SCOTLAND Trump reveals his master plan

Last month, nearly five years after he started searching the northeastern coast of Scotland for a place to build his piece de resistance, Donald Trump unveiled the master plan for what will eventually become Trump International Golf Links Scotland.

The centerpiece of the 1,400-acre resort community, to take shape at the Menie Estate in Aberdeen, will be a 7,400-yard, Martin Hawtree-designed golf course that Trump hopes will one day host the British Open.

If you're wondering, the course won't just be good. It'll be great.

"When people look back, in years to come," Trump told the Aberdeen Evening Press, "they are going to be proud of what will be, without doubt, the best golf course in the world."

In other words, the first course at Trump International Golf Links Scotland will be better than the Old course at St. Andrews, better than Royal Dornoch, better than the Old course at Royal Troon, better than Muirfield. It'll also be better than Castle Stuart and Kingsbarns, if you want to compare it with contemporary links.

And those are only some of the best courses in Scotland.

Trump expects to break ground on the course this summer -- it'll be built by SOL Golf Course Construction, an Irish firm -- and he expects to open it in 2012. He told the Aberdeen Press & Journal that he "had an input into all the holes" -- just as he's done with his courses in the United States -- and that "they are all going to be hard."

Hawtree, a third-generation designer who specializes in creating links-style tracks, told the Press & Journal that "the layout as conceived would contain no weak holes" and that "it will produce simply the most dramatic, stimulating stretch of golf anywhere I have seen."

Besides the golf course, Trump's community will include 500 single-family houses, 950 "holiday" houses, a hotel, a village center, and, eventually, a second 18-hole golf course.

Trump apparently couldn't resist teasing the reporters on hand with a suggestion that he might -- he might -- want to build other golf courses in Scotland once his current project is "well under way."

"Scotland is a great place," he said to the Press & Journal. "Something else could happen for us in Scotland."

One other piece of news from the unveiling: In the future, Trump plans to spend plenty of time in Scotland.

"Once this is built," he said, "I will be there a lot."

Consider it a fair warning.

SCOTLAND TBD by Hermiston Securities, Alloa

The company that plans to build a Paul Lawrie “signature” course in Aberdeen has announced plans to build a golf community in Clackmannanshire.

The to-be-named community will be built by Hermiston Securities, a division of J. W. Muir Group. Muir owns Deer Park Golf & Country Club in West Lothian, Scotland, and it hopes to develop a course at Blairs College that’s been co-designed by Lawrie and Robin Hiseman of European Golf Design.

Hermiston’s new community will be in Alloa, a town that’s seven miles east of Stirling, 30 miles northwest of Edinburgh. It’ll consist of 1,200 houses, a 100-room, high-end hotel, an elementary school, a shopping area, and a “championship-standard” golf course.

Late last year, Ronnie Muir, one of Muir’s directors, told the Alloa Advertiser that his company hopes to break ground on the project in two or three years.

The Irish Stew

Like their counterparts in the United States, Irish architects are finally starting to talk about their overbuilt golf market and what the future holds for golf design.

Yes, there are too many golf courses in Ireland -- something like 425, according to a recent story in the Sunday Independent, with 75 of them added in the past 14 years. That's a lot courses for a country the size of Indiana, even if the people who live there are crazy for golf.

But the real problem is that Irish developers, like their U.S. counterparts, have been building the wrong kind of golf courses -- layouts that are too long, too difficult, too expensive to maintain, and cost too much to play.

We're talking, of course, about those "high-end" daily-fee courses that were all the rage just a decade ago, when legions of people could afford to throw away $75 or $100 -- and sometimes more -- on a round of golf. In Ireland these days, according to the Independent, such facilities -- just like their counterparts in the United States -- are slashing their greens fees and desperately fighting for survival.

Declan Branigan, an Irish architect and agronomist, told the Independent, "Golf in Ireland is at a crossroads, and we need to think long and hard about where we're going."

Do we really? Because the way I see it, there really isn't a crossroads. We've already gone way past that spot in the road.

After everything that's happened since the crash of 2008, and without a sizzling housing market to make people forget about market fundamentals, who in his right mind is going to build -- let alone lend money to build -- an over-designed golf course conceived by an over-inflated architect, especially if it can't possibly turn a profit?

For sure, it won't be the home builders who've floated golf's boat for the past two decades. Their bubble has burst, and they won't be able to justify building $20 million "loss leaders" anytime soon.

