The Week That Was: January 2, 2011

new zealand Another Station Break

Don't look for work on the Bob Charles-designed golf course at Glendhu Bay Station to begin anytime soon.

A judge's ruling has sent the developers, a group known as Parkins Bay Preserve, Ltd., back to the drawing board once again. Despite calling their proposal “in many ways highly laudable,” Judge Jon Jackson has concluded that the developers' 450-acre community -- 42 single-family houses, 75 overnight accommodations, a lodge, and an 18-hole, championship-length golf course -- is inconsistent with existing environmental regulations.

The project, opposed by a variety of environmental and conservation groups, has been hung up in New Zealand's courts for more than two years. Local officials approved it in 2008.

Assuming it's ever built, Parkins Bay Golf Resort will take shape on Glendhu Bay Station, a 7,250-acre farm outside the town of Wanaka, in the south-central part of New Zealand's South Island. The property has been in the family of Bob and Pam McRae since the late 1960s.

The McRaes have enlisted John Darby, the principal of Queenstown-based Darby Partners, Ltd., to oversee the development of Parkins Bay and co-design its 7,014-yard golf course. Charles -- “Sir” Bob, as he’s known in these parts -- lends a certain je nais se quois to the endeavor, as he's not merely one of New Zealand’s most successful professional golfers but a national hero. People started to call him “sir” in 1999, when he became a Knight Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, one of the nation’s highest honors.

Darby and Charles have worked together before, on the golf course at the Millbrook resort in Queenstown. On his own, Darby has designed several high-profile courses in New Zealand, including the one at Jack’s Point resort in Queenstown.

scotland Getting There Is Half the Fun

One of the top links in Scotland is for sale.

It's Machrie Golf Links, a 6,254-yard layout designed by Willie Campbell in 1891 and modernized by Donald Steel in the late 1970s. The course is the featured attraction of a club that describes the track as “a subtle beast with a sense of humour” and promises that playing it will be “a bewitching and exalting experience.”

Okay, we all know the club is biased. So I sought another opinion.

I found one on PGATour.com, where I read that “there may be no better place to experience the true delights of a Scottish links than at the Machrie.”

“The name may not have the panache of a Royal Troon, Carnoustie, or St. Andrews,” says the story on the Tour's website, “but this little-known course contains more links character than all of the rest together.”

If only getting to Machrie wasn't so difficult. The course is located on Islay, the southernmost island of the Inner Hebrides, off Scotland's western coast. Islay has a population of about 3,000. On a clear day in what's called “the Queen of the Hebrides," you can see all eight of the island's single-malt whiskey distilleries.

Location, location, location. That's part of the reason why Machrie is for sale.

The course is an amenity for the Machrie Hotel & Golf Links, which has been taken over by its lenders. It's not hard to see why. The hotel has 16 rooms and 15 chalets, and it's the biggest hotel on the island. It attracts overnight guests during the summer, but the Caledonian Mercury says that it “struggles to fill its rooms during other lean months of the year.”

The property had been owned by a group led by Graham Ferguson Lacey, who'd hoped to attract more business by enlarging the hotel and adding a second golf course. His plans never went anywhere.

According to the Mercury, some people on the island worry that a buyer may not soon be found. This is a legitimate concern. Undoubtedly, a historic, classically designed, highly regarded golf course appeals to many prospective buyers. But it comes with a tiny, seasonal hotel in a place that hardly anyone outside the U.K. can find on a map. Who'd want to own a place like that?

Mike Keiser, are you reading this?

new zealand A Makeover for Royal Wellington

The members of Royal Wellington Golf Club have given the green light to a $7 million overhaul of their golf course.

The renovation, which begins this month, will be overseen by Greg Turner and Scott Macpherson, the principals of Queenstown-based Turner Macpherson Golf Design. The partners plan to lengthen the track, toughen up its greens and bunkers, and bring some of the streams that run through the club's property into play. They also plan to add a new nine for the club’s members.

The club expects the work to take three years.

Royal Wellington is one of New Zealand's premier golf properties. Established in 1895, the club has hosted the New Zealand Open seven times, but its 7,053-yard track no longer challenges touring pros. It last hosted the Open in the mid 1990s.

Turner has called Royal Wellington “a special place and a special club,” but he believes its golf course is “adequate rather than exceptional.”

colombia High on Tourism

Is Colombia about to raise its golf profile?

The nation has 55 golf properties -- among South American nations, only Argentina and Brazil have more -- and last year it hosted the PGA Tour’s first sanctioned tournament on the continent, an event on the Nationwide Tour.

What's more, the Los Angeles Times reports that the soon-to-open Karibana Beach Golf Club in Cartagena, which features a 6,900-yard, Nicklaus Design course, is being considered for some kind of tournament.

So much for Colombia being nothing more than a narco-state. You've come a long way, baby.

The fact is, people from all over the world are visiting Colombia in ever-larger numbers these days, and the nation's tourism business is booming. The number of international travelers who made their way to Colombia increased by 17 percent in 2009, to 1.7 million.

And that number doesn't include passengers from cruise ships, which carry an average of 1,500 vacationers. During the peak season, from October to April, cruise ships dump their passengers into Cartagena 25 times a month.

Karibana Beach will be Nicklaus' second course in Colombia. It joins Ruitoque Country Club in Bucaramanga, which features a Nicklaus Design track that opened in the late 1990s. (The course was designed by Chet Williams.)

Incidentally, a blogger in Colombia, operating as Good Morning Colombia, says that the PGA Tour has sized up Karibana Beach as a possible home of a Tournament Players Club.