The Week That Was: September 5, 2010

canada No Golf at Revelstoke?

The planned golf course at Revelstoke Mountain Resort is dead in the water, at least for the time being.

Northland Properties, the owner of the emerging ski resort in British Columbia, didn't meet a June 2010 deadline for the $7.7 million purchase of the golf course site, and the Revelstoke Times Review reports that the purchase agreement has been terminated.

The course at Revelstoke was to have been co-designed by Nick Faldo and architects from Scottsdale, Arizona-based Schmidt Curley Design. Last summer, however, Faldo sued the owners of Revelstoke over an alleged breach of contract.

Northland hasn't completely ruled out building the golf course, but don't expect the ground-breaking to take place anytime soon.

“I think at the end of the day the golf course is still part of the master plan, an important piece of our master plan, and the economy and the success of the resort will tell us when it’s time to move us forward,” said Revelstoke's chief operating officer.

canada Grande Prairie: Where's the Money?

With just weeks to go before reaches its self-imposed fund-raising deadline, Grande Prairie Golf & Country Club is nowhere close to collecting the $4 million it needs to renovate its 1960s-era golf course.

Since June, when the fund-raising campaign began, Grande Prairie has banked just $750,000. It hopes to secure promises for at least $2.5 million by the end of the month.

"We're into the crunch time for the Funding Initiative Plan," a co-chairman of the fund-raising committee told the Grande Prairie Daily Herald-Tribune. "We knew that most of the money was going to come in September, and that's certainly the way that's heading."

The club’s membership has fallen to half of what it was just six years ago, and the difference in revenues isn’t being covered with daily-fee play. According to a story published by the Herald-Tribune earlier this year, the club has lost more than $300,000 in each of the past three years and has debts of more than $1.2 million.

To help attract new members and more rounds, the club plans to completely overhaul its 6,952-yard golf course. The track would close for the 2012 season, and all of its features -– tees, greens, bunkers -– would be rebuilt, a new irrigation system would be installed, and the entire layout would be regrassed. The result, the club believes, would be “the best track in northern Alberta.”

The overhaul will cost $4 million, according to an estimate provided by Puddicombe Golf, a design firm founded by Sid Puddicombe and based in Edmonton.

Even if the fund-raising campaign fails, Grand Prairie intends to open as usual in 2011.

"This golf course will open in the spring, just as it has always opened," said the fund-raising co-chairman. "It just means that our executive has to come up with [another] plan. At some point down the road, no matter what happens, this golf course has to be refurbished."

new zealand And the Winner Is ...

According to group of nearly three dozen golf pros, architects, and tour organizers -- admittedly a small sample -- Wairakei International Golf Course is the best golf course in New Zealand.

The Wairakei course, which sprawls over 450 acres in Taupo, was co-designed by a Brit (Commander John Harris) and a pair of Australians, Michael Wolveridge and Peter Thomson. It was built by the nation's Tourist Hotel Corporation in 1970, to draw international travelers to New Zealand.

The next three courses on the list were designed by U.S. architects and are also of recent vintage. Kauri Cliffs Golf Club in Matauri Bay was designed by David Harman (it's also owned by an American, Julian Robertson), Kinloch Golf Club in Taupo features the only Jack Nicklaus "signature" course in New Zealand, and Cape Kidnappers Golf Course in Hawke's Bay has a Tom Doak-designed track.

The fifth course, Paraparaumu Beach Golf Club in Paraparauma Beach, has an Alex Russell-designed course (he's Australian) that the club says is "one of the greatest links courses in the Southern Hemisphere."

The first home-grown architect on the list is John Darby, who designed the sixth and seventh courses on the list: Jacks Point Golf Course in Queenstown and the Hills in Arrowtown.

The list was compiled by Andrew Whiley, a Dunedin-based PGA pro who's played 19 of its top 25 courses.

If you'd like an alternative viewpoint, Golf Digest says Cape Kidnappers is New Zealand's top course, followed by Kauri Cliffs, Paraparaumu, Titirangi Golf Club in Auckland (it features the nation's only Alister Mackenzie-designed course), and Wairakei.

scotland So Much for Tradition

Officials at Royal Troon Golf Club, a place that seems to embody all those dusty Scottish golf traditions, recently turned away a U.S. golfer because he was wearing a kilt. They told him to put on trousers like everybody else.

Jeffrey Foster, a radiologist from Louisville, Kentucky, was allowed to play in a kilt at seven other Scottish courses -- including tracks at St. Andrews, Carnoustie, Muirfield, Turnberry, and Kingsbarns -- during an eight-day golf vacation.

"They thought it more than appropriate, seeing as Scotland is the birthplace of the game of golf and the home of its original set of rules governing play," he told Scotland on Sunday.

But not Royal Troon, which was founded in 1878 and hosted its first British Open in 1923. It's one of the 30-odd golf clubs in Great Britain that are allowed to carry the treasured "royal" designation.

"Royal Troon has been stuffy back to the days when Colin Montgomerie's father was secretary," the editor of Scottish Golf View told the paper.

For future reference, the folks at Royal Troon welcome kilts in their clubhouse.