Over the next three years, the city of Edmonton expects to commit $30 million to an overhaul of its three golf courses.
The bulk of the work will be done at the city’s regulation-length courses, Riverside and Victoria, each of which will be shut down for a season. The courses will be lengthened, their greens will be rebuilt, their irrigation systems will be modernized or replaced, and their clubhouses will be refurbished.
Riverside, which opened in 1949, is scheduled to close in the fall of 2012 and reopen in the spring of 2014, while Victoria, the city’s oldest course (its original nine opened in 1896), is scheduled to close in the fall of 2013 and reopen in the spring of 2015.
“Nothing is set in stone yet, but it’s a recognition of the age of the facilities and that changes needed to be made,” Michael Duerr, the city’s golf operations manager, told the Edmonton Journal.
Less substantial work will be done to Rundle Park Golf Course, an 18-hole, executive-length track.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Monday, August 29, 2011
talking points The Best Revenge
If you could live anywhere in the United States, where would you live?
Forbes has some ideas, and they mostly involve moving out West. Eight of its top 12 private golf communities -- including five of the top six and seven of the top 10 -- are “western” communities.
Here's the list. I've edited the magazine's comments. If you want to read the whole story, click here.
1. Red Sky Ranch -- Wolcott, Colorado
Without a doubt the premier ski country golf facility in the nation, with two excellent courses that have both been rated in the U.S. top 100, one by Tom Fazio and one by Greg Norman. The
residential choice of PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem. . . . Importantly, while both courses are excellent, they are very different, something sorely lacking in many multi-course communities, with the Fazio more classic and the Norman more dramatic, with vast elevation changes and risk/reward plays. Both are framed by majestic Rocky Mountain views at every turn. . . .
2. The Boulders -- Carefree, Arizona
One of the first stand-out luxury residential golf developments in the nation, the developers at the Boulders made a big mistake 30 years ago that has greatly benefited homeowners. They painted themselves into a legal corner of limited master plan development, and the result is far less homes than would be the norm if this 1,300-acre resort community were built today. . . . The Boulders sits in the Sonoran foothills outside Scottsdale amidst a vast desert landscape of saguaro cacti, palo verde trees, and the namesake towering boulder formations, and the architecture is distinctive and singular, like something out of the Flintstones. The two gorgeous desert courses by highly regarded designer Jay Morrish are superb. . . .
3. Yellowstone Club -- Big Sky, Montana
Literally one of a kind, the Yellowstone Club is the only private golf community that also has a full-sized private alpine ski area. There are other developments with ski hills and lifts, but this is big-time skiing -– bigger than Deer Valley or Beaver Creek. . . . The skiing might just be the main attraction, but together with an excellent Tom Weiskopf-designed golf course, massive stone and timber clubhouse, spa, multiple dining outlets, equestrian facilities, blue-ribbon fly fishing on private frontage, and even a private fire department, these unrivaled facilities are the reason folks like Bill Gates bought houses here. . . . The place is immense, nearly 14,000 acres with 46 miles of paved internal roads, yet it is also very private and secure, befitting its buyers. The only problem is it is hard to get to and somewhat isolated, and most of the residents rely on private aviation.
4. Sandestin -- Destin, Florida
If value plays a role in golf community quality, then it is hard to beat Sandestin, and virtually no place your vacation home dollars go further. Located on the famed 26-mile stretch of “sugar sand” beach in South Walton County in the Panhandle, one of the best beaches in the world, the region is a far cry from crowded and heavily developed south Florida. A huge development built by Intrawest, the company behind Whistler/Blackcomb and Copper Mountain, 2,400-acre Sandestin contains 30 different sub-communities with thousands of homes and condos, and it has won endless awards from Golf magazine and Golf Digest for its four high-quality golf courses, including The Raven by Robert Trent Jones, Jr. and the flagship Burnt Pines, an excellent Rees Jones design. . . There is a large tennis club, spa, 98-slip marina, seven miles of beach and coastline, a shopping center, a large pedestrian retail village, 20 restaurants, and several hotels. Owners have to share the courses with resort guests, but that is part of the reason why the value proposition is so strong, and there is plenty of golf to go around. . . .
5. Mayacama -- Santa Rosa, California
The Jack Nicklaus signature course here is without a doubt the finest golf course in American wine country and easily the best in the most prestigious Napa and Sonoma region. For that reason, big name vintners and well-to-do Bay Area residents -– it’s less than 60-miles from the Golden Gate Bridge -– have embraced the place, making it one of the most desirable private clubs in the nation and one of the most intimate. There are only 31 home sites within Mayacama’s gates and will never be more, plus 31 villas and cabins sold in fractional interests. . . . The main features at Mayacama are the golf course -- walking only with caddies and ranked in the most prestigious top 100 list, public or private -- and the extensive wine program. Every member gets a second locker just for wine, temperature controlled, and many of the vintner members make special releases just for the club, with the wine list boasting bottles you cannot buy anyplace else.
6. Shooting Star/3 Creek Ranch -- Jackson, Wyoming
One of the wealthiest and most star-studded towns in the nation, Jackson is home to movie stars like Harrison Ford, vice presidents like Dick Cheney (who lives here full-time on a golf course), so many multi-millionaires they hardly register, and billionaires like Charles Schwab. It is home to the finest ski resort in the nation, and even more popular in summer due to its extensive outdoor beauty and activities as the gateway to Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. In keeping with Jackson’s accolades, it is home to two golf communities so spectacular I couldn’t pick just one, so it is a tie. 3 Creek Ranch has a fantastic Rees Jones layout with an enviable location near town with the region’s best views of Grand Teton. . . . Early buyers here were Schwab and Tiger Woods. The newer Shooting Star has an equally excellent Tom Fazio course reminiscent of a mountainous version of Shadow Creek, a stand-out design, and likewise boasts impressive log cabin luxury, with a great clubhouse, spa, and fine dining. The main difference is that while 3 Creek is close to the town of Jackson, Shooting Star is immediately adjacent to the ski resort, literally bordering its parking lot. . . .
