integrity) is doing alright. We probably didn’t have the best communication with them. They were probably not as open in communication as you’d want,” said Eddy noting that Integrity started showing disinterest when the city approached them about coming up with a 3-year Capital Improvement Plan. “We advised council that we kind of felt like this was coming. We had a feeling we knew something wasn’t exactly right….they resigned.”
There was little discussion at Wednesday night’s Executive Committee meeting regarding the city’s next step, but the city is already in talks with Honours, a division of Troon.
Buz Eddy
Integrity Golf signed on to help the city manage Tiger Point Golf Club back in 2015. The city hired the firm to help them spruce up the struggling club they purchased back in 2012 in an effort to keep the old owners of TPGC from going into bankruptcy.
When asked if the city was making profit off of the course, Eddy said he didn’t know.
“Our agreement with them calls for them to pay for the people (employees) and pay all of the costs (associated with running the club/course) and give us $100,000 on October 1 of each year. We received our payment for their first year of operation (Oct. 2016),” Eddy said.
A Troon/Honours representative has yet to speak formally in front of city council regarding their intents with TPGC, but negotiations are underway to get Honours on board by the start of next month.
“March 31 is there (Integrity’s) last day and hopefully we will start off with Troon on the first of April,” Eddy said.
