Investors to buy struggling Des Moines country club

A group of Des Moines-area investors has signed a letter of intent to purchase the Glen Oaks Country Club.

The golf course is home to the Iowa's lone PGA tournament, the Principal Charity Classic. But Glen Oaks was $8.4 million in debt, and West Bank foreclosed on the club in June 2009.

West Bank hired a management firm owned by golfer D.A. Weibring to run Glen Oaks in February and formally bought the club at a sheriff's sale in April.

The investment group says it hopes to complete the purchase by Sept. 15 and says it will invest the resources to make Glen Oaks a first-class club and championship course.

The course opened in 1994. More than 70,000 fans attended the Principal Charity Classic, a Champions Tour event, in early June.