7. Kiawah Island Club -- Kiawah Island, South Carolina
Kiawah is most famous for its 90-hole luxury golf resort, one of the best on earth, which includes the Forbes (formerly Mobil) 5-Star Sanctuary Hotel and the Ocean Course, the best east of the Mississippi, a Ryder Cup venue and host of next year’s PGA Championship. But one side of the island is entirely devoted to a quietly prestigious private community, the Kiawah Island Club, which has two stand-out courses of its own plus access to the five at the resort. . . . Besides the full slate of luxury club amenities like restaurants, spa, and golf, plus an endless list of special events and activities for adults and families, the unique attractions of the club are its location, one of the most charming and beautiful yet accessible around, and its sister clubs -- Ireland’s Doonbeg, with its Greg Norman links course, and the new Christophe Harbour, with a Fazio design, in St. Kitts.
8. Village of Pinehurst -- Pinehurst, North Carolina
Pinehurst is the most famous and historic location in American golf, home to more big events than anyplace else, including the Ryder Cup, PGA Championship, repeat U.S. opens and Tour championships, and just about every other significant USGA event for men, women, and amateurs. The Pinehurst resort was the very first golf resort in the nation and remains the largest, while its famed Number Two is the seminal design of Donald Ross’ long and successful design career. . . . A living, breathing museum of golf, Pinehurst is frequently called the “American St. Andrews,” and, like its Scottish counterpart, offers an incredible deal for actual residents. Village homeowners have the right to buy an annual unlimited membership package to seven of the resort’s eight courses (including Number Two) for as little as $300 monthly -- far less than the dues at most good one-course country clubs. . . .
9. Martis Camp -- Truckee, California
The most successful golf course development in the Tahoe area, this 2,200-acre community combines the regional best of both worlds: golf and skiing. Owners enjoy a stand-out Tom Fazio golf course plus a three-acre lake, spa, fitness center, 20 miles of running and hiking trails, and, most notably, a private ski lift with direct access into the recently expanded and upgraded Northstar-at-Tahoe ski resort. . . . Martis Camp sits just 12 miles from the lake, one of the most impressive in the nation, and is positioned as “a private, gated national park experience.” It is also one of the most family-friendly golf communities ever built. . . .
10. The Golf Club at Black Rock -- Coeur d’Alene, Idaho
Talk about your hidden gems! The course at Black Rock is simply spectacular, a stand-out even among the best private club layouts in the nation, designed by stealth architect Jim Engh, not exactly a household name but the genius behind such winners as the Sanctuary, Redlands Mesa, and the Creek Club course at Reynolds Plantation. It combines drop-dead eye candy with strategic decisions at every turn and is great fun to play. Then there is the setting on pristine Lake Coeur d’Alene, 30 miles long with nearly 200 miles of coastline. Another unsung asset is weather: three quarters of the year, the weather is not just good, it’s great. . . . The original developers at Black Rock got into financial trouble, and the club is now owned by its members. . . .
11. Talisker Club -- Park City, Utah
The Talisker Club is a unique golf and ski hybrid community located in and around Deer Valley, one of the most desirable, expensive, and prestigious ski vacation home spots on the planet. The original golf club community spans 10,000 acres
adjacent to the ski resort, with an excellent Mark O’Meara-designed golf course featuring 360-degree mountain views. . . . On top of that, the club has plenty of other great facilities, including fishing, water sports with club boats on the Jordanelle Reservoir, hiking, horseback riding, and, in the winter, cross-country skiing on the golf course. . . . But what sets the club apart is its Talisker Tower, a three-story clubhouse located mid-mountain on the slopes of Deer Valley, complete with private dining and second spa facility, so that members have a home away from home on the slopes. . . .
12. Reynolds Plantation -- Lake Oconee, Georgia
Georgia’s second largest lake, the 20,000-acre Oconee, was entirely man-made by hydroelectric efforts in the 1970s and today is a major recreational and second-home destination. It is also home to one of the most impressive golf communities anywhere, Reynolds Plantation, which offers a whopping six golf courses by top designers including Jack Nicklaus, Rees Jones, Jim Engh, and Tom Fazio (with a seventh by Pete Dye in development), all of them very good, including stand-outs Great Water, Oconee, and Creek Club. . . . There is a Ritz-Carlton Lodge on site, great restaurants throughout, and endless amenities from tennis to the lake itself. No private club in America has the breadth of golf that Reynolds Plantation boasts, all just an hour from Atlanta.
Forbes has some ideas, and they mostly involve moving out West. Eight of its top 12 private golf communities -- including five of the top six and seven of the top 10 -- are “western” communities.
Here's the list. I've edited the magazine's comments. If you want to read the whole story, click here.
1. Red Sky Ranch -- Wolcott, Colorado
Without a doubt the premier ski country golf facility in the nation, with two excellent courses that have both been rated in the U.S. top 100, one by Tom Fazio and one by Greg Norman. The
residential choice of PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem. . . . Importantly, while both courses are excellent, they are very different, something sorely lacking in many multi-course communities, with the Fazio more classic and the Norman more dramatic, with vast elevation changes and risk/reward plays. Both are framed by majestic Rocky Mountain views at every turn. . . .
