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.
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