Fresno's Fig Garden Golf Club will close at the end of the year. Image via Fig Garden Golf Club Facebook page

After 60 years of operation, Fig Garden Golf Club in northwest Fresno is closing.

Visitors to the course will be able to play the links through the end of 2018, said Bill Reitz, general manager of the club. Reitz could not give more details concerning the closure or the future of the nearly 47-acre golf course.

An option to purchase the land, which sits along the San Joaquin River, was filed with the Fresno County Recorder’s Office in October 2017 between ownership and Larry Freels, general partner of Central Green Co., LLP. Central Green Co. of Madera is a nut-farming operation that sued the federal government in a case involving floodwaters ultimately decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2001.

Calls made to Central Green Co. were not immediately returned.

The recorded document stated that Freels has 24 months from when the document was signed to execute a purchase of the land with two possible 12-month extensions available to both parties. The document was notarized on Nov. 3, 2017.

The agreement was filed with the County “so that third parties may have notice of the Option Agreement’s existence,” the document stated.

Gordon Knott founded the semi-private club in 1958.

A letter sent to members cites a decline in interest in the game as a whole over the past few years as a factor in the closure.

“I have not been able to keep up with facility and equipment upgrades necessary to provide the quality that you continue to expect and provide the tools necessary for our staff to perform at their best,” President David Knott, son of Gordon Knott, wrote in the letter.

According to the letter, as profits dropped, management became “unable to compensate our team as they deserve,” as well as make upgrades to clubhouse amenities and maintain equipment and irrigation systems.

“Those of you who knew my father and his great insight would understand how I came to this decision that is one of the most difficult I have had to make,” Knott said.