Prominent St. Louis Family Chooses Concert Golf As Successor for Their 36-Hole Private Club, Whitmoor Country Club

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Jan 04, 2023, 16:00 ET

WELDON SPRING, Mo., Jan. 4, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Concert Golf Partners ("Concert Golf") proudly announces the acquisition of its 29^th private club, Whitmoor Country Club, from the Whittaker family, which had built and cared for the 36-hole club in the Whitmoor community since 1988.

Concert Golf Partners and Whitmoor Country Club Logos

Beginning in 1977, Bob and Shirley Whittaker built Whittaker Homes into one of the largest homebuilding companies in the Midwest. Bob had a passion for golf, developing four top St. Louis clubs including Whitmoor Country Club. When Bob passed away and Shirley stepped away from the golf business, the next generation of owners, siblings Greg, Tim and Rob Whittaker, and Kelly Vetter, explored an exit. They were approached by potential buyers, but that only yielded tire-kickers and lots of local noise. Years later, they decided to pursue a quiet sale to Concert Golf which would minimize disruption to the club members and staff at Whitmoor as well as at their ongoing homebuilding business.

Whitmoor Country Club features 36 holes of championship golf with a course designed by Karl Litten in 1988. His architecture incorporates both the natural rolling terrain of St. Charles County, as well as numerous native areas. There are ten lakes between the two courses, and the meandering creeks that connect the lakes come into play on many of the holes. The courses weave through a community of gracious homes and along gentle hillsides shaded by statuesque maples, white pines, oaks, and birches. If you can navigate the water off the tee and fairways, you are still looking at a challenge on the greens. Director of Golf, Brian Maine commented, "The greens at Whitmoor are huge and many of them have multiple tiers. There is a great benefit to accuracy on your approach, ensuring you are on the right tier so your birdie putt doesn't turn into a bogey."

In addition to the 36 holes of championship golf, Whitmoor Country Club is a family club with two outdoor pools, three premium tennis courts, and a 4,000 square foot fitness center. The newly renovated Trophy Room (banquet/event venue) comfortably accommodates up to 300 guests. "We just remodeled the Whitmoor clubhouse and had our best year ever at the Club," said principal owner Greg Whittaker.

According to Peter Nanula, Concert Golf CEO, "Club owners like the Whittakers are realizing that the Covid-19 era boosted golf demand and club financial performance to record levels, so now is an excellent time to sell your club based on those peak numbers." He added, "In the Whittakers' case, they have a booming 3,500-home residential development underway nearby that is the best-selling community in the Midwest, and they wanted to focus on that and leave the golf club to experts they could trust."

One hurdle both groups had to overcome was during the sale discussions, a pipe burst and shut down the Olympic-sized pool for the season. The Whittakers thought there was no way someone would buy their club without the main pool. "But Concert Golf took responsibility for the pool problem and still closed the deal fast, with all cash," said Greg Whittaker. "We knew that we had found the right buyer and successor for our Whitmoor members and staff."

Concert Golf Partners is a boutique owner-operator of top private golf and country clubs, formed in 2011 by Peter Nanula, the founder and CEO of Arnold Palmer Golf Management in the 1990s, and co-founder and COO Susan Dunnavant. Concert Golf has amassed $250 million of patient, long-term equity capital to invest in private clubs. Concert Golf is also unique for its track record of preserving the identity and traditions of historic clubs.

Concert Golf's boutique collection of upscale clubs now numbers 29 nationally, including both formerly developer-owned clubs like the Club at Longview in Charlotte (www.theclubatlongview.com) and Club at Renaissance in Ft. Myers (www.theclubatrenaissance.com), as well as longtime member-owned clubs such as White Manor Country Club in Philadelphia (www.whitemanorcc.com) and The Muttontown Club on Long Island (www.themuttontownclub.com). Whitmoor Country Club members now enjoy complimentary reciprocal privileges at these and Concert Golf's other upscale clubs, as well as exclusive access to more than 500 other highly rated private clubs worldwide, while inbound reciprocal play at Whitmoor will be carefully limited.

SOURCE Concert Golf Partners