The Week That Was: January 23, 2011

united states 2010: Down by 61

Final score: 107-46.

No, it's not the result of a college basketball game. It's the number of U.S. golf courses that closed in 2010, as opposed to the number that opened.

The numbers have been posted by the National Golf Foundation, which did its count in terms of what it calls “18-hole equivalents.” The Jupiter, Florida-based trade group notes that our nation has closed more courses than it's opened for five consecutive years.

The NGF also counted the number of existing courses in the United States: 15,890. Of that number, 4,382 are nine-hole tracks.

In 2004, the United States had 16,057 nine- and 18-hole golf courses.

We'll get more disheartening statistics from the NGF next month, when it publishes the 2011 edition of its report on “Golf Facilities in the U.S.”

canada The Quarry Has New Owners

An investment group led by Darren Stalteri has purchased Quarry Golf Club in Ennismore, Ontario.

The sales price wasn't announced. The Quarry features an 18-hole, 6,565-yard course designed by Shawn Watters, an architect based in Elora, Ontario. The course opened in 2007.

“It's a golf course that it doesn't matter whether you're a junior, old, young, men, senior,” Stalteri told the Peterborough Examiner. “It's a golf course that every level can enjoy.”

Stalteri formerly served as the general manager of Black Diamond Golf Club in Millbrook. He sold his interest in Black Diamond late last year and joined two other investors in the purchase of the Quarry.

The group bought the Quarry from Calgary-based Parkbridge Lifestyle Communities, Inc., which had acquired it in 2008.

Watters has designed several other courses in Ontario, including Wildwinds Golf Links in Rockwood and Oak Bay Golf Course in Port Severn.

canada Last Chance for Iroquois Golf Club?

Twice in recent years, South Dundas Township has tried and failed to find new managers for Iroquois Golf Club. Now, in a last-ditch effort ensure that the 18-hole track opens in the spring, it's again seeking help from the private sector.

I have to ask: Will this be a case of “the third time's the charm,” or will it be “three strikes and you're out”?

Responses to the township's call for proposals are due on February 15, 2011. If an acceptable manager can't be found, the course, located in the town of Iroquois, Ontario, will likely be closed.

“The board feels that they want to try, to give it every effort to find someone,” the township's chief administrative officer told the Cornwall Standard Freeholder. “If there's nothing by February 15, the board will have a very serious look at where they're going to go with it.”

The township has reportedly sunk about $200,000 into the course since it took possession of it three years ago.

“At the end of the day, our preference is that the Iroquois Golf Club continue to operate and prosper,” the township's mayor said in a press release. “However, it cannot continue to operate at the expense of other township projects and programs.”

australia Geelong Meets Its Downsizer

Links Living has selected the architect who'll downsize Geelong Golf Club, and his identity shouldn't surprise anyone.

It's Graham Papworth, an architect based in Hastings Point, New South Wales. Links Living previously hired Papworth to design golf courses it hopes to build in Airlie Beach, Queensland (at Whitsunday Springs) and in Madden Plains, New South Wales (Illawarra Golf Club). Both communities have been in the works for several years, delayed by a sluggish housing market and difficulties in securing approvals.

Geelong, which was founded in 1892, is the oldest club in Victoria. Papworth, the president of the Australian Society of Golf Course Architects, will shrink the club's 18-hole course to a nine-hole, 2,400-yard track that he says will “offer an enjoyable challenge to all standards of golfer and at the same time create a premium asset within the estate for future home owners.”

Links Group, which acquired the club in 2003, plans to build 191 single-family houses, 120 houses for seniors, and a “big box” retail store on its 115-acre property.

The club is located in the town of Geelong, about 40 miles southwest of Melbourne.

united states God Save the Republic

Last week USA Today talked golf with talk-radio blowhard Rush Limbaugh, the headliner in this season's edition of “The Haney Project.” In the course of the conversation, the newspaper asked a stupid question -- Do conservatives make better golfers than liberals? -- and Limbaugh gave a stupider answer:

I don't know any liberal golfers. I've met one pro golfer who was a liberal, and that was Scott Simpson. He came to my TV show a long time ago with Paul Azinger. And Scott was a nice guy.


If I had to say, there would be no question, conservatives make better golfers. Golf is an individual game. It's about self-reliance. There is no team. You can't depend on a government regulation or a grant or a subsidy to help you. You can't arbitrarily punish somebody else for doing better than you are doing, like liberals do all the time.

There is no question that liberals would have a tough time with this game and wouldn't like it because they'd have to rely on themselves.

How's that? I dare you to print that.