Steve Smyers plans to spend a good part of the next year in Evian-les-Bains, France, where he’ll oversee a complete makeover of what’s said to be “one of Europe's most beautiful courses”: the 18-hole track at Evian Masters Golf Club.
Evian Mineral Water Company has hired Smyers to give the 6,620-yard layout a $6 million to $7 million overhaul, to prepare it for its next life -- beginning next summer -- as the home of the LPGA's fifth major.
“This is a unique opportunity to take a fantastic golf course and transition it into the model of future championship play,” the Lakeland, Florida-based architect told Golf Digest.
The golf course has been drawing vacationers to the Royal Parc Evian resort since 1904, when its first nine holes opened. (The second nine arrived in 1922.) No doubt, part of the attraction is the setting: Royal Parc Evian is snuggled against the southern shore of Lake Geneva and is said to offer enchanting views of the Swiss Alps.
But the course has become a little rough around the edges, and Smyers has been directed to upgrade all of its design elements, create some spectator-friendly viewing areas, and give it a little more length, to make it a legitimate championship venue.
The work is scheduled to begin any day now. It’ll be the first major overhaul that the course has received since Cabell Robinson redesigned it in the late 1980s.
new zealand Sold: Kinloch Golf Club
The only Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course in New Zealand has a new owner.
John Sax has purchased Kinloch Golf Club in Lake Taupo, which features a 7,363-yard Nicklaus “signature” course that opened in 2008. Nicklaus courses aren't everyone's cup of tea, but most observers believe his inland links at Kinloch is among New Zealand's premier golf properties.
“This is not your typical Jack Nicklaus course,” a British golf reviewer concludes. “The property is a piece of farmland on volcanic terrain, flanked by craggy hills and panoramic views over majestic Lake Taupo. Nicklaus has crafted a rugged, ramshackle masterpiece into this landscape, but it will surprise some visitors to learn that most of Kinloch’s features are entirely man-made.”
Sax, the principal of Southpark Corporation, owns the Treetops Lodge in Rotorua, one of the top-rated vacation destinations in New Zealand. By 2012, he hopes to open what he's described as a “world-beating lodge” and a conference center at Kinloch, and he eventually aims to find space for up to 69 houses on the hills adjacent to the course.
“It's a stunning location,” he told the Rotorua Daily Post.
morocco Vacation Houses Take a Holiday
Despite record tourist traffic and an ambitious golf development program, vacation houses in Morocco are selling for a song.
According to a report in the National, since 2008 the prices of vacation houses in Marrakech, one of the most popular vacation places, have fallen by as much as 50 percent. As a result, work on many large-scale resort communities in Morocco has stopped, calling into question the future of the 13 golf courses that are expected to open in the nation over the next three years.
“The second-home market collapsed totally,” a real estate consultant told the paper.
The reason for the collapse: Over-exuberant developers flooded the market with over-priced villas and condos, thinking that Morocco was about to become the world's next great holiday hot-spot. Those units now can't be sold, because falling prices in better-established vacation destinations -- Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italy, Cyprus -- have proved to be more attractive to bargain-hunters.
The irony is that Morocco continues to attract large numbers of tourists. In 2010, the number of arrivals hit 9.3 million, an 11.5 percent increase over 2009. What's more, the numbers posted in the first quarter of this year are up by 6 percent over those recorded in the first quarter of 2010.
At least some of that tourist traffic has been generated by Morocco's 27 golf courses, many of which have opened over the past decade. But the tourist traffic isn't translating into real estate sales and most likely won't until prices fall even further.
“I'm bullish on Morocco in the long run,” another consultant told the National, “but what will happen is that a lot of developers will have to reset their price point.”
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