Unfortunately we are not and have not been privy to the internal workings of WGT or TopGolf. The information flow is very limited and somewhat opaque, For all we know WGT might have been trying to renew the contract until the very last minute, The refusal may have come from Oakmont's side.
From a business sense, since all of the photography and programming was complete and operational, there would have been no additional cost to renew. The royalties paid to Oakmont would be the sticking point as well the possibility that Oakmont no longer desired to have their course on WGT regardless of the "free" money that they would receive for no work.
The fact that we had no warning of the possible loss of this course makes me wonder if the difficulty was on the Oakmont side.When Nike went out of the golf business we were told far in advance. WGT could have made an agreement with Nike to sell the clubs that were already designed and in play for long after they were no longer available in real life.They did not. Why not?
There are two side to these contracts and we don't get to see how they are written or what goes into the fulfillment. We are only aware of how they affect us and since we are not a party to the contract we don't know the decisions that went into making or ending these contracts.
I will miss Oakmont like I miss my favorite restaurant that closed its doors. There is nothing I can do about either event so I will go on playing a different course and eating at a different restaurant.