2. The Boulders -- Carefree, Arizona
One of the first stand-out luxury residential golf developments in the nation, the developers at the Boulders made a big mistake 30 years ago that has greatly benefited homeowners. They painted themselves into a legal corner of limited master plan development, and the result is far less homes than would be the norm if this 1,300-acre resort community were built today. . . . The Boulders sits in the Sonoran foothills outside Scottsdale amidst a vast desert landscape of saguaro cacti, palo verde trees, and the namesake towering boulder formations, and the architecture is distinctive and singular, like something out of the Flintstones. The two gorgeous desert courses by highly regarded designer Jay Morrish are superb. . . .
3. Yellowstone Club -- Big Sky, Montana
Literally one of a kind, the Yellowstone Club is the only private golf community that also has a full-sized private alpine ski area. There are other developments with ski hills and lifts, but this is big-time skiing -– bigger than Deer Valley or Beaver Creek. . . . The skiing might just be the main attraction, but together with an excellent Tom Weiskopf-designed golf course, massive stone and timber clubhouse, spa, multiple dining outlets, equestrian facilities, blue-ribbon fly fishing on private frontage, and even a private fire department, these unrivaled facilities are the reason folks like Bill Gates bought houses here. . . . The place is immense, nearly 14,000 acres with 46 miles of paved internal roads, yet it is also very private and secure, befitting its buyers. The only problem is it is hard to get to and somewhat isolated, and most of the residents rely on private aviation.
4. Sandestin -- Destin, Florida
If value plays a role in golf community quality, then it is hard to beat Sandestin, and virtually no place your vacation home dollars go further. Located on the famed 26-mile stretch of “sugar sand” beach in South Walton County in the Panhandle, one of the best beaches in the world, the region is a far cry from crowded and heavily developed south Florida. A huge development built by Intrawest, the company behind Whistler/Blackcomb and Copper Mountain, 2,400-acre Sandestin contains 30 different sub-communities with thousands of homes and condos, and it has won endless awards from Golf magazine and Golf Digest for its four high-quality golf courses, including The Raven by Robert Trent Jones, Jr. and the flagship Burnt Pines, an excellent Rees Jones design. . . There is a large tennis club, spa, 98-slip marina, seven miles of beach and coastline, a shopping center, a large pedestrian retail village, 20 restaurants, and several hotels. Owners have to share the courses with resort guests, but that is part of the reason why the value proposition is so strong, and there is plenty of golf to go around. . . .
5. Mayacama -- Santa Rosa, California
The Jack Nicklaus signature course here is without a doubt the finest golf course in American wine country and easily the best in the most prestigious Napa and Sonoma region. For that reason, big name vintners and well-to-do Bay Area residents -– it’s less than 60-miles from the Golden Gate Bridge -– have embraced the place, making it one of the most desirable private clubs in the nation and one of the most intimate. There are only 31 home sites within Mayacama’s gates and will never be more, plus 31 villas and cabins sold in fractional interests. . . . The main features at Mayacama are the golf course -- walking only with caddies and ranked in the most prestigious top 100 list, public or private -- and the extensive wine program. Every member gets a second locker just for wine, temperature controlled, and many of the vintner members make special releases just for the club, with the wine list boasting bottles you cannot buy anyplace else.
6. Shooting Star/3 Creek Ranch -- Jackson, Wyoming
One of the wealthiest and most star-studded towns in the nation, Jackson is home to movie stars like Harrison Ford, vice presidents like Dick Cheney (who lives here full-time on a golf course), so many multi-millionaires they hardly register, and billionaires like Charles Schwab. It is home to the finest ski resort in the nation, and even more popular in summer due to its extensive outdoor beauty and activities as the gateway to Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. In keeping with Jackson’s accolades, it is home to two golf communities so spectacular I couldn’t pick just one, so it is a tie. 3 Creek Ranch has a fantastic Rees Jones layout with an enviable location near town with the region’s best views of Grand Teton. . . . Early buyers here were Schwab and Tiger Woods. The newer Shooting Star has an equally excellent Tom Fazio course reminiscent of a mountainous version of Shadow Creek, a stand-out design, and likewise boasts impressive log cabin luxury, with a great clubhouse, spa, and fine dining. The main difference is that while 3 Creek is close to the town of Jackson, Shooting Star is immediately adjacent to the ski resort, literally bordering its parking lot. . . .
7. Kiawah Island Club -- Kiawah Island, South Carolina
Kiawah is most famous for its 90-hole luxury golf resort, one of the best on earth, which includes the Forbes (formerly Mobil) 5-Star Sanctuary Hotel and the Ocean Course, the best east of the Mississippi, a Ryder Cup venue and host of next year’s PGA Championship. But one side of the island is entirely devoted to a quietly prestigious private community, the Kiawah Island Club, which has two stand-out courses of its own plus access to the five at the resort. . . . Besides the full slate of luxury club amenities like restaurants, spa, and golf, plus an endless list of special events and activities for adults and families, the unique attractions of the club are its location, one of the most charming and beautiful yet accessible around, and its sister clubs -- Ireland’s Doonbeg, with its Greg Norman links course, and the new Christophe Harbour, with a Fazio design, in St. Kitts.
8. Village of Pinehurst -- Pinehurst, North Carolina
Pinehurst is the most famous and historic location in American golf, home to more big events than anyplace else, including the Ryder Cup, PGA Championship, repeat U.S. opens and Tour championships, and just about every other significant USGA event for men, women, and amateurs. The Pinehurst resort was the very first golf resort in the nation and remains the largest, while its famed Number Two is the seminal design of Donald Ross’ long and successful design career. . . . A living, breathing museum of golf, Pinehurst is frequently called the “American St. Andrews,” and, like its Scottish counterpart, offers an incredible deal for actual residents. Village homeowners have the right to buy an annual unlimited membership package to seven of the resort’s eight courses (including Number Two) for as little as $300 monthly -- far less than the dues at most good one-course country clubs. . . .
