russia The Swing of Things

Let’s say you’re the mayor of the most important city in your country, and you believe golf is a vital economic-development tool. So you ask the city’s corporate elites to build some golf courses, but they can’t do it because their businesses have been ravaged by the recession. Who would you turn to?

If you’re Yuri Luzhkov, you’d turn to your wife.

She is Yelena Baturina, and she’s said to be Russia’s richest woman. As recently as 2008, according to Forbes, she was worth $4.2 billion. The magazine says she’s only worth about a billion today, but jeez, we’re still talking real money.


Baturina plans to spend some of her fortune building a golf course on former farm land in the western suburbs of Moscow. A company she controls owns property near Ulitsa Nizhniye Mnyovniki, and a Russian newspaper says that Jack Nicklaus has been “invited” to build a “world-class” layout on it. Nicklaus hasn’t commented on the reports, but considering the state of the design business these days, it’s hard to imagine him turning down the invitation.

The as-yet-unnamed course won’t be Baturina’s first. She owns Grand Tirolia Golf & Ski Resort in Kitzbuhel, Austria, which features a golf course (Eichenheim Golf Course) designed by Kyle Phillips. The track is said to be among the top golf properties in Austria.

And it may not be her last, either. Another company Baturina controls, Kudla Group, reportedly owns 3,700 acres in Morocco, and it’s got plans to build golf resorts in the towns of Aouchtam and Tetouan. Each of the resorts would have houses, a hotel, a marina, a shopping area, and a nine-hole golf course.

Baturina, the mayor’s second wife, made her money in the construction business. Her firm, Inteco, made out like a bandit when Luzhkov, who was elected in 1992, set out to rebuild Moscow’s aging infrastructure and its decrepit commercial landscape. At one point, Inteco (in Russia, Inteko) was said to be getting 20 percent of the city’s construction projects, a fact so troubling to its competitors that Luzhkov was accused of -– cover your ears, boy and girls -– municipal corruption.

As is so often said, it helps to have friends in high places.

With Inteco’s profits, Baturina amassed substantial land holdings in the Belgorod region of western Russia. She bought hotels in Sochi, the tourist town on the Black Sea that will host the next Winter Olympics. Through Inteco, she began to sponsor golf events, including the Russian Open.

But things haven’t gone well lately for the mayor and his wife. A few months ago, Luzhkov was booted out of office for criticizing the national government. Inteco has reportedly had trouble paying its debts, and last year it couldn’t afford to put its name on the Russian Open, which had to be canceled.

Nevertheless, we’re talking about people who are worth a mint. So, like the gold-plated Russian in the DirecTV commercials, Baturina “jump into it” when she got the opportunity to build a golf course within a short drive of the city. Various reports say she’s purchased 87 acres, but that’s not nearly enough to design an 18-hole course. I suspect that she owns some adjacent property,

In 2006, as you may remember, Luzhkov said he’d open 10 regulation-length golf courses in and around Moscow by 2011 -– sadly, a promise he didn’t keep. Today there are four 18-hole courses in metropolitan Moscow, including one, at Tseleevo Golf & Polo Club, designed by Nicklaus.

The Week That Was, December 26, 2010

anguilla Staubach Makes a Play for Norman's Course

A group led by Roger Staubach, the one-time Dallas Cowboys quarterback, is closing in on the purchase of a troubled, half-built Caribbean resort that features a Greg Norman-designed golf course.

Cypress Equities expects to buy the 280-acre Temenos resort, on Anguilla, and turn over its management to Montage Hotels & Resorts. The resort has been dying a slow death since 2008, when its owners decided to quit throwing money at it.

Temonos' 7,063-yard golf course, the only course on Anguilla, opened in 2007 and was closed for at least part of 2009. It's currently being operated by the nearby Cap Juluca resort.

One of the island's government officials once called Temenos -- it's a Greek word that means sanctuary -- “the most important project Anguilla ever had.” The resort was begun by Robert Sillerman, a billionaire who made most of his money in the radio and television business. He also hit the jackpot when he invested in a blockbuster Broadway show (Mel Brooks' The Producers), and in 2005 he bought the company that produced “American Idol” and “So You Think You Can Dance.” Simon Fuller, the creator of those shows, bought a pricey, as-yet-unbuilt vacation house in Temenos, as did Dan Brown, the author of The Da Vinci Code and other novels.

In late 2009, shortly after Temenos slipped into receivership, Sillerman admitted to the Wall Street Journal that resort development “was not my area of expertise by any stretch of the imagination” and confessed that his development plans “exhibited an element of hubris.”

