News & Notes from the USA, #5

. . . Later this year, another “minimalist” golf course will begin to emerge from the sand hills of northeastern Colorado. The course, the second 18-hole track at Ballyneal Golf & Hunt Club, has been designed by Bruce Hepner, a recent graduate of the University of Tom Doak. “We're dedicated to creating an equal companion to the first course,” says Hepner, who has a major challenge ahead of him, as Ballyneal's existing, Doak-designed layout has been rated among the nation's best by most everyone with a pulse. Rupert O'Neal, who's developing Ballyneal, says that he has enough land to build “10 really great golf courses,” but he's not yet ready to commit to more golf development on his property. “We've never had grandiose plans,” O'Neal says. “We're going to build a second course. If its turns out nice, we might build a third one. I'm not Donald Trump. I can't just snap my fingers and make it happen.”

. . . Once upon a time, farm land across the nation was converted into golf courses, in order to reach what was described as its “highest and best use.” Today, as food prices spike, evolution is taking us in the opposite direction. The latest example: Whittemore Golf Club in Algona, Iowa, which will be plowed under by its new owner. “I hope to put in a crop this year,” he told the Des Moines Register. Here's why: Since mid 2010, as the price of corn has doubled and the price of soybeans has more than doubled, the golf business in Iowa -- and elsewhere -- continues to shrivel. Such decisions won't be popular in farm states, as small, remote towns lose their golf courses. But that's how the bread is being buttered these days.

. . . Speaking of “highest and best uses,” the Great White course at Miami's Doral resort has officially been put on the endangered list. The resort's cash-strapped owner, an entity called MSR Golf Resort, aims to replace the 131-acre, Greg Norman-designed layout with a bunch of houses and stores. Sheer genius, no? Such creativity! In an attempt to win approval for the plan, MSR's well-paid lawyers wrote in a bankruptcy filing that Doral is “at a strategic crossroads” and that Norman's course is, sadly, “more valuable as an expansive commercial and residential development.” What they didn't say, and what a hotel consultant who talked to the Miami Herald did, is that the Doral “is showing a lot of wear and tear” and is no longer “considered a very high-end resort.”

. . . The American Society of Golf Course Architects has a new president, and he plans to champion the virtues of affordable courses that are fun to play. Welcome, Rick Phelps. “I'm going to do what I can to stand up and speak for the 97 percent of the golf courses that nobody has heard of,” the Evergreen, Colorado-based designer told the Denver Post. In the Post's story, Phelps' views got support from Jim Engh, another Colorado-based designer. “Anybody that doesn't believe we're in the entertainment business is from a different planet,” Engh said. “There has to be a fun factor.”