9. Martis Camp -- Truckee, California
The most successful golf course development in the Tahoe area, this 2,200-acre community combines the regional best of both worlds: golf and skiing. Owners enjoy a stand-out Tom Fazio golf course plus a three-acre lake, spa, fitness center, 20 miles of running and hiking trails, and, most notably, a private ski lift with direct access into the recently expanded and upgraded Northstar-at-Tahoe ski resort. . . . Martis Camp sits just 12 miles from the lake, one of the most impressive in the nation, and is positioned as “a private, gated national park experience.” It is also one of the most family-friendly golf communities ever built. . . .
10. The Golf Club at Black Rock -- Coeur d’Alene, Idaho
Talk about your hidden gems! The course at Black Rock is simply spectacular, a stand-out even among the best private club layouts in the nation, designed by stealth architect Jim Engh, not exactly a household name but the genius behind such winners as the Sanctuary, Redlands Mesa, and the Creek Club course at Reynolds Plantation. It combines drop-dead eye candy with strategic decisions at every turn and is great fun to play. Then there is the setting on pristine Lake Coeur d’Alene, 30 miles long with nearly 200 miles of coastline. Another unsung asset is weather: three quarters of the year, the weather is not just good, it’s great. . . . The original developers at Black Rock got into financial trouble, and the club is now owned by its members. . . .
11. Talisker Club -- Park City, Utah
The Talisker Club is a unique golf and ski hybrid community located in and around Deer Valley, one of the most desirable, expensive, and prestigious ski vacation home spots on the planet. The original golf club community spans 10,000 acres
adjacent to the ski resort, with an excellent Mark O’Meara-designed golf course featuring 360-degree mountain views. . . . On top of that, the club has plenty of other great facilities, including fishing, water sports with club boats on the Jordanelle Reservoir, hiking, horseback riding, and, in the winter, cross-country skiing on the golf course. . . . But what sets the club apart is its Talisker Tower, a three-story clubhouse located mid-mountain on the slopes of Deer Valley, complete with private dining and second spa facility, so that members have a home away from home on the slopes. . . .
12. Reynolds Plantation -- Lake Oconee, Georgia
Georgia’s second largest lake, the 20,000-acre Oconee, was entirely man-made by hydroelectric efforts in the 1970s and today is a major recreational and second-home destination. It is also home to one of the most impressive golf communities anywhere, Reynolds Plantation, which offers a whopping six golf courses by top designers including Jack Nicklaus, Rees Jones, Jim Engh, and Tom Fazio (with a seventh by Pete Dye in development), all of them very good, including stand-outs Great Water, Oconee, and Creek Club. . . . There is a Ritz-Carlton Lodge on site, great restaurants throughout, and endless amenities from tennis to the lake itself. No private club in America has the breadth of golf that Reynolds Plantation boasts, all just an hour from Atlanta.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
The Week That Was, august 28, 2011
scotland Renaissance Men Get To Work
A top-100 ranking and a high-profile profession event could be on their way to Renaissance Golf Club in North Berwick, Scotland.
After two years of waiting impatiently, Jerry Sarvadi has broken ground on the new holes and the luxurious clubhouse that he believes will give his club world-class status.
“We've had conversations about these improvements with the European Tour and the Royal & Ancient Golf Club, and that's why we're doing all this,” Sarvadi told the East Lothian Courier. “We feel like there's a high probability that at some point in the near future we will be hosting an event. I see us possibly hosting something like the Senior British Open or Scottish Open.”
Of course, big-time tournaments are routinely held in the neighborhood. Renaissance is located along the East Lothian coastline, just a short drive from some of the most famous clubs in world -- Muirfield Club, Archerfield Links Golf Club, and North Berwick Golf Club among them. In fact, Renaissance's new holes will take shape on property that formerly belonged to Muirfield.
I suppose it's just a happy coincidence that Tom Doak, the principal of Renaissance Golf Design, designed the existing 7,426-yard track at Renaissance Golf Club. The Traverse City, Michigan-based architect has designed four entirely new holes for his links-inspired layout and plans to modify two others. David Armitage, Renaissance’s pro, once told the Edinburgh News that the new site is “as rugged and nice as it gets” –- exactly the look and feel that Doak favors.
The new holes will take the course closer to the sea, and perhaps closer to a spot among Scotland's elites.
“I think if we do break into the top 100, that is a milestone; that's significant,” said Sarvadi, who's based in Jacksonville, Florida. “That's something we think would really set us apart.”
The new holes are scheduled to open in the summer of 2013, along with the four-story clubhouse.
canada Another Re-Start for Oceanview
The controversial, long-delayed Oceanview Golf Resort & Spa in British Columbia appears to have found a second (or maybe a third or fourth) life. A local newspaper reports that Oceanview's developer, Canadian Property Investments, “could start building out infrastructure for its golf course early next year.”
That would be nice. Because it's been a long haul for the community once called Cable Bay.
Oceanview is supposed to take shape on 420 acres in Nanaimo, the second-largest city on Vancouver Island. At build-out, it’s expected to consist of a marina with slips for up to 600 boats, a boutique hotel, a “wellness spa,” and an 18-hole “signature” golf course.
Of course, it’ll also have a supply of single-family houses, townhouses, villas, and condos. The number of units hasn't yet been settled, but Cable Bay's master plan called for up to 2,677.
Hence the controversy. Oceanview is the biggest residential project on Nanaimo's books, and large-scale communities almost always heat up passions. They can, and often do, have transformative effects.