Cypress Equities has 30 days to seal the deal for Temenos. Sillerman and his partner, Flag Luxury Properties LLC, reportedly invested more than $180 million in the resort, and they believe it'll cost as much as $120 million more to complete it.

Staubach had once planned to build a resort in the Caribbean from scratch -- Royal Island in the Bahamas, which was to feature the world's first Jack Nicklaus Golf Club -- but he's obviously decided it's cheaper to buy one than to build one.

india Goa Goes for Golf

Back in the 1960s, hippies beat a trail to Goa, making it one of India’s favorite vacation spots. Today, nearly 10 percent of the 5 million tourists who visit India each year pass through the state, whose tourism officials believe they could attract more vacationers if they had more golf courses.

As a result, Goa’s government is seeking a private-sector partner to help it build an 18-hole course in Pernem, a town in the northern part of the state, 20 miles north of Panaji. The state's tourism minister told the Economic Times that three groups have expressed an interest in building the course.

Goa is especially hoping to lure golf-crazy Japanese tourists, who can be found in large numbers at the Taj Mahal, the Ajanta Caves, the temples of Varanasi, and some of the other popular tourist attractions in other Indian states.

“We want to get them to Goa, too,” said Goa's tourism minister. “For that, the state needs to put up facilities required for them.”

It should be noted that Goa's government has been down this road before. Years ago, it was foiled in an attempt to build a golf course on a site overlooking Arambol beach and the Arabian Sea. The plan was opposed by a variety of community groups, and it died a quick death.

As a result, Goa currently has just one 18-hole course, a K. D. Bagga-designed layout at the Intercontinental resort in Canacona.

Incidentally, the state’s monsoon season stretches from July through the end of September. Wear your galoshes.

malaysia A 'Mockery' of a Golf Course Is Sold

LAND & General Berhad, a development firm based in Kuala Lumpur, has agreed to buy a golf resort in Seremban, the capital of the Malaysian state of Negeri Sembilan.

Tuanku Jaafar Golf & Country Resort features a 27-hole golf complex that was designed by an Australian, Rodger Davis, and opened in the early 1990s. It spreads over 400 acres and includes about 50 developable residential lots and an industrial site.

Land & General paid just over $8 million for the property, assuming that my currency converted is working properly.

The golf complex has apparently seen better days. An online critic has called it a “mockery of a course” that “you will probably play once and not come back” to. Though it hardly seems to matter, he added that its previous operators provided the “worst ever golf course service in Malaysia.”

Tuanku Jaafar is Land & General's second golf property, as the company co-owns an 18-hole, Craig Perry-designed track at the Hidden Valley golf community in suburban Melbourne, Australia.

scotland At Kingsbarns, It Was a Very Good Year

2010 may have been a downer at most of the world's golf courses, but not at Kingsbarns Golf Links.

The number of rounds played at the Kyle Phillips-designed track in St. Andrews, Scotland surpassed 27,000, an increase of 30 percent over the number played in 2009. There was enough demand to extend the course's season by two weeks.

So much for flat being the new up.

What's more, even better times could be ahead for Kingsbarns. In a press release, the course's general manager reports that bookings for 2011 are running 10 percent ahead of the marks recorded at this time last year.

If you're among those who plan to make a reservation for 2011, a round will cost you $293.

sweden More on the Renovation at Ullna

An American living in Sweden read my recent post on the renovation of Ullna Golf Club (December 8) and provided a few more details on the work.

His name is Gene Oberto, and when he isn't producing articles for Golf Digest or writing books (he's written The Swedish Golf Experience), he hosts a website called Swedish Golf Online. The site writes about Swedish golf in English and was created, Oberto says, because “the golf world knows about Swedish golfers but very little about the golf world they came from.”

As it happens, Oberto recently filed a report on Ullna's proposed renovation. Here's what he had to say:

It has been almost a year since the rumors began that a planned renovation of Ullna Golf Course in Åkersberga, outside Stockholm, would be done by Jack Nicklaus' design firm, with Jack designing the plan himself. Even on the Nicklaus Design's website, the project still says TBD. But it was only last June 15 that the shareholders of Ullna Golf AB gave the green light to the project.

“We received very strong support from the members (of Ullna Golf) to implement the renovation project starting July 1, 2011,” says Lars H. Hemmingsson, the president of Ullna Golf AB, to the magazine Swedish Golf.

The classic layout, next to the northern shore of Lake Ullna, will keep its current route. Some sight lines will be adjusted, and bunkers will be added, moved, or, in some cases, removed entirely.

