The economy is not only affecting the public golf courses in the Northland. Private and semi-private clubs like Liberty Hills Country Club and Tiffany Greens Golf Club have also battled the downturn.

"We lost a handful of members this spring, and I attribute that to the economy," Zadalis said. "We’ve lost a few golf outings, and I would say the size of the outings we still have is down a bit, and the amount of money they are spending is still down a bit."

Liberty Hills Business Manager Ken Oyen echoed Zadalis’ statement.

"It is not drastic, but the economy impacts everybody," Oyen said. "We are no different. We have had some diminishing of our members. What has been interesting is that some of the corporate accounts have cut back because of the image of maintaining a membership as opposed to the financials of that."

But it was not totally unexpected.

"We anticipated things like that," Oyen said. "When a company is laying off employees it is tough to keep a membership because the word gets around and it doesn’t look good. It is an image thing."

That problem is not unique to Liberty Hills.

"I can tell you without a doubt I have seen it affect corporate banquets, corporate golf outings, corporate spending and that sort of thing," Zadalis said. "For sure I have seen that."

Another thing that has not helped matters has been the weather. Zadalis said he would love to blame the economy for all of the woes, but rain has made matters worse.

"It is really hard to get a grasp and a feel for it because right now Mother Nature is kicking our butt," Zadalis said. "We are more than triple our annual average rainfall for April through July. More than the economy, I would tell people to look at the weather more than the economy. We have had more rainouts, cold days and rainy weekends than I can remember. It has killed us."

One of the advantages Tiffany Greens has with being semi-private is the ability to draw in the public golfers to play as well.

"I get the best of both worlds and the worst of both worlds because I can tap into both markets," Zadalis said. "When membership is down I will go ahead and run a public schedule to make up dollars either way. The bottom line is I can try and fill the tee sheet with memberships, public players or outings, but when it is raining I can’t do any of the above."

Oyen said Liberty Hills plans to "weather the storm" and hopes to capitalize when things turn back around.

"We think we can ride it through," Oyen said. "One of the other things we did was offer an introductory or limited membership only good for this year. The process was simply to introduce them to the course and what we have here. We will take a look at it in the fourth quarter of this year, and come up with an offer that will make it enticing for them to stay on as members."

The economy has also had an effect in the pro shop, Zadalis said.

"If you categorize it we are actually up in club sales at Tiffany Greens," Zadalis said. "We have been real aggressive with giveaways. You can get a free round if you purchase a driver and three free rounds if you purchase a set of irons. …

"We haven’t seen a fall in clubs, but overall merchandizing we are down."

Staley Farms Golf Club refused to comment for this story.