Oceanview's golf course, designed by Gary Browning and Wade Horrocks of Browning Horrocks Golf Design, will be built in the first phase of the project. The duo's portfolio includes a course in British Columbia, at Copper Point Golf Club in Invermere, and two in Alberta, Coyote Creek Golf Course in Sundre and Stewart Creek Golf & Country Club in Canmore.
One last thing: Nanaimo is sometimes called “the Bathtub Racing Capital of the World.”
A top-100 ranking and a high-profile profession event could be on their way to Renaissance Golf Club in North Berwick, Scotland.
After two years of waiting impatiently, Jerry Sarvadi has broken ground on the new holes and the luxurious clubhouse that he believes will give his club world-class status.
“We've had conversations about these improvements with the European Tour and the Royal & Ancient Golf Club, and that's why we're doing all this,” Sarvadi told the East Lothian Courier. “We feel like there's a high probability that at some point in the near future we will be hosting an event. I see us possibly hosting something like the Senior British Open or Scottish Open.”
Of course, big-time tournaments are routinely held in the neighborhood. Renaissance is located along the East Lothian coastline, just a short drive from some of the most famous clubs in world -- Muirfield Club, Archerfield Links Golf Club, and North Berwick Golf Club among them. In fact, Renaissance's new holes will take shape on property that formerly belonged to Muirfield.
I suppose it's just a happy coincidence that Tom Doak, the principal of Renaissance Golf Design, designed the existing 7,426-yard track at Renaissance Golf Club. The Traverse City, Michigan-based architect has designed four entirely new holes for his links-inspired layout and plans to modify two others. David Armitage, Renaissance’s pro, once told the Edinburgh News that the new site is “as rugged and nice as it gets” –- exactly the look and feel that Doak favors.
The new holes will take the course closer to the sea, and perhaps closer to a spot among Scotland's elites.
“I think if we do break into the top 100, that is a milestone; that's significant,” said Sarvadi, who's based in Jacksonville, Florida. “That's something we think would really set us apart.”
The new holes are scheduled to open in the summer of 2013, along with the four-story clubhouse.
canada Another Re-Start for Oceanview
The controversial, long-delayed Oceanview Golf Resort & Spa in British Columbia appears to have found a second (or maybe a third or fourth) life. A local newspaper reports that Oceanview's developer, Canadian Property Investments, “could start building out infrastructure for its golf course early next year.”
That would be nice. Because it's been a long haul for the community once called Cable Bay.
Oceanview is supposed to take shape on 420 acres in Nanaimo, the second-largest city on Vancouver Island. At build-out, it’s expected to consist of a marina with slips for up to 600 boats, a boutique hotel, a “wellness spa,” and an 18-hole “signature” golf course.
Of course, it’ll also have a supply of single-family houses, townhouses, villas, and condos. The number of units hasn't yet been settled, but Cable Bay's master plan called for up to 2,677.
Hence the controversy. Oceanview is the biggest residential project on Nanaimo's books, and large-scale communities almost always heat up passions. They can, and often do, have transformative effects.
Oceanview's golf course, designed by Gary Browning and Wade Horrocks of Browning Horrocks Golf Design, will be built in the first phase of the project. The duo's portfolio includes a course in British Columbia, at Copper Point Golf Club in Invermere, and two in Alberta, Coyote Creek Golf Course in Sundre and Stewart Creek Golf & Country Club in Canmore.
One last thing: Nanaimo is sometimes called “the Bathtub Racing Capital of the World.”
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Shameless Self-Promotion, august 2011
This month's World Edition of the Golf Course Report has news about the revival of a time-share club for billionaires, a new course in China being designed by graduates from the Greg Norman School of Architecture, and even an Olympic moment.
What it doesn't have is a pop quiz. That's what this blog is for.
Do you know the answers to these 10 questions?
1. An “exclusive club for hedonists” is to be built in
a) Monaco
b) Russia
c) Thailand
d) Serbia
2. Who said, “If we are to create better golfers in China, we need better courses”?
a) David Chu
b) Brian Curley
c) Harley Kruse
d) Chiang Kai-shek
3. The richest man in the Philippines wants to build a golf course in
a) Tagaytay City
b) Inner Mongolia
c) Scottsdale, Arizona
d) his back yard
4. The golf course that will host the matches of the 2016 Olympics is to be built on a site in Rio de Janeiro called Riserva Uno. Which architect has already done a routing for a golf course at Riserva Uno?
a) Martin Hawtree
b) Eduardo “El Gato” Romero
c) Edison Arantes do Nascimento
d) Rees Jones
5. Tony Jacklin has been hired to put his “signature” on two golf courses in what country?
a) Morocco
b) Mexico
c) Malaysia
d) Montenegro
6. Which designer has eight courses ranked among Golfweek's top 30 modern courses in Canada?
a) Stanley Thompson
b) Tom McBroom
c) Doug Carrick
d) Les Furber
7. A golf course once described as “the remotest of the remote links courses” was recently sold. Name it.
a) Barnbougle Dunes Golf Club in Tasmania
b) Machrie Golf Links in Scotland
c) Laucala Golf Course in Fiji
d) Cabot Links in Nova Scotia
8. The first female member of the Australian Society of Golf Course Architects is
a) Alice Dye
b) Jan Beljan
c) Kristine Kerr
d) Lisa Maki
9. Banyan Tree Holdings' next golf resort will likely be built in
a) St. Helena
b) Sri Lanka
c) Serbia
d) Seychelles
10. Who said, “It should be a prerequisite to play Castle Stuart before you're allowed to design courses nowadays”?
a) Gil Hanse
b) Mark Parsinen
c) Phil Mickelson
d) Tom Morris
How'd you do? If you want to check your answers, you'll need to read August's World Edition. To get your copy, give me a call at 301/680-9460 or send an e-mail to me at WorldEdition@aol.com.