The biggest and most important change will consist of rebuilding all fairways and green areas. A new drainage system will be built. The entire course will be covered with a layer of sand about 20 cm thick, to further help and improve drainage. Some fairways will be elevated 50 centimeters higher from today's level.

“Apart from the fact that we have a enjoyable golf course to play, the renovation will improve playing conditions, allowing Ullna to extend its season,” said Sven-Eric Bergman, chairman of the Ullna Golf AB.

The greens and fringe areas will be rebuilt according to USGA standards, and new, more environmentally friendly grass, as yet unspecified, will be utilized. The hope is to create hardier and more easily managed greens than the ones currently.

In addition to the renovation of the 18-hole course, a first-class short-game area will be built where the existing driving range is located, next to the indoor practice hall, Golfpunkten.

“In conjunction with the upgrade, we plan to build one of Scandinavia's best training areas for the short game. Of course, with the same high quality as the golf course,” said Sven-Eric Bergman.

The price tag for the project is reportedly around 50 million krona ($6.5 million). Financing is provided both by equity and loans from the club members, shareholders, and a bank.

For that substantial sum, the club has, however, one of the world's most renowned architects and, without a doubt, greatest players, to sit behind the drawing board.

It was Ullna's original creator, Sven Tumba, who lured in his friend, Jack Nicklaus, three years ago when Nicklaus Design had begun to sketch out how the “new” Ullna should look like.

The rebuilding begins July 1, 2011, and the course will be fully playable for the 2013 golf season.

tanzania The Army Retreats

Howard Swan aims to transform TPDF Lugalo Golf Club into Tanzania’s first “international-standard” golf course.

Lugalo started out with a nine-hole track, and some club members designed a new nine that opened last year. We suspect that the new holes aren’t quite up to snuff, because the club’s owner, the Tanzanian Peoples’ Defence Force -– the national army -– has asked Swan to redesign and thoroughly overhaul the track.

Swan, who’s based in Essex, England, says his goal is “to create a place where beginners can come and learn the game, but also where the public and pros can play at the highest level.”

The work is scheduled to begin in early 2011. The club also plans to build a practice center, and in the future it hopes to enlarge its clubhouse and add some overnight accommodations.

Lugalo is in Dar es Salaam, which has just one other 18-hole course, at Gymkhana Golf Club. There are nine other courses in Tanzania, all of them nine-hole tracks.

The Week That Was: December 19, 2010

netherlands Ian Woosnam, Poised for Take-Off

Sometime in the summer of 2012, an Ian Woosnam “signature” golf course is expected to open at the busiest international airport in the Netherlands.

The 18-hole, par-73 course will most likely be called Amsterdam International Golf Club, as it's being built by a group that calls itself Amsterdam International Golf Club. It's taking shape along the northern edge of Schiphol airport, on 190 acres that the group has leased from the airport's real estate arm, Schiphol Real Estate.

“The golf course will be absolutely world class and conform to the highest international standards,” promises Marcel Welling, a director of Amsterdam International Golf Club.

Welling is a board member of the Charleston, South Carolina-based National Golf Course Owners Association and the CEO of Amsterdam-based BurgGolf, which is said to be the largest golf-course operator in the Netherlands. BurgGolf reportedly owns and/or operates 10 golf properties, including courses in the cities of Purmerend, Zoetermeer, Legemeer, Wijchen, and Middelburg.

A press release says that Woosnam's design partner is a company called Mastergolf. I believe the reference is to Mastergolf International, an Antwerp, Belgium-based firm led by Bruno Steensels. Mastergolf International also works with Darren Clarke, Lee Westwood, Rory McIlroy, and other European golf pros who desire to do “signature” golf designs.

The developers expect to seed Amsterdam International in the spring of 2011.

canada ClubLink Acquires #41

In a sale that has been rumored for months, ClubLink has acquired Glendale Golf & Country Club in Hamilton, Ontario.

The King City, Ontario-based company, Canada's largest owner and operator of golf properties, paid $3.2 million for Glendale. The club, which was founded in 1919, is among the first private venues to open in the Hamilton area. Besides an 18-hole golf course, it features six sheets of curling ice.

“Glendale has a long and proud history, and we look forward to continuing that reputation,” said ClubLink's president, Rai Sahi. “The Hamilton area is an active and growing golf market, and Glendale will complement the magnificent Heron Point Golf Links, our existing club in the area, very nicely.”

