The status of the two golf courses adjacent to Sugar Loaf Resort became more clouded last week when the owners of one of the golf courses, Kings Challenge, sued the owner of the neighboring Sleeping Bear Golf Club over ownership of equipment.

Kings Challenge Golf Course, L.L.C. and Leelanau Country Club, Inc., headed by real estate developers Brian Sculthorp of Florida and Ed Fleis of Leelanau County, formerly owned the Kings Challenge Golf Course. Last year, however, they were forced to turn the course back over to its previous owners after they were unable to continue making payments to the former owners.

The previous – and current – owners of the King’s Challenge Golf Course are a trio of legal entities, among them the Sugar Loaf Ridge Development corporation, whose many partners include a former owner of Sugar Loaf Resort, John Sills.

The corporations headed by Sculthorp and Flies are now suing the corporations Sills is associated with for not turning over approximately $50,000 worth of equipment – primarily tractors, lawnmowers and other groundskeeping equipment. After Sugar Loaf Ridge Development reacquired the Kings Challenge Golf Course from Fleis and Suclthorp’s corporations, the two golf course owners agreed to share the equipment for a specified period of time.

That agreement has expired, however, and the owners of Sleeping Bear Golf Course want their equipment back, according to the Circuit Court complaint they filed Feb. 21.

Sugar Loaf Resort, the Sleeping Bear Golf Club, and the Kings Challenge Golf Course property were all under the same ownership more than a decade ago, but the properties were split in 1997, with the resort sold to a corporation headed by Remo Polselli. In 2005 Kate Wickstrom purchased Sugar Loaf Resort and Fleis and Sculthorp bought the adjacent golf courses, a sewage treatment plant, plus additional land near Sugar Loaf Resort.

Early this year, Brad Lutz of Omena signed an option to purchase Sugar Loaf Resort from Wickstrom. Lutz acknowledged earlier this month that he’d been in touch with Fleis and Sculthorp to discuss how they might work with him to help revive Sugar Loaf Resort.