So where is the crossroads, exactly?

Because it seems to me that there's really only one road to take: To go smaller and shorter and cheaper. To make golf more affordable and maybe even more fun.

Norman, Sorenstam Will Headline KPMG's Golf Show

Greg Norman is a former professional golfer who's built notable complementary careers in golf course architecture, winemaking, and clothing design.

Annika Sorenstam is a professional golfer who's built notable complementary careers in golf course architecture, winemaking, and clothing design.

Yes, the arcs of their biographies are remarkably similar. And they've both agreed to lend star power to KPMG's seventh Golf Business Forum.

The forum -- the best-attended and most serious event of its kind -- will be held at the Gloria resort in Belek, Turkey on May 12-14, 2010. In years past, it's attracted a diverse, high-level collection of developers, designers, builders, and other golf professionals. It's a good place to rub elbows.

This year, Norman will get a lifetime achievement award and Sorenstam will be honored as the golf entrepreneur of the year.

Who else will be on hand?

Well, there's Tenniel Chu, the executive director of the 12-course Mission Hills Golf Club in Shenzhen, China. If you ask real nice, maybe he'll tell you about his company's new golf resort on Hainan Island, which will reportedly make the original Mission Hills look pint-size.

Peter Harradine, the Swiss architect, will also be on hand, presumably to talk about the course he designing for Rakeen Developments in Georgia. (The nation, not the state.)

Also making an appearance will be Achilles Constantakopoulos, the managing director of TEMES, which is developing the Costa Navarino resort in Messinia, Greece. The resort's first golf course, designed by Bernhard Langer, is scheduled to open this spring. Six more courses are expected to follow.

And then there's Chris White of Aldar Golf, which has built a soon-to-open, Kyle Phillips-designed golf complex for the Yas Island master-planned community in Abu Dhabi. Aldar plans to build a second course at Yas Island when the Middle East's economy perks up.

The forum is being hosted by KPMG's Golf Advisory Practice, which has produced a series of useful studies about the golf business in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. If you snoop around enough at the forum's website -- golfbusinessforum.com -- you should be able to find them.

CHINA The World, Tianjin

Phil Mickelson spent a lot of time in China last year, playing a little golf and tending to some high-visibility golf projects.

Mickelson hasn’t had a particularly successful design career in the United States –- he’s co-designed just one course, at Whisper Rock Golf Club in Scottsdale, Arizona, and his other commissions haven’t gotten off the drawing board -– but that hasn't stopped him from landing two jobs in China.

Both of the contracts were inked by Shining Star Investment Company, Ltd. (a.k.a. Xingyao Investment Company, Ltd.). Shining Star has hired Mickelson to put his name on an 18-hole golf course at its colossal World planned community in Tianjin, the sixth-largest city in the People’s Republic, and on a 45-hole project in Kunming, a rapidly emerging golf destination.

Mickelson has called the World the most impressive project he’s ever seen, and he may not simply be blowing smoke. The World (in Chinese, Xingyao Wuzhou) is a unique, futuristic “floating city” that spreads over more than 11,000 acres. It’s mostly water, with island-like land areas that are meant to resemble the earth’s continents.

The World could eventually become home to 70,000 or more people, and it seems destined to become a global tourist attraction. It’ll have all the essentials -– houses, hotels, shopping areas, eateries, a conference center -– as well as the world’s largest indoor ski area, the world’s largest indoor water park, and replicas of landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower.

The course at the World is scheduled to open in the fall of 2010. While not exactly a replica course, Mickelson has said that its design was inspired by great holes from courses around the world.

“When you go from one hole to another,” he told the Singapore Business Times late last year, “it looks like you’re on a totally different golf course.”

In Kunming, as part of a to-be-named project, Mickelson plans to co-design three courses: a championship-worthy track, a resort-style course, and an 18-hole, par-3 course for kids that will be part of a golf academy he’s designing with Rick Smith.

“We are looking at doing this at other areas throughout China, to help grow the game of golf,” he said in an interview that appeared at the PGA Tour's website.

Do you think it's really about the kids?

Mickelson is co-designing his Chinese courses with Joe Obringer, who's worked in China for several years and has a satellite office in Kunming. In his interview with the PGA Tour, Mickelson said that he and Obringer are “looking at doing some other projects” as well.

BAHAMAS Ground-breaking set for PGA Village

This summer, construction is scheduled to begin on the first PGA Village outside the United States.