With the acquisition of Glendale, ClubLink owns 23 golf properties in metropolitan Toronto, among them Glen Abbey Golf Club in Oakville, King Valley Golf Club in King City, and RattleSnake Point Golf Club in Milton. Overall, ClubLink's portfolio consists of 41 golf properties in Ontario, Quebec, and Florida.

“The members of Glendale Golf & Country Club are eagerly anticipating the many benefits of being part of ClubLink, particularly the opportunity for reciprocal play at so many other fine courses,” said Glendale's president.

australia A New Wave at Pelican Waters

Early next year, Greg Norman's first “signature” golf course in Queensland goes under the knife, in an effort to make it kinder and gentler.

I'm talking about the 18-hole golf course at Pelican Waters Golf Club, which opened in 2000. One critic has described the 6,954-yard track as “tough, and perhaps at times unforgiving,” and warned golfers who wish to play it from the back tees that “it may well eat your lunch.”

Not surprisingly, such notices have scared off many potential customers, and the club's management is now taking steps to make the course more user-friendly. The club has committed $250,000 to removing nearly two dozen of the course's 90 bunkers.

The work is scheduled to begin in February and is expected to take about three months to complete.

Norman recently approved the changes, saying that they “will make this course a tremendous experience and a challenge for all levels of golfers.”

Pelican Waters is located on Queensland's Sunshine Coast, an hour's drive north of Brisbane.

scotland Donald Trump, Blowin' in the Wind

A simple twist of fate, as Bob Dylan called it, has put Donald Trump in the center of yet another Scottish controversy.

Many times in recent years, as he pressed ahead with plans to build a large-scale resort community on environmentally sensitive sand dunes in Aberdeenshire, Trump was accused of destroying Scotland's natural heritage. Now the tables have turned, and Trump is accusing a proposed wind farm in the North Sea of -- you guessed it -- destroying Scotland's natural heritage.


“These turbines, if ever built, will in one fell swoop destroy Scotland's magnificent natural heritage,” complained Trump, who plans to build close to 1,500 houses, a 450-room hotel, and a pair of 18-hole golf courses on the Menie Estate.

To be sure, Trump is no defender of anyone's natural heritage, except perhaps his own. His real objection to the wind farm, which he calls “noisy and unsightly,” is that it'll ruin the views that he aims to offer prospective home buyers at Trump International Golf Club Scotland.

“Every component of our project is based upon sea views,” he said. “We cannot allow the construction of what is tantamount to 65-story structures off our coastline.”

Not surprisingly, a lot of people in Scotland have taken to calling Trump a hypocrite.

“If Mr Trump is so concerned about the natural beauty of Scotland's coast, he should stop destroying it himself,” argued Martin Ford, the Aberdeenshire councilmember who led the fight against Trump's community. “Unlike his own construction project, the proposed turbines will not harm any designated nature conservation site. They will not 'destroy Scotland's magnificent natural heritage,' though Mr. Trump has done exactly that at Menie.”

Trump has vowed to “vehemently oppose” the development application for the wind farm when it goes before planning officials next year. It'll be interesting to see how much support his campaign gets.

australia Home on the Grange

Greg Norman has been hired to redesign the golf course that launched his professional career and set him on the road to fame and fortune.

It's the East course at Grange Golf Club, where Norman, at the age of 21, won his first professional tournament, way back in 1976. Norman set a course record during the event and became, virtually overnight, a star.

“This course will always be special to me,” the West Palm Beach, Florida-based designer said earlier this year.

Grange’s East course was designed by Vern Morcom, an Australian architect, and opened in 1967. Late last month Norman spelled out his plans for the club's members, and afterwards the club's president said the presentation “went off very, very well, probably even better than we expected.” Norman is said to be confident that his work will “boost the profile of the course.”

The construction is expected to begin in July 2011 and conclude in 2013. The club figures to work on six holes each year.

The club -– it’s located in Grange, a western suburb of Adelaide –- also has a second Morcom-designed 18-hole course.

Shameless Self-Promotion, December 2010

In the just-published issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report, we ask an eternal question of Annika Sorenstam: Does she or doesn't she?

No, we aren't wondering if she dyes her blonde, Swedish hair. We're wondering about her golf project in China.

Sorenstam, the retired golf star, recently let it slip that she has a design project in China. She even said where it was. But now she's zipped her lips, and her associates and handlers at IMG aren't talking either.

Still, we believe we've found it. And frankly, if we had a commission from the same client, we wouldn't be talking either.

Speaking of IMG, in December's World Edition we also profile a course that Paul Casey, another one of the firm's clients, is designing in China. It's on Hainan Island, and it's Casey's first "signature" layout.

