Interesting times at the Greenbrier, the venerable and stately West Virginia hotel and resort that hosted the 1979 Ryder Cup and the 1994 Solheim Cup -- and, lest I forget, where my future wife and I met on a blind date nearly 15 years ago.

Matt Ginella files a report on the situation in this week's Golf World. He explains that the Greenbrier's corporate owners, CSX (a railroad company), posted a $38 million loss in 2008, which it blamed on the labor turmoil at the resort. As a result, CSX has hired Goldman Sachs to do a top-to-bottom study of the Greenbrier and the way it does business. The study and its recommendations should be revealed soon.

CSX officials have hinted that any outcome is possible, including the shuttering of the resort. Other observers -- including the governer of West Virginia -- would like to see CSX sell the resort, perhaps to a company whose primary business is hospitality, not railroads.

Oh, and there is this: As a means of generating revenue, some people are lobbying to make table gambling legal at the resort. Honest.

-- G.R.

Thinking about buying a golf home in Las Vegas while prices are low? Probably not a bad strategy.

Now the question is, when? Most agree that trying to time the precise market bottom is a fool's game. But some argue that prices have farther to fall. Here's an article from today's Las Vegas Sun predicting more declines through this year with stabilization at last arriving in 2010. 

The Sun quotes Moody's Economy.com as projecting the median price of Las Vegas home will hit $153,000 by 2010. That's a drop of 52 percent from its peak of $320,000 in 2006's first quarter. [Insert your own joke about the craps table here.]

-- P.F.

I still haven't made it out to the Vaquero Club, with its Tom Fazio-designed course outside Dallas, but I hear it's everything you expect from a high-end Texas club. (A few years ago, David Owen wrote in Golf Digest about the Vaquero member-guest, where they boiled 500 lobsters -- a lobster-to-golfer ratio of 5-1.)

The Wall Street Journal has a little note on a foursome of athletes with homes in the gated Vaquero community. (Scroll down to the bottom of the page.) As it notes, they are "coping with the luxury real-estate slump in different ways." Drew Bledsoe, the Journal reports, has dropped the price on his 5,500-square-foot home to $1.625 million, which is slightly less than he paid four years ago. New Yankees first baseman Mark Teixeira put his place on the market a year ago and just decided to take it off, as has former hockey player Steve Duchesne. Meawhile, golfer Brian Watts continues to seek a buyer for his home, which went on the market a year ago.

What, you don't remember Brian Watts? He's the guy who lost to Mark O'Meara in a playoff at the 1998 British Open. Asking price for his 1.7-acre property: $5.45 million. Sounds like a decent consolation prize.

-- P.F.

It's not a golf-home, strictly speaking. But Bernie Madoff's Palm Beach abode is just a dozen blocks or so down Lake Way from the Palm Beach Country Club, where the alleged Ponzi-schemer had a membership and allegedly recruited investors.

The Palm Beach Post says some kids TP'd the house earlier this week. It wasn't the first incident on the property. Last month someone apparently made off with some bronze artwork from the front yard, but later returned it.

Anyway,  Zillow.com has lots of good details on the five-bedroom, seven-bath (!) home with an estimated value of nearly $16 million.

-- P.F.

A slightly goofy "personal finance" story on Jim "Mad Money" Cramer's TheStreet.com caught my eye this afternoon. It's about people who supposedly buy property online, sight-unseen. The author doesn't cite anyone who's actually done this. The only people he quotes are a real estate agent warning of the danger and a lawyer also warning of the danger.

But still, it got me thinking: Are there any decent golf homes for sale on eBay and the like? Take a gander.

I like the look of this place in San Diego (pictured), with a minimum bid of $435,900. Just remember, as TheStreet.com helpfully points out, "buying a house is much different than getting a new pair of slacks."

-- P.F.

In a recent article in Golf World, contributing writer Geoff Shackelford speculated about whether efforts by President Barack Obama and his administration to jump-start the economy might include golf.

It didn't take long to get the answer: No.

CNN reports that Congress has drawn up a specific list of projects specifically excluded from the proposed $825 billion stimulus package. That list includes zoos, aquariums, swimming pools and casinos -- and golf courses. The language of the stimulus bill stipulates the money should be used only for infrastructure projects of the "highest quality."

"The purpose of this bill is to direct funding at projects that are primarily and clearly aimed at benefiting the economic conditions of communities and the public at large," the bill states. "The federal government and all other levels of government are directed to look with a skeptical eye at projects that don't meet that test."