PGA Village the Bahamas will be built on Cat Island, the sixth-largest island in the Bahamas. It'll be part of the 1,906-acre Cat Island Golf & Beach Resort, which is to include a casino, single-family houses and other housing types, a hotel, a tennis center, and a beach club.

Rees Jones has designed the village’s first golf course, which will be accompanied by condos, a hotel, a spa, a PGA learning center, and a PGA historical center.

A second golf course is part of the community's master plan, but it isn't likely to be built anytime soon.

Cat Island is being developed by Cat Island Partners, Ltd., a Bahamian company led by Newton, Massachusetts-based Southworth Development LLC. Southworth owns Machrihanish Dunes Golf Club in Machrihanish, Scotland and Coco Beach Golf & Country Club in Rio Grande, Puerto Rico.

David Southworth, the company’s principal, is a former president of Willowbend Developemnt LLC, a company controlled by Paul Fireman, the founder of Reebok. While at Willowbend, Southworth helped to develop Liberty National Golf Club in Jersey City, New Jersey.

The original PGA Village is in Port St. Lucie, Florida, and there's a PGA Village at Coyote Springs in Moapa, Nevada.

What Can Brown Do for You?

You're going to hear the words brown and green a lot this year, as opinion-makers of every stripe debate golf's future -- particularly the design of next-generation golf courses and some issues central to golf development in the 21st century, namely the cost of maintaining overly long, overly lavish layouts that imperil an increasingly fragile environment.

Geoff Shackelford, a blogger and occasional golf designer, weighed in on this topic in the Winter 2010 issue of Links magazine. In a story called "A Simpler Game," he contends that "the course of the future resembles the classics of the past" -- a point of view that's been effectively popularized by Tom Doak and the rest of the crowd that hangs out at Golf Club Atlas.

In his article, Shackelford makes a case for shorter, Scottish-style courses that look "less green, less meticulous around the edges, and a lot less soft." Such courses are the only viable option in a recession, he says, because it costs too much to sustain "lush, pristinely manicured 7,500-yard layouts."

Take that, Tom Fazio.

And Shackelford isn't the only guy who believes that less can be more.

Jim Hyler, the president of the U.S. Golf Association, made the industry's case for going brown earlier this month.

"If we are not careful," Hyler said at the USGA's annual meeting, "high construction costs, soaring maintenance budgets, and declining membership rosters will threaten the survival of many courses and clubs. In my opinion, many of the standards by which we construct and maintain our courses have become, quite simply, unsustainable."

Take that, Jack Nicklaus.

Hyler also highlighted the key environmental problem that the industry must solve, especially in places like Spain, Cyprus, the Middle East, the southwestern United States, and Southern California.

"When it comes to the issue that is perhaps of greatest concern to golf’s future –- namely, water -- we must re-set the way that we look at golf courses," he said. "I believe that our definition of playability should include concepts of firm, fast, and, yes, even brown, and allow the running game to flourish."

And here's his kicker: "We need to understand how brown can become the new green."

Callaway Expects Better Times in 2010

Callaway Golf Company recently released its financial results for 2009, and the results are encouraging.

Overall, of course, 2009 was a lousy year. Callaway sold $951 million worth of clubs, balls, clothing, and other stuff, a decline of 15 percent from 2008.

But the losses came early in the year. In the fourth quarter, Callaway's sales were up by 9 percent over the same period in 2008. It was the company's first quarter of growth in nearly two years.

And the sales increase has apparently brightened Callaway's mood. In 2010, the company expects a further boost in its sales, perhaps to $1 billion or more.

"We are cautiously optimistic that the economy and the golf industry will begin to recover in 2010," said George Fellows, the company's president.

BRAZIL Kuarade, Luis Correia

Jack Nicklaus may be itching to design the golf venue for the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, but his first course in Brazil may take shape on a waterfront site in the state of Piaui.

Delta do Parnaiba Empreendimentos Turismo e Incorporacoes, SA (a.k.a. Parnaiba Delta Enterprises) has hired Nicklaus Design to create an 18-hole course for Kuarade, a resort community in Luis Correia, on Brazil’s northeastern coast.

Besides the golf course, the 475-acre community is expected to consist of 1,500 single-family houses and other housing types, three hotels, and a retail/commercial area.

A promotional piece calls Kuarade “a luxury resort of a quality yet unknown in most of the country.”

