Abandoned golf course worth £13m and owned by LIV chief has been left to rot after shutting in 2018

With the 2025 Masters ongoing, the course's status as a cathedral of the sport has been a fitting backdrop to the sporting drama.

The Augusta National Golf Club is notoriously exclusive and its strict rules and off-limits facilities give it a romance and a mystique that's lapped up by its rich and powerful members.

Sports fans and participants put a lot of stock in their football pitches and cricket grounds and golf courses, and the communities around them.

But one course 50 miles outside Los Angeles, California has been abandoned and left at the mercy of the elements since its shock closure seven years ago.

The Golf Club of Vellano in the Chino Hills of San Bernardino County was shuttered in 2018 and has been on sale ever since.

The course was designed by Greg Norman, the Chairman and CEO of a colossal global corporation that bears his name and has a reported net worth of more than £300 million.

Known in his playing days as the Great White Shark, Queensland-born Norman won The Open twice and has achieved enormous success since turning his hand to the business side of sports.

The Vellano club appears to have been a rare mis-step, however, and according to The Sun has been in a state of disrepair since 2018.

"The former Golf Club of Vellano has become an overgrown husk of a golf course," reported Tony Robertson.

"Having opened in 2006, the course struggled financially before it was eventually shut in May 2018.

"The closure came without warning, and just 24 hours after members of the homeowners’ association informed their board they did not want residential development on the golf course."

The then-president of the local residents' body suggested that the association's opposition to those Vellano club development plans were not unconnected.

Alamy

Now overgrown with grass and trees, the luxury club and its private 18-hole golf course were made available for the serious sum of £13.7m.

"The maintenance buildings are also up for sale separately for £7.8m," reported The Sun.

"There are even 175 properties on the outskirts of the course up for £4.2m, while empty lots are also up for sale for around £760,000."

Norman was an early investor in the controversial LIV golf operation, primarily owned by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF).

The Australian was LIV Golf's CEO until January 2025, when he was replaced by former New Jersey Devils and Philadelphia 76ers CEO Scott O'Neil.