Golf facilities, apparently, don't meet the test.

-- G.R.

In case you haven't heard or read about the so-called "golf tax" in California, here is an update from today's Sacramento Bee.

In a nutshell: the state of California is facing a $41 billion shortfall between now and the end of 2010. To combat that, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed a variety of new and unusual taxes, including an 8-10 percent tax on all things golf related: everything from green fees and equipment purchases to country club dues. If golf officials in the state are acting and behaving a little singled-out, perhaps its because lots of other recreational actvities -- the article cites bowling, skiing and gym memberships as examples -- are not being similarly taxed.

"My first reaction was that I understand times are tough," said Rod Metzler, whose company, Empire Golf, manages four golf course properties in the Sacramento area. "[But] when I saw the specifics, I thought, 'They're picking on golf.' "

Whether you agree with Metzler's view or not, the timing of this tax couldn't be happening at a worse time for golf, which already faces challenges over flat or declining participation, club membership shortfalls and the ancillary effects of the real estate crisis.

I grew up in Sacramento, learned to play at its two fine public courses, Haggin Oaks and Ancil Hoffman, then spent my summers home from college as a bag room/cart jockey at one of the city's oldest private clubs, Del Paso CC. One of my oldest friends in Sacramento is a guy who has worked in the golf business there for nearly three decades. I called him last week to ask about the golf tax. He told me, "This isn't going to help."

-- G.R.

A couple of thought-provoking housing reports have already landed this week. Yesterday brought news of better-than-expected existing home sales in December, with a month-over-month increase of 6.5 percent. As buyers took advantage of lower prices in golf-heavy regions like California, Nevada and Florida, they made a decent dent in the inventory of unsold homes nationwide. At the end of December, it supposedly would take 3.9 months to sell off all the existing homes for sale, down from 11.2 months in November.

Today we got a better look at the kinds of prices people were paying. In November, prices in 20 markets tracked by Standard & Poor's plunged by 18.2 percent. In the Phoenix metro area, notes the New York Times, home prices fell 32.9 percent from a year earlier. They tumbled 31.6 percent in Las Vegas and 30.8 in the San Francisco area.

And yet, this wasn't as bad as some had expected. Which prompted David M. Blitzer, head of S&P's Index Committee, to tell the Times:  "Maybe the pessimism has been slightly overdone.

Now, that would be a pleasant surprise.

-- P.F.

Sobering look at the state of golf clubs in England in today's Times of London. The English Golf Union published a study that said 40 percent of the clubs in England had fewer members at the end of 2008 than they did at the start (to be fair, 23 percent of clubs had more). The survey suggests that a "demand/deficit" stuation now exists in the English golf club market: more golf club memberships available than golfers interested in filling them.

"In the 1980s and 90s, there was a big expansion in golf because the demand grew so much," Keith Lloyd, chief executive of the Golf Club Managers' Associaton, told the Times. "We built around 850 new courses in that time [there are now about 2,500 in Britain] and now we've probably got a few too many. Without suggesting that some should close, it seems inevitable that some will do so."

According to the study, there are an estimated 81,000 vacancies at English golf clubs -- an average of 46 per facility.

The headline asks "Is this the end of the golf boom?" That might be a little strong, especially considering the quote from one of Lloyd's EGU colleages, Richard Flint, who says, "The trend is that more people than ever are playing the game, but fewer are committing to golf club membership.”

Still, the unarguable conclusion from the study is that the game has challenges.

-- G.R.

Florida's Gulf Harbour Yacht & Country Club, owned for years by WCI Communities, is now owned by its roughly 1,100 members. The transfer took place on Jan. 1, reports the Fort Meyers News-Press.

That surely comes as a relief to many of the club's members and property owners. WCI has been suffering from severe and well-documented financial problems, and last year it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The News-Press quotes Don Shapiro, a member of the committee that negotiated the turnover, as saying new management will spend about three times as much as WCI on capital expenditures. The club has budgeted "about $500,000 the first year and twice that in 2010 and 2011."

Bob Ostrom, head of the committee, says WCI "managed it, like any other company, to make money. Our job is to change that culture." One interesting rule change, which might give home sales a lift as well: Members  will be able to  switch between the Sports membership (initiation fee of $7,000, annual fee of $2,950 and limited golf) and the Golf membership ($40,000 initiation fee and annual fee of $8,000).

-- P.F.