What it doesn't have is a pop quiz. That's what this blog is for.
Do you know the answers to these 10 questions?
1. An “exclusive club for hedonists” is to be built in
a) Monaco
b) Russia
c) Thailand
d) Serbia
2. Who said, “If we are to create better golfers in China, we need better courses”?
a) David Chu
b) Brian Curley
c) Harley Kruse
d) Chiang Kai-shek
3. The richest man in the Philippines wants to build a golf course in
a) Tagaytay City
b) Inner Mongolia
c) Scottsdale, Arizona
d) his back yard
4. The golf course that will host the matches of the 2016 Olympics is to be built on a site in Rio de Janeiro called Riserva Uno. Which architect has already done a routing for a golf course at Riserva Uno?
a) Martin Hawtree
b) Eduardo “El Gato” Romero
c) Edison Arantes do Nascimento
d) Rees Jones
5. Tony Jacklin has been hired to put his “signature” on two golf courses in what country?
a) Morocco
b) Mexico
c) Malaysia
d) Montenegro
6. Which designer has eight courses ranked among Golfweek's top 30 modern courses in Canada?
a) Stanley Thompson
b) Tom McBroom
c) Doug Carrick
d) Les Furber
7. A golf course once described as “the remotest of the remote links courses” was recently sold. Name it.
a) Barnbougle Dunes Golf Club in Tasmania
b) Machrie Golf Links in Scotland
c) Laucala Golf Course in Fiji
d) Cabot Links in Nova Scotia
8. The first female member of the Australian Society of Golf Course Architects is
a) Alice Dye
b) Jan Beljan
c) Kristine Kerr
d) Lisa Maki
9. Banyan Tree Holdings' next golf resort will likely be built in
a) St. Helena
b) Sri Lanka
c) Serbia
d) Seychelles
10. Who said, “It should be a prerequisite to play Castle Stuart before you're allowed to design courses nowadays”?
a) Gil Hanse
b) Mark Parsinen
c) Phil Mickelson
d) Tom Morris
How'd you do? If you want to check your answers, you'll need to read August's World Edition. To get your copy, give me a call at 301/680-9460 or send an e-mail to me at WorldEdition@aol.com.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
australia Sand Bagged
Is it possible to build a golf course on sandy coastal property in Tasmania without making comparisons to Barnbougle Dunes?
That’s the question Neil Crafter and Paul Mogford, the principals of Crafter + Mogford Golf Strategies, will face as they design a new nine for Bicheno Golf Club, on the island’s east coast. Five of the new holes could conceivably resemble those from the existing links at Barnbougle Dunes, as they’ll be located on similarly sandy oceanfront property. The waterfront holes will be connected to the club’s 60-year-old nine-hole track with some heathland-style holes.
The addition is being funded by the community-owned club, which is located in the town of Bicheno, and by Peter Johnstone, who aims to build 60 houses on property adjacent to the original nine.
Crafter and Mogford base their design philosophy on principles outlined by Alister MacKenzie. Either alone or together, they’ve designed Fleurieu Golf Club in Mount Compass, South Australia; Hornbill Golf & Jungle Club on the island of Borneo, in East Malaysia; Astana Golf Course in Kuantan, Pahang, Malaysia; and Guangzhou South China Golf Club in Zhen Longtown, Guangdong Province, China.
The Adelaide-based firm also has offices in Melbourne and Perth, along with an international presence in India and Phoenix, Arizona. The office in Phoenix is managed by Jane Crafter, Neil’s sister, a former LPGA pro who now serves as a commentator for the Golf Channel.
As far as those inevitable comparisons to Barnbougle Dunes go, our question is this: Will they be a blessing or a curse?
That’s the question Neil Crafter and Paul Mogford, the principals of Crafter + Mogford Golf Strategies, will face as they design a new nine for Bicheno Golf Club, on the island’s east coast. Five of the new holes could conceivably resemble those from the existing links at Barnbougle Dunes, as they’ll be located on similarly sandy oceanfront property. The waterfront holes will be connected to the club’s 60-year-old nine-hole track with some heathland-style holes.
The addition is being funded by the community-owned club, which is located in the town of Bicheno, and by Peter Johnstone, who aims to build 60 houses on property adjacent to the original nine.
Crafter and Mogford base their design philosophy on principles outlined by Alister MacKenzie. Either alone or together, they’ve designed Fleurieu Golf Club in Mount Compass, South Australia; Hornbill Golf & Jungle Club on the island of Borneo, in East Malaysia; Astana Golf Course in Kuantan, Pahang, Malaysia; and Guangzhou South China Golf Club in Zhen Longtown, Guangdong Province, China.
The Adelaide-based firm also has offices in Melbourne and Perth, along with an international presence in India and Phoenix, Arizona. The office in Phoenix is managed by Jane Crafter, Neil’s sister, a former LPGA pro who now serves as a commentator for the Golf Channel.
As far as those inevitable comparisons to Barnbougle Dunes go, our question is this: Will they be a blessing or a curse?
Sunday, August 21, 2011
The Week That Was, august 21, 2011
china Ron Fream's “Garden” Party
Ron Fream's design company has hit the mother lode.
A Malaysian company has hired Santa Rosa, California-based Golfplan to design seven golf courses at Beijing Secret Garden, an emerging four-season resort in the snowy mountains of Hebei Province, China. When it's completed, Beijing Secret Garden will be able to accommodate 18,000 tourists a day -- many of them from Beijing, a three-hour drive to the southeast -- and its developed area alone will spread over nearly 5,000 acres.
