The Week That Was: September 20, 2010

canada Mike Keiser's Next Must-Play Course

Canadian golf writers have recently been taking good, long looks at Cabot Links, the Scottish-style course taking shape along the Gulf of St. Lawrence in Nova Scotia, and they like what they see.

“The Rod Whitman design is going to be brilliant,” wrote Scoregolf's managing editor in his blog.

“I’d say it is going to be exceptional,” said a writer from CanadianGolfer. “Top 10 in Canada? That’s a possibility.”

Cabot Links is expected to open its first nine holes next summer, its second nine in the summer of 2012. It's being developed by Ben Cowan-Dewar, who owns a golf travel company, and Mike Keiser, the visionary who proved -- with Bandon Dunes in Oregon and Barnbougle Dunes in Tasmania, Australia -- that golfers are willing to travel to the world's most remote places to play impeccable, walkable golf courses.

Cowan-Dewar, one of the creators of GolfClubAtlas.com, told the Cape Breton Post that Cabot Links “really does sort of mimic the great links courses in the British Isles. I think that’s really what the excitement’s been about.”

scotland Hazelhead's Re-Do: Back on Tap

The on-again, off-again plan to overhaul the municipally-owned Hazlehead golf complex, particularly its Alister MacKenzie-designed golf course, appears to be on again.

The Aberdeen Evening Press says that Sport Aberdeen, the group that now oversees the 45-hole complex, plans to renew discussions with the prospective development group next month. The group, known as the MacKenzie Club, had previously offered to invest more than $30 million into the facility, but its negotiations with the city of Aberdeen fell apart last year.

The centerpiece of the redevelopment plan will be a restoration of Hazlehead's premier course, which opened in 1927. MacKenzie, one of the most respected architects in the history of golf (not to mention an expert in camouflage), designed some of the world's great courses, including the West course at Royal Melbourne Golf Club in suburban Melbourne, Australia; the Portland Course at the Royal Troon Golf Club in Troon, Scotland; and Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia.

MacKenzie Club is led by Brian Hendry, who owns some property in Augusta, Georgia. He recently offered to renovate and manage the city's money-losing golf course.

england A New Course in Cambridgeshire

A development group led by Michael Taylor of City & County wants to build an 18-hole, championship-length golf course in Great Paxton, a village roughly 15 miles west of Cambridge, England.

Pending approvals by local officials, Cambridgeshire Golf Club & Academy will be built on property known as Low Farm, reports the Cambridge News. To prepare the site, Taylor's group plans to dump 120,000 tons of fill on the property.

The approvals appear to be forthcoming, although the village's council clearly has some reservations about the project's economic viability. “There are already more than 30 golf courses in this area,” the council said in a press statement, “all experiencing membership difficulties in the present economic climate.”

united states Before the Bankruptcy, Welcome Rewards

Even though it was bleeding money and tottering on the verge of bankruptcy, Sea Island Company still managed to pay more than $500,000 in bonuses to its top decision-makers this year.

According to the Associated Press, Sea Island's Chapter 11 filings indicate that David Bansmer, the company's president, received $222,000 in bonuses in addition to his $450,000 salary. Also receiving bonuses were a group of vice presidents, namely Ron Roberts ($88,000), Henry Cate ($75,000), Richard Shelnut ($75,000), and Eric Schneider ($50,000).

The tony resort in Georgia, in the United States, filed for bankruptcy protection last month and is scheduled to be sold at auction next month. Its owners reportedly owe more than $600 million to various lenders, and over the past two years they were forced to lay off hundreds of employees, probably 500 or more.

canada For 2011, Two New Courses in Central Alberta

A pair of player-friendly 18-hole courses are expected to open in the Edmonton area next year, both of them designed by Sid Puddicombe's design firm. Each of the courses -- Coal Creek Golf Course in Tofield and Whitetail Crossing Golf Club in Mundare -- are located within a short drive of Beaverhill Lake, about 40 miles east of the city.

Coal Creek, which is taking shape atop property that's been used as a coal mine since 1918, will open in two phases, in June and, fingers crossed, sometime later in the fall. Puddicombe's Edmonton-based firm had to reshape the site with more than 1.5 million cubic yards of fill.

"The golf course will be of a very high standard and will be of sufficient quality to handle any professional tournament, although the prime target will be for area residents," Grant Puddicombe, one of Sid's sons, told the Edmonton Journal.

The Puddicombes and Laurent LeBlanc, an Edmonton-based businessman, are developing Whitetail Crossing, which will anchor a golf community with 600 houses. Puddicombe says the 7,100-yard track "has a rural feel to it and is not overly demanding."

united states High Carolina, Under Construction Again

The 'dozers are moaning and groaning again in Swannanoa, North Carolina, as work has resumed on the Tiger Woods-designed golf course at the Cliffs at High Carolina.

The course, part of a 3,000-acre resort community that's had trouble selling its pricey lots, is scheduled to open in the fall of 2012. It'll almost certainly be Woods' first completed course, as the tracks he's designed in Dubai and Mexico are still stuck in financial mud.

Woods' design team has rerouted the original layout to lessen its impact on the property's trout streams. As a result, Woods says, the course will be a little shorter than expected.

"I'm looking forward to getting back there to check on construction," he told the Associated Press.