It’s the first golf venture for Delta do Parnaiba, which is based in Spain but has an office in Teresina, the capital of Piaui.

The company is currently gathering permits, and it hopes to break ground on the golf course in 2011.

NEW ZEALAND McArthur Ridge, Alexandra

Sometime in 2011, Melview Developments hopes to break ground on a resort community in the Central Otago region of New Zealand’s South Island.

McArthur Ridge will take shape on 2,115 acres in Alexandra, a town of about 5,000 that’s 35 miles southeast of Queenstown. Alexandra is in the heart of Central Otago, a wine-growing region that’s fast becoming one of New Zealand’s top tourist destinations.

At build-out, McArthur Ridge is expected to consist of 1,000 or more single-family and vacation houses, a retail/commercial area, a 150-room hotel with a conference center, a 590-acre vineyard, a spa, and an 18-hole golf course.

Melview, one of New Zealand’s biggest hotel developers, has hired Queenstown-based Turner MacPherson Golf Design to design the golf course. The firm is led by Greg Turner, a professional golfer from New Zealand. Turner and his design partner, Scott MacPherson, are also drawing up plans for the golf course at Gibbston Valley Station in Queenstown.

The Central Otago District Council has rezoned the McArthur Ridge property, but Melview has held off the project’s groundbreaking.

“It’s just a question of waiting for the economic conditions,” a company spokesman told the Southland Times last year. “The climate is a bit tough at the moment.”

Tiger Woods, Designer in Limbo

Elin Woods may have walked out on her philandering hubby, but developers sitting on large tracts of high-priced property in Dubai, Mexico, and the United States continue to stand by their man.

It's because they have to, of course. Their bonds to Tiger Woods run deeper than a ring and a promise.

In Dubai, the crews hired to build the Al Ruwaya course at Tiger Woods Dubai departed months ago. Nonetheless, the CEO of Dubai Properties Group recently told Bloomberg that "the project is ongoing."

In Mexico, on the coast of Baja California, the Woods-designed golf course at Punta Brava was supposed to have broken ground a year ago. Nonetheless, a principal of the Flagship Group recently told the San Diego Union-Tribune that he still intends to build "one of the singular golf clubs in the world."

And in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, just 39 of 1,200 lots at Cliffs at High Carolina have reportedly been sold. Nonetheless, the community's principal told the Wall Street Journal that he's "as committed as ever to High Carolina and the Tiger Woods golf course."

Clearly, Woods still has plenty of friends, just as Charles Barkley said he did. More to the point, though, today he's neck-and-neck in a race with time and money. In scary economic times, how long can even deep-pocketed developers be expected to hold on?

Dubai Properties, Flagship Group, and Cliffs Communities have invested a lot in Woods, and right now, in the midst of the worst recession any of us are likely to see, they can't afford to squander the potential return on their investment. They need to blow some public-relations kisses and support the partnership, because if the Tiger Woods "brand" continues to be battered in the marketplace, their luxurious communities are sunk.

So they put on a brave face. They say all the right things. They stay the course.

But Tiger Woods is in sex rehab, which can't be good for house sales. And loyalty, as we all know, is a fungible commodity, especially for home builders who aren't selling houses.

COSTA RICA Rancho Manzanillo, Liberia

A U.S. firm is trying to secure permits for a resort community in northwestern Costa Rica that it hopes will become “the premier leisure destination in Latin America.”

KC Venture Group (Paul Fingersh, managing member) is leading a group that plans to build Rancho Manzanillo on a 670-acre waterfront parcel outside Liberia, the capital of Guanacaste Province. The community will feature 369 beach and golf villas, a 130-room hotel with a spa and meeting space, a beach club, some fractional housing, and a Fred Couples “signature” golf course.

The hotel and some of Rancho Manzanillo’s houses will be “branded” by Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group, which operates more than 10,000 hotel rooms in 23 countries. The golf course will be co-designed by Lee Singletary, a Plano, Texas-based architect.

Rancho Manzanillo has been in the works for several years. It was begun by Dallas, Texas-based T. F. Stone Companies and a pair of Costa Rican development firms, with KC Venture as a minority partner. KC Venture, which owns and manages more than 9,500 apartments in Midwestern and southwestern states, recently assumed the lead development role.

The partnership hopes to break ground on the community in the fall of 2010.

ABU DHABI Travel numbers are up

Just hours after we reported on the official opening of Gary Player's golf course at Saadiyat Beach, we received a press release from Abu Dhabi touting its tourism results for 2009.