Needless to say, if all the courses are built, Beijing Secret Garden will boast one of the largest golf complexes on earth, and one of the four or five largest in China.
“There are big plans for this property, obviously, and we're eager to get the golf portion of those plans underway,” said Kevin Ramsey, one of Golfplan's partners, in a press release.
Beijing Secret Garden is billing itself as the largest ski destination in Asia. It's been been modeled on one of North America's premier ski towns, Whistler in British Columbia, and like Whistler it'll have enough amenities and attractions to satisfy the desires of most any vacationer. In addition to what it promises will be a “world-class” ski area, it’ll someday have too many houses and condos to count, thousands of hotel rooms and other overnight accommodations, a lodge, meeting space, a theme park, an equestrian center, spas and wellness centers, sports academies, shopping areas, entertainment venues, and a winery.
The whole shebang is being developed by Lim Chee Wah, who attended the London School of Economics and is the president of a big, publicly traded Malaysia development firm, VXL Group of Companies. Lim is also a member of the family that owns Malaysia’s powerful, wealthy Genting Group, which operates dozens of casinos and resorts on several continents and has numerous assets (among them, Norwegian Cruise Lines) all over the planet, including the United States.
Fream and the Lims go way back. Twenty years ago, Golfplan designed the 18-hole golf course at Genting Group's first golf community, Awana Genting Highlands Golf & Country Resort in suburban Kuala Lumpur.
These days, Lim is also active on other golf fronts. He's hoping to develop the Cambodia-Vietnam Friendship Golf Resort, which will occupy 467 acres in Svay Rieng, Cambodia and Tay Ninh, Vietnam, with nine holes of its golf course in each country.
Fream has been designing golf courses in China since 1984. His firm's website lists six completed 18-hole courses, along with a pair of nine-hole tracks. Its most recent work includes Grand Dynasty Golf Club in Beijing, Qiandaohu Country Club in Hangzhou (Zhejiang Province), and Weihai Point Golf Resort in Weihai (Shandong Province). The press release states that Golfplan is currently at work on five golf properties (153 total holes) in the nation.
In terms of construction, Golfplan's courses at Beijing Secret Garden will be far superior to its initial efforts in the People's Republic. Addressing a topic we've heard a lot about in recent months, David Dale of Golfplan said, The first golf courses built here in China were not built well. Golf was so new, it was very difficult to find or import construction expertise. It was equally difficult to match maintenance expertise with newly finished courses. Very few architects are happy with the way those early Chinese courses have fared over time, in terms of construction and maintenance. It's a sign of how immature the Chinese market was at that time.
VXL Group is currently laying the infrastructure at Beijing Secret Garden, and Golfplan expects to break ground on the first course early next year. Ramsey describes the property as “quite heroic, but also very peaceful.”
Incidentally, the number of skiers in China -– currently about 5 million -– is expected to grow to 20 million by 2020.
china Boiling Over Water
China's nascent golf industry has earned a reputation for building courses faster than anywhere else on the planet. But now some opponents of golf construction are pushing back, leveraging an issue of vital importance to any nation's economic security.
The issue is water.
“An increasing number of golf courses are draining our most precious resource, underground water,” reads an editorial in China Daily. “The rapid depleting of underground water to keep the hundreds of golf courses green will likely prove to have severe consequences for many cities in the near future.”
As has often been noted of late, 400 of the more than 600 major cities in China are suffering from increasingly acute water shortages. Beijing, for example, needs to bring in water from neighboring provinces to satisfy the needs of its burgeoning population.
When a nation is thirsty, it begins searching for taps it can turn off. And for now, at least, China's environmentalists are taking aim at golf courses, which they portray -- with justification, in some instances -- as water-guzzlers extraordinaire.
In recent months, China's newspapers have begun to note egregious examples of the lengths to which golf courses will go to keep their turf green and lush. The South China Morning Post, for example, reports that some 100 golf courses in Hebei Province are equipped with both official and unofficial sets of pumps, and that the latter are used “to exploit and steal underground water.”
A provincial official told China National Radio that these secret, illegal pumps have sucked up so much water that “it would take at least 10,000 years for [the resources] to recover.”
Based on such reports, is it any wonder that the Guangming Daily has reportedly called golf construction “a national disaster”?
China Daily's conclusion: “It is high time that the central government took resolute action to reduce the number of golf courses and punish those who give the green light to their construction and their use of groundwater.”
Of course, not everyone believes that criticism from such quarters will adversely affect golf development in the People's Republic.
Dan Washburn, a U.S. writer based in China, told the Toronto Globe & Mail, “The last couple years have been especially rife with announced crackdowns. But what's always the end result? More golf courses in China.”
True enough. But it's likely as well that future golf construction in China will be slower, accompanied by tighter regulations and added expenses. And none of those things are good for business.
china For Love or Money?
Other news reports emanating from across the Pacific lead me to ask this question: How much golf development in China has been a response to growing interest in the game, and how much has been merely the result of a cash-grab by government officials?
It may be impossible to untangle the two. But the Xinhua news service has weighed in on the topic, and its conclusion is this: “Local officials seeking profits from land sales are behind China's recent golf course boom.”
For the moment, let's take exception to that comment.
Without question, more people are playing golf in China than ever before, and sales of golf equipment are growing fast. On top of that, all kinds of anecdotal evidence suggests that golf is a game well-suited to the Chinese temperament and the lifestyle to which the nation's fast-growing middle class aspires. Add it all up, and it seems that golf has come to stay in China.
Now let's try to find some meat on Xinhua's bone.