We also give the low-down on new courses designed by Nick Faldo, Kyle Phillips, Graham Cooke, Ian Woosnam, Paul Thomas, Graham Marsh, Phil Ryan, and Jeremy Pern. They're in Cambodia, South Africa, Croatia, St. Kitts, Brazil, Australia, China, and Morocco.

There's more, too: New projects in Jamaica, Cuba, and Morocco, plus renovations in Thailand, Venezuela, England, and Australia.

If you'd like to see this month's World Edition, give me a call at 301/680-9460 or send an e-mail to me at WorldEdition@aol.com.

france Von Hagge's French Kiss

Golf World says Les Bordes International Golf Club is the home of Europe’s number-one golf course, the late Robert Von Hagge’s “piece de resistance.” So will the club’s second course improve on the original or pale in comparison?

We won’t know for sure until 2013, when the new course is expected to open. Until then, we’ll have to take our cues from Tony Jimenez, the chairman of Les Bordes Holdings, who says the forthcoming track, co-designed by Von Hagge and Rick Baril, will be “on a par with all the quality and competitiveness the existing Les Bordes course has to offer.” He believes it’ll eventually be recognized as “one of the great courses of the world.”

No pressure, though.

Les Bordes is located in Saint-Laurent-Nouan, a town about 20 miles southwest of Orleans, in the Loire Valley of central France. The club’s first course was built by Baron Marcel Bich, whose goal was to create “the Augusta National of Europe.” The 7,062-yard, target-style track is without question a bear, difficult even for touring pros. For a decade after it opened, in 1986, the course record (held by Jean Van de Velde) was a one-under 71.

The new course will be more forgiving than the existing layout, with wider fairways and less treacherous bunkers. Baril is overseeing the construction, which is scheduled to begin next year.

Bich, as you may know, was the founder of Societe Bic, the company that makes Bic pens. When he died, in 1994, Les Bordes turned over to one of his business partners, Yoshiaki Sakurai. Jimenez, a former vice president of player development for Newcastle United, the British soccer club, formed an investment group that bought the club in 2008. Mark Vickery is the group’s managing director.

In addition to the new course, Les Bordes Holdings plans to build some houses and a five-star hotel. The group had once planned to build a third course as well, but they’ve iced that idea, at least for now.

The Week That Was: December 12, 2010

south africa Is All Publicity Good Publicity?

An official groundbreaking is a publicity event, not a construction event, and as such shouldn't be taken very seriously. Still, the groundbreaking recently held to promote the forthcoming Gary Player “signature” golf course at Zimbali Lakes Resort can tell you a lot about what really matters in golf course development these days.

Did you know, for example, that Player's firm, which has designed more than 300 golf courses on five continents, is primarily motivated “by our proven ability to add substantial value to real estate and resort properties”?

Those are words that Player apparently uttered during his “keynote address” at the groundbreaking. It says so in the press release that promoted the event.

You'd think that a guy who's devoted his entire life to golf, a guy who's become a veritable golf icon, would have higher aspirations. Instead, Player is telling us that his main goal has always been to sell real estate.

Whoop dee doo.


Note to Gary Player: Hire new publicity people. The people you're paying now are selling you short.

This time out, Player is selling real estate for a community in KwaZulu-Natal province, in South Africa. The course he's designed will measure 6,880 yards from the championship tees, be “user-friendly,” and feature those “panoramic views” that so effectively jack up the prices of lots. According to the press release, the course will put “an emphasis on shot values and course management,” whatever that means, and, most importantly, “intrigue the imagination while offering a fun and enjoyable golf experience.”

At build-out, Zimbali Lakes will consist of roughly 1,000 housing units, a hotel, office space, some retail and commercial components, and a bunch of other “aspirational” amenities. Its developers have a motto: “Living in harmony with nature.” Zimbali Lakes apparently exemplifies it.

The developers are IFA Hotels & Resorts and Tongaat Hulett Developments, both of whom understand what amenities like “branded” golf courses can bring to a marketing campaign. At the groundbreaking, one of IFA's division presidents said the course would “enhance the intrinsic value and natural beauty of the KwaZulu-Natal north coast” and introduce “a new era for exceptional investment opportunities.”

The press release fails to mention that IFA and Tongaat Hulett have already built one golf course on their property in the province, a Tom Weiskopf-designed golf course at Zimbali Coastal Resort. It also overlooks the fact that the construction of Player's course was supposed to have begun in 2009.

canada Mike Keiser's Search for Perfection

This week a Golf Digest blog checked in with an update on the construction of Mike Keiser's new golf course in Inverness, Nova Scotia.

