The municipal stuff won't take off. A lot of cities got burned. Just like private investors, cities spend too much money building courses. They want subsidized rounds. It's hard enough to make construction work on today's market rates.
Golf is viable, yes.
But you need to be careful. Running a golf course is not as easy as it would seem. Too many look at it from a golfer's perspective of what they see on a Saturday morning. The challenge is driving revenue in non-peak times on a cost effective basis. Many developers and new entrants into the golf industry base financial expectations on the Saturday morning experience.