The news is pretty good. The capital of the United Arab Emirates says the number of tourists who stayed in its hotels rose by 2 percent over 2008 -- a surprise, considering the chilly economic winds that blew across the planet.

And, even more encouraging, the number of "guest stays" at Abu Dhabi's hotels increased by 16 percent during the fourth quarter of 2009 -- a hopeful sign for 2010.

"The overall picture is one of rapidly developing momentum," said Mubarak Al Muhairi, the director general of the city's tourism authority.

All last year, people were saying that flat was the new up. Maybe they were wrong.

In all, Abu Dhabi attracted 1.54 million guests in 2009. The largest numbers came from the United Kingdom (96,700), the United States (67,800), India (61,200), and Germany (59,700).

The city hopes to attract 1.65 million hotel guests in 2010.

Now we wait for other tourism ministries to report their figures from last year. Could it be that 2009 wasn't as bad as it felt?

NICARAGUA Who's Kidding Whom?

David McLay Kidd, who recently said his “new hunting grounds are Asia and South America,” has landed a gig in Nicaragua.

The Bend, Oregon-based architect will design an 18-hole golf course at Guacalito de la Isla, a 1,600-acre resort community that will take shape on the Emerald Coast in southern Nicaragua.

The community is being developed by Pellas Development Group (Carlos Hernandez, CEO), which has offices in San Jose and Managua. At build-out, it’ll have houses, several hotels, a marina, a spa, a beach club, and other attractions.

Pellas is marketing the houses to “an affluent audience in search of the next unspoiled place.”

SCOTLAND Trump hires a builder who'll make history

Donald Trump has hired an Irish firm to build what he used to call "the world's greatest golf course." Now he's calling it "the greatest golf course in history."

We're talking about Trump International Golf Links, of course, the most talked-about golf project in the world. Or in the history of the world. The one that will take shape on a sandy, rugged-looking coastal site near Aberdeen, Scotland.

The Martin Hawtree-designed course -- the first of two in the master plan -- will be built by SOL Golf Course Construction, a company based in Ballydesmond (County Cork), Ireland.

"They will do an outstanding job," Trump told the Scotsman.

SOL helped to set up Royal Birkdale Golf Club for the British Open in 2008, and it's built several new courses in Ireland, among them Lough Erne Golf Club in County Fermanagh (Nick Faldo, designer), Castleisland Golf Club in County Kerry (Arthur Spring), Heritage Golf Club in County Laois (Jeff Howes), and Castleknock Golf Club in Dublin (Jonathan Gaunt).

Trump International Golf Links, which will spread over 800 acres, will also have a bunch of houses and a hotel.

It seems like only yesterday that Trump had vowed to build "the world's greatest golf course," a phrase that has stuck to his project like glue. But last fall, in a press release that's been ignored, he said that he was building "the greatest golf course in history."

And that ups the ante just a bit, doesn't it?

With fans like this, who needs enemies?

Man, it's tough being a high-profile golf architect these days. The recession has forced the "signature" designers to cut their fees, lay off staffers, and now, worst of all, take abuse from their former clients.

One of those clients is Bobby Ginn, a master of the marketing "pre-sell," a technique he used exquisitely to develop about a dozen uber-luxurious golf communities in Florida and elsewhere. Last fall, in a story about his rise and fall, Ginn told Links magazine he doesn't believe he'll be shelling out any seven-figure design contracts anytime soon.

"Some of these design fees have gotten out of hand," Ginn said, conveniently forgetting that he helped to create them. "I'm a big fan of Nicklaus and Palmer, but their courses aren't that unique anymore. They're like Walmart -- there's one on almost every corner."

Another Missed Opportunity?

In recent years, the U.S. golf industry has been sending many of its finest assets abroad, in particular its designers and builders. Now it's become apparent that the industry is also sending its flawed business model -- the one that served as a foundation for all those failed, failing, or soon-to-fail golf properties we see from sea to shining sea.

And people are finally starting to talk about it. The latest comments have come from Michael Hurdzan, a Columbus, Ohio-based designer, who addressed the issue in a Sports Illustrated article called "The Gilded Age of Golf Course Design Is Dead."

"The danger I see," Hurdzan told John Garrity, "is that the developers and golf architects will go out and make the same mistakes in Asia that they made here in North America. They'll build mostly big resorts and private clubs. They won't make it a people's game."