The first nine holes of Cabot Links, Matt Ginella reports, is scheduled to open in July 2011, with the full 18 expected to get a soft opening three or four months later. The 6,942-yard track has been designed by Rod Whitman, a Canadian.

Like all of Keiser's golf properties -- notably the Bandon Dunes resort complex in Oregon and Barnbougle Dunes in Tasmania -- Cabot Links is taking shape on sandy, coastal property that it takes a real effort to get to. (Calculate how long it'll take you to fly into Halifax, then add two and a half hours of drive time to Inverness.)

Of course, serious golfers will make the effort, in the same way that true gastronomes will move heaven and earth to get a table at a five-star restaurant.

To be sure, Keiser knows his menu isn't for everybody. Nonetheless, he has a purist's vision of what golf ought to be -- he believes that a golf course should have a soul -- and he won't compromise on his principles. People say he's stubborn, and he's probably difficult to work with. But that's part of the reason why his new course in Bandon, the Old MacDonald track, has been named best course of the year by magazines as diverse as Golf and Men's Journal.

When the pack was chasing Open venues, charging big green fees, and selling real estate, Ginella writes, Keiser was spending 15 years slowly piecing together Bandon Dunes for the avid golfer, offering no carts, no houses, and affordable package deals in the off-season. Now, when courses are closing all across the country, Keiser opens up Old Macdonald in Oregon and is forging ahead with a new course in Nova Scotia.

And despite the recession, Keiser is already thinking about Cabot Links' second 18. It'll be designed by Bill Coore, who has a course in planning at Bandon Dunes and a recently opened course at Barnbougle Dunes.

zambia Mark Wiltshire, Zambia's Open Doctor

Beginning next month, Mark Wiltshire will oversee a renovation of the course that'll host the Zambia Golf Open in October 2011.

It's Nchanga Golf Club, which was once (in 1979) considered by Golf Digest to be the 14th-best golf course outside the United States. The course hasn't made anyone's best-of list for at least two decades.

Wiltshire, a golf consultant based in George, South Africa, expects to spend about six months on the renovation. The track's tees will be enlarged and regrassed, its bunkers will be rebuilt, and a new irrigation system will be installed.

“Our aim is to build user friendly golf courses, enjoyable for all, and at the same time create a balance in design with tee and bunker placements to ensure a stern championship layout,” Wiltshire wrote in a comment posted at Golf Course Architecture.

The club is in Chingola, in the heart of Zambia's copper country, and its owner, Konkola Copper Mines, has budgeted $2.5 million for the makeover.

Wiltshire, a former touring pro, manages the David McLay Kidd-designed golf course on the island of Laucala in the South Pacific as well as a few courses in South Africa, notably Gardener Ross Golf & Country Estate in Gauteng and Irene Golf Club in Pretoria.

brazil The Shark Continues to Prowl

During a press conference before the Shark Shootout, Greg Norman offered some thoughts about the 2016 Olympics and the process of selecting a designer for the golf venue that will be built somewhere in metropolitan Rio de Janeiro.

As you've no doubt heard, Norman and Lorena Ochoa have formed a design partnership and are among the groups vying to design the golf course. The course needs to be open by 2015 at the latest, because the International Olympic Committee wants it to host some tune-up tournaments well before the Olympic games begin.

To make those dates, things need to start moving. By next summer, Norman said, he expects the field of potential architects -- there are said to be seven or eight serious contenders -- to be whittled to three. He believes the winner could be selected soon thereafter.

“They’ve got to make a decision here no later than August of next year, I would think,” he said.

Of course, before they can select a designer, the powers that be have to select a site. At one time it was said that an existing course could be used, but that idea no longer appears to be likely.

sweden Nicklaus' Swedish Massage

Eager to revive its fading reputation, Ullna Golf Club has hired Nicklaus Design to overhaul its Sven Tumba-designed golf course.

The course, which opened in 1981, has hosted events on the PGA European Tour, but today it’s too short to challenge big hitters and is no longer considered the top course in metropolitan Stockholm. Worse, the layout -– it’s located along Lake Ullna and is said to have “water, water everywhere” –- gets too wet to stay open consistently for the club’s nearly 600 members.

Nicklaus plans to give the layout some pizzazz, as Tumba is better known in Sweden as a hockey player (he played in four Winter Olympics) than a golf architect. The firm will rebuild the layout’s greens to USGA standards, regrass its tees and fairways (some of the latter will be elevated), rebuild and relocate its bunkers, and add a short-game practice area.

