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.
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