North Shore Golf Blog

By Gary Larrabee

The nearly 20-year saga of The Georgetown Club’s financial instability appears to have reached a new milestone.

Principal owner Peter Wojtkun last Friday (September 11) filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in United States Federal Court in Boston on behalf of his three holding companies – Georgetown Golf Club Inc., New England Golf Club Inc. and Georgetown Links LLC, according to his attorney, Kara M. Zaleskas, of Duane Morris LLP.

“Dr. Wojtkun (he is an Andover dentist by profession) hopes to reorganize the companies for the benefit of the creditors and The Georgetown Club,” said Zaleskas, whose specialty is business reorganization and financial restructuring law.

She would not confirm reports that Wojtkun and the three holding companies possess debt obligations in the millions of dollars, but she did say there are “substantial claims against the club,” the largest most likely coming from Sovereign Bank, the mortgage holder.

North Shore Golf has learned that the debt exceeds $6 million, with more than $4 million owed Sovereign Bank and more than $2 million to a second party.

Wojtkun’s filing comes two months after he told North Shore Golf magazine in July that the club was starting to accept public play, “to help us get through our financial issues. We are not in financial trouble. We are not going bankrupt.”

Wojtkun’s comments in July came in the wake of reports that membership numbers had taken a dramatic plunge in the last year and that more members were about to resign their memberships and move to other clubs, chief among them Haverhill Country Club.

“We’ve been dealing with rumors for twenty years,” Wojtkun said at the time, “and we’ll be here twenty years from now.”

When contacted by NSG for this story, Wojtkun had no comment and deferred to Ms. Zaleskas.

The Georgetown Club, located on Route 133 between Georgetown Center and West Boxford Village, has been in existence since 1991, when Wojtkun and partner John Enos opened nine holes to the public. Local architect Phil Wogan designed the course on a parcel of the Kenwood Farm. Local contractor Gene English had made the initial land acquisition, but ran into financial complications early on, filed for bankruptcy, and the Wojtkun-Enos team took over the project.

The second nine, also mapped by Wogan, opened in 1995, by which time the club went private. A pool and tennis courts soon followed, as well as an impressive clubhouse.

The membership peaked at 320 in 2005, but was hovering at 200 at last report.

NSG reported in the July 2009 issue that Wojtkun held a 75 percent stake in the club, Steve Guerrette most of the remainder, with minimal stakes owned by several founding members.

“We’re paying our taxes, our bills, and we’re working with our creditors and suppliers,” Wojtkun told NSG. He claimed at the time that “our function and restaurant parts of the business are quite active,” despite the sagging economy. “We need more income from golf play, so we’re promoting public tees times and Monday company outings.”

Apparently the change in business strategy has not reaped immediate benefit. Wojtkun, a former member at Ipswich CC and Portsmouth, reportedly conducted a meeting with several lifetime members to explain his financial straits, maybe in hopes of finding an “angel” willing to provide an infusion of cash.

Norman Marquis, president of the club’s Member Advisory Board, had said in July that “the club’s future will be fine once we stay semi-private for a couple years.” His tune had changed as of Wednesday.

“Members are upset about the club’s problems. They know they’re losing their initiation dues,” said Marquis, a respected retired North Shore businessman who spent more than twelve hours at the club Wednesday talking to members and staff alike. The club is dear to his heart. He was a member for two years in its infancy, departed, then returned six years ago. Moreover, he lives across the street.

“There appears to be a serious effort afoot,” Marquis added, “to put together a group of members to buy the club and make it an equity ownership. We accept the fact the club is going to foreclosure. The debt is too high for anything else to happen.”

He said the club will remain open for the time being. A 140-golfer outing was scheduled to go off on schedule Thursday, as well as two wedding receptions this weekend in the spacious clubhouse.

“Georgetown Club is a damn great golf course with a great membership that deserves better than this,” Marquis declared. “It’s a shame the operation is falling apart, but we’re hoping some good will come of this. Ideally, with an equity membership and a new management team in place, including a warm and fuzzy club manager who understands how to deal with people, that we’ll have a fresh start. Bottom line: the members are key in the resolution of this problem.”

It has never been an easy go for The Georgetown Club. Many of the original members played there while their social member status at the area’s most prestigious clubs was upgraded to golfing status. It hasn’t been easy competing against several longer established clubs either, like the semi-private, 27-hole Far Corner Golf Club in nearby West Boxford and the private Ferncroft CC down Route 95 in Danvers/Middleton/Topsfield. The emergence of a new private club in Haverhill, Renaissance, the last five years hurt Georgetown as well.

It won’t be easy finding a buyer for Georgetown if it eventually ends up at auction. One can be certain neither golf management company now owning Fernrcoft and Renaissance will step in. But once the legal process takes its course and the facility is offered for a bargain basement price, as has happened with many courses, public and private in the United States over the last couple years, caused first by a glut of courses and most recently the economic recession, bidders will come out of the woodwork.

At least one major personnel move at Georgetown was in the offing before Wojtkun filed for Chapter 11. Dan Cammarata, the current general manager and the club’s former head golf professional and golf director, had already announced his retirement after a 17-year tenure. It was expected that other key staff members, including Tony Martinho, who heads the golf operation, and Jeff Gudaitius, the course superintendent, would be back in 2010. Now everyone’s job appears in jeopardy.