The club has budgeted $6.5 million for the work, which is set to begin next summer. If all goes well, the course will reopen in 2013.

worth reading A Clash of Club Cultures

Golf Club Atlas recently posted an interview with Ian Dalzell, the general manager of Hidden Creek Golf Club in Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey. Dalzell grew up in Northern Ireland and cut his golf teeth at Royal Portrush Golf Club in County Antrim.

Here's Dalzell's answer to the question, "How is the golf service business different in the United States than Northern Ireland?"

There is no doubt about it, the golf business in the U.S. is a service business, whereas in Northern Ireland and other parts of Britain it is all about the business of golf.

The best way to describe it is to give an example of the average day of a golfer in each country, and I hope you will understand my tongue is firmly in my cheek as I try to enhance this example to get my point across.

The Ireland golfer arrives at the club, parks his own car, goes to the locker room and gets his own bag out of the locker, puts on his shoes that maybe haven’t seen polish for a while (no locker room attendants in Ireland), slings his bag on his shoulder, pops his head in the shop to say hello to the pro and let him know he is going out to play, and off he goes. When he finishes his round, he cleans his own clubs and shoes, puts them back in the locker, and heads upstairs for a cold pint with his foursome.

All in all, he only came into contact with the golf pro and a bartender. Seems pretty simple, really.

American golfer, once successfully navigating his way through the gate with guard house, pulls up at the bag drop, where he is greeted by an outside services associate with an earpiece who has already been informed of his arrival by the guardhouse employee. He steps out of his car, which is then promptly parked by the outside services associate, and his clubs are placed on a cart, which may or may not have his name on it. He heads to the locker room, where the attendant greets him and tends to his needs for the day.

From there, the American golfer heads to the grille to get a cold Gatorade and maybe half a sandwich from the waitress. Next up is the range, where balls have been set up for his convenience, and after a 30-minute warm-up he heads to the tee with his trusted caddie. After four holes, a beverage carts appears to quench the thirst of the golfer, greeted and tended to by the beverage cart attendant. She will visit on up to four occasions during the round, so a cold drink is never too far away.

After the round, the American golfer has his clubs cleaned by the caddie and placed in the car by the bag-drop staff. He heads to the locker room, where he meets the afternoon shift locker room attendant, who promptly cleans off his shoes and invites him to take a hot shower or steam. After that, the visit to the grille for a cold drink is a must, and as he leaves the staff will bring his car to the front door and wave him off.

All in all, the American golfer may have come into contact with service personnel at least 12 times during his day, which is why service is what drives American golf. In Europe, the focus is squarely on the golf. A huge difference in cultures.

The Week That Was: December 5, 2010

australia Norman's Latest Conquest

Planning officials in New South Wales have blessed a plan to build a resort community near Sydney that will feature a Greg Norman-designed golf course.

The to-be-named, 1,150-acre community will be take shape on a former coal mine, the Huntley Colliery, in Dapto, 45 miles south of Sydney. At build-out, it's expected to consist of several hundred houses (some for the general market, some for retirees), a few dozen “stay-and-play” golf cottages, a 100-room hotel with meeting space, a village center, and a small private hospital.

The developers, a group called HTT Huntley Heritage, have been trying to get the property rezoned and the project approved since 2007, if not before. They expected regional planners to approve the project in October, but the planners held off due to concerns about several issues, including what the Illawarra Mercury describes as “the impact of the proposed in-ground irrigation system at the northern end of the course on Aboriginal heritage.” The developers defused the planners' worries by agreeing to install an above-ground “traveling irrigator” instead of an in-ground system.

Norman will design a championship-length course for the community, along with a golf training center.

dubai . . . And Into Dust Thou Shalt Return

If you've been wondering about what's happened to Tiger Woods Dubai and the first golf course to be designed by one of the greatest players ever to swing a club, well, here's the grim news: the Middle East's slice of desert paradise has been all but abandoned, and it's about to become the next victim of the global economic crash.


Just two years ago, Tiger Woods Dubai was an oil sheik's ultimate golf dream, a fantasy community so exclusive that only billionaires could afford to live there. It was to have just 200 houses: $11 million villas, $15 million mansions, and what the salespeople called “"palaces,” with no prices listed. If you had to ask, they weren't for you.

None of them have been built, of course.

On the first anniversary of the car crash that led to the unraveling of a brilliant career, the Guardian paid a visit to the veritable ghost town that once held such promise. The newspaper found nothing more substantial than dust: a fake Arabian palace, an empty sales office, disconnected telephones.

