Southern Oaks Golf Club Abruptly Closes Doors. Employees Locked Out Monday Morning.

Photo by  Scott Glazener

Southern Oaks Golf Club in Burleson is one of the premier golf properties in the Metroplex. In fact, AG Magazine was so impressed, we ranked it #2 of all courses West of D/FW Airport.

However, as of Monday morning, employees were welcomed with a chain link fence put up at 4am preventing them from entering. No one knew–not even upper management–of the impending lockout.

Here is the letter given to workers sent to me by several folks familiar with the employees. Apparently there will be a meeting Tuesday at 10am to sort everything out and allow workers to get their stuff.

One rumor is a company led by David Shipman (Shipman Companies out of Burleson) has bought the entire property. Some believe he’ll take the course private. Others think it will turn into predominately residential development and/or mixed use. Just like Willow Springs GC and GC of McKinney before closing to be rezoned for more homes.

What’s interesting is current owner Mark Eddins (who owns the Fat Daddy’s restaurant chain) has had the property up for sale after spending a significant amount of resources to upgrade the clubhouse and menu items, build a tennis club, an events center and seriously improve the course and practice range conditions. Golfers familiar with Southern Oaks a mere five years ago were pleasantly surprised (as were we) how terrific the improvements were to upgrade every facet of the property.

It’s certainly Eddins’ prerogative to do what he wants with the facilities, but it’s very strange to stage a surprising and immediate lockout of all facility employees.

We don’t have access to the balance sheets but Southern Oaks GC was a popular location for our TJGT events as it received very favorable reviews from players.

We’ll hopefully provide more information as developments occur.

UPDATE

The meeting did indeed occur this morning with over 60 employees showing up. BTW, that is a ton of employees for a golf course. Anyway, the scuttlebutt is Shipman’s company did indeed purchase the entire property (to close on December 4). But he wants to sell off the golf course and combine/move the pro shop to the existing Tennis center. They then want to expand the existing clubhouse and events center into one Mega Center.

The head scratcher is they want to keep the cart barn even though they hope to spin off the course. Why? Good question.

Again, more details to be provided as they flow in.