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We declined a membership invitation here, but play frequently with friends and enjoy the annual tournament coming up soon. I thought y'all might be interested in this little piece from the business section: Drilling For Natural Gas at Colonial Country Club Not sure how this will work. Would you permit it at your club?

It seems surprising that they would subject a tour-stop quality golf course to that! I guess they need or want the $$! Are you going to the PGA Tour event there in a few weeks? If so, please share the experience with us!

Is this the Colonial where Annika played at a few days back? Just out of curiosity, how much do memberships there run and are they hard to come by?

I am not sure what Annika did on Tuesday, but she did play in the PGA event there in 2003!

As I recall, it was $60,000 initially then something like $350 or $400 monthly. It's tucked in a lovely older section of Ft. Worth not far from Texas Christian University. As to the selection process, I'm clueless.

Here's a link to the invitational coming up in a couple of weeks. Some years I volunteer, but this year they wanted a four day commitment from volunteers and I just couldn't see taking the time off work. Still, we'll probably go for at least one day.
Anyone else planning to go?

The drilling will not be on the Colonial grounds. It will be offsite. Also, the City of Ft Worth does not allow drilling to occur within 600 feet of existing buildings. They use a process called horizontal drilling which will go under the Colonial property. It will be noisy for 3-4 week while the are drilling the well. But, once the well starts producing there will not be any noise.

Colonial has not disclosed the value of the lease. But, the City of Fort Worth recently signed a lease for 870 acres, with a bonus of 17K an acre (almost $15million). That's an upfront payment that is unrelated to how much natural gas the company is able to get from the well.
I'd guess Colonial got about $10K/acre upfront bonus. On 157 acres that's about $1.5million up front. Once the wells start producing, Colonial will get a check every month based on production.

Hackblack Thank you for that great information!

Maybe they can use that money to entice Tiger to play the tournament.

Maybe they can have a members only gas station where free gasoline is included in the membership. I would definitely approve of it then!

Only if you car runs on Natural Gas, Plus the golf club is not going to get rich off the money they make. Lease and royalty payments have not increased since the 80s. Also since the company has to use direction drilling to get to the deposit, the cost to drill is more.