Six holes of the golf course have been completed and the remaining holes have been roughed out, but what would have been Al Ruwaya Golf Club is now fenced off and hidden from public view. Something like 3,000 trees were planted along the fairways, but 8,000 trees are still waiting to be planted. They're being stored under wraps, and, according to the Guardian, they drink up a million gallons of water every month.

That's a lot of water for an operating golf course and an obscene amount for one that hasn't rung up a single greens fee.

And that's why, within just a few weeks, the people behind Tiger Woods Dubai will almost certainly give up the dream. The Guardian says they'll make their final decision before February, when Woods arrives to play in the Dubai Desert Classic.

“They better make a decision soon, because we are struggling to keep the desert at bay,” an employee on the property told the newspaper.

What was once a desert will be a desert again. From dust to dust.

“The smart money around town is on the return to nature,” the story says. “After all, what use is a billionaires playground when there are no billionaires?”


scotland A Bridge Over Troubled Golfers

Some Scottish golfers are seething about a proposal to build a foot bridge on one of the oldest, most historic golf courses in the United Kingdom.

“What they are proposing is a great tragedy,” the secretary of the Royal Perth Golfing Society told the Scotsman. “We have no objection in principle to a bridge across the river. Our objection is simply to the bridge at this location.”

The location is North Inch Golf Course, a 5,442-yard track that welcomed its first golfers (with a six-hole layout) in 1803. The course's final six holes were designed by Old Tom Morris in the early 1890s.

The proposed 656-foot bridge would cross the River Tay, connecting the villages of Perth and Scone. Its construction would require the green on the course's 15th hole -- the course's signature hole and one often cited as being among the top 100 holes in Great Britian -- to be relocated. It would also require the relocation of the course's 17th tee, reducing the par-4 hole into a par-3 hole.

And, perhaps worst of all, the construction would require the course to close at least some of its holes for about a year.

The chairman of a golf group based at North Inch said the bridge will “ruin” the course. Nonetheless, local officials are expected to approve its construction.
A local councilmember believes it'll be an “iconic” addition to the local landscape.

asia The Next Wave

Before the Australian Open, Greg Norman fielded questions from reporters gathered at a press conference. His answers to several questions have been posted at the website of Great White Shark Enterprises.

Here's a little of what Norman had to say about golf in Asia.

I am a strong believer that the East will take over the West in 20 years -- maybe a generation from now, which is about 20 years. The development of the game in places like Vietnam and China, Cambodia, Korea, Laos, Indonesia, [and] Malaysia is just incredible. . . . The development of the game there is going to be higher than anywhere else.

When China gets into gear -- there is still a moratorium on golf course construction in China -- but when they figure out a way to get to the 30 million golfers in China that the government anticipates, you know what is going to happen. They are going to develop and generate some phenomenal players, male and female.

The West is lagging now. The game is slow in the United States. It is not developing the way it did in the 1980s and 90s. . . .

Corporations are going to Asia now because they are sick of getting zero percent interest, zero percent return on their money. They are investing in the Third World countries where they are getting good returns on their money, and the growth and development are showing it. . . .

worth reading The Downturn Down Under

Over the past decade, golf construction in Australia, like golf construction in the United States, has been driven by residential real estate.

But today the development model isn't working as well as it used to. The houses envisioned to be built around golf courses aren't selling, and developers are beginning to wonder if golf is the sales generator it's long been cracked up to be. They're asking themselves if other forms of open space -- lakes, trails, parks -- can move their inventory as well as, or better than, golf courses can.

“Golf is used as an amenity to improve the real-estate proposition,” Jeff Blunden says in the September issue of Australian Golf Digest. “But if the real estate proposition doesn’t even work, then golf’s not going to get a look in. And there’s plenty of evidence out there of golf developments that haven’t met original expectations.”

Blunden, who's described by the magazine as “a golf industry analyst,” has reportedly reviewed the financial statements of nearly half of the new courses built in Australia over the past decade, and he says that some of them are suffering significant losses -- losses of $500,000 or more annually.

Based on his analysis, Blunden has some advice for prospective Australian golf developers. In order to be profitable, he contends, new courses can never be completely private. The day they open their doors, he asserts, they need to have 600 members, a number that must quickly grow to 1,000. They need all those members because they have to generate at least 40,000 rounds a year, at a price of $70 or more per round.

And one other thing: the restaurant in the clubhouse can't sustain itself on golfers alone.

Now you know why golf is such a tricky business.