Golf courses are being built at a furious pace in China, and we have no credible statistics about them -- the number of rounds they attract, the revenues they record, the profits they generate. It's entirely possible that the vast majority of China's golf courses are barely played, or that they serve effectively as loss leaders propped up (for the time being) by real estate sales. I have no way of knowing. China's courses don't post their balance sheets.
Moreover, it's entirely possible that some cash-strapped Chinese municipalities, in an effort to collect development fees, have approved projects that can't pencil out. In some ways, it makes sense. For every golf project they approve, local officials both raise money and increase property values in their communities. It's like killing two birds with one stone.
As you know, today China has close to 600 golf courses, the vast majority of which (430, by one count) have been built since the nation's central government banned golf construction in 2004.
How many of those courses were given a green light solely because they contributed to a municipality's bottom line? Or because a provincial executive wanted a prestige community built under his watch? Or simply because a corrupt official wanted to line his pockets?
Your guess is as good as mine. But maybe Xinhua knows something we don't.
talking points Nicklaus' Holey Trinity
Jack Nicklaus recently visited Wynstone Golf Club in suburban Chicago, which features a golf course that he designed roughly 20 years ago. (It's the only Nicklaus “signature” course in Illinois.) During his stay, a club member asked him what non-Nicklaus courses he admires most. His answer:
“To play: Pebble Beach. Place to play: Augusta. Design: Pinehurst.”
Ron Fream's design company has hit the mother lode.
A Malaysian company has hired Santa Rosa, California-based Golfplan to design seven golf courses at Beijing Secret Garden, an emerging four-season resort in the snowy mountains of Hebei Province, China. When it's completed, Beijing Secret Garden will be able to accommodate 18,000 tourists a day -- many of them from Beijing, a three-hour drive to the southeast -- and its developed area alone will spread over nearly 5,000 acres.
Needless to say, if all the courses are built, Beijing Secret Garden will boast one of the largest golf complexes on earth, and one of the four or five largest in China.
“There are big plans for this property, obviously, and we're eager to get the golf portion of those plans underway,” said Kevin Ramsey, one of Golfplan's partners, in a press release.
Beijing Secret Garden is billing itself as the largest ski destination in Asia. It's been been modeled on one of North America's premier ski towns, Whistler in British Columbia, and like Whistler it'll have enough amenities and attractions to satisfy the desires of most any vacationer. In addition to what it promises will be a “world-class” ski area, it’ll someday have too many houses and condos to count, thousands of hotel rooms and other overnight accommodations, a lodge, meeting space, a theme park, an equestrian center, spas and wellness centers, sports academies, shopping areas, entertainment venues, and a winery.
The whole shebang is being developed by Lim Chee Wah, who attended the London School of Economics and is the president of a big, publicly traded Malaysia development firm, VXL Group of Companies. Lim is also a member of the family that owns Malaysia’s powerful, wealthy Genting Group, which operates dozens of casinos and resorts on several continents and has numerous assets (among them, Norwegian Cruise Lines) all over the planet, including the United States.
Fream and the Lims go way back. Twenty years ago, Golfplan designed the 18-hole golf course at Genting Group's first golf community, Awana Genting Highlands Golf & Country Resort in suburban Kuala Lumpur.
These days, Lim is also active on other golf fronts. He's hoping to develop the Cambodia-Vietnam Friendship Golf Resort, which will occupy 467 acres in Svay Rieng, Cambodia and Tay Ninh, Vietnam, with nine holes of its golf course in each country.
Fream has been designing golf courses in China since 1984. His firm's website lists six completed 18-hole courses, along with a pair of nine-hole tracks. Its most recent work includes Grand Dynasty Golf Club in Beijing, Qiandaohu Country Club in Hangzhou (Zhejiang Province), and Weihai Point Golf Resort in Weihai (Shandong Province). The press release states that Golfplan is currently at work on five golf properties (153 total holes) in the nation.
In terms of construction, Golfplan's courses at Beijing Secret Garden will be far superior to its initial efforts in the People's Republic. Addressing a topic we've heard a lot about in recent months, David Dale of Golfplan said, The first golf courses built here in China were not built well. Golf was so new, it was very difficult to find or import construction expertise. It was equally difficult to match maintenance expertise with newly finished courses. Very few architects are happy with the way those early Chinese courses have fared over time, in terms of construction and maintenance. It's a sign of how immature the Chinese market was at that time.
VXL Group is currently laying the infrastructure at Beijing Secret Garden, and Golfplan expects to break ground on the first course early next year. Ramsey describes the property as “quite heroic, but also very peaceful.”
Incidentally, the number of skiers in China -– currently about 5 million -– is expected to grow to 20 million by 2020.
china Boiling Over Water
China's nascent golf industry has earned a reputation for building courses faster than anywhere else on the planet. But now some opponents of golf construction are pushing back, leveraging an issue of vital importance to any nation's economic security.
The issue is water.
“An increasing number of golf courses are draining our most precious resource, underground water,” reads an editorial in China Daily. “The rapid depleting of underground water to keep the hundreds of golf courses green will likely prove to have severe consequences for many cities in the near future.”
As has often been noted of late, 400 of the more than 600 major cities in China are suffering from increasingly acute water shortages. Beijing, for example, needs to bring in water from neighboring provinces to satisfy the needs of its burgeoning population.
When a nation is thirsty, it begins searching for taps it can turn off. And for now, at least, China's environmentalists are taking aim at golf courses, which they portray -- with justification, in some instances -- as water-guzzlers extraordinaire.
In recent months, China's newspapers have begun to note egregious examples of the lengths to which golf courses will go to keep their turf green and lush. The South China Morning Post, for example, reports that some 100 golf courses in Hebei Province are equipped with both official and unofficial sets of pumps, and that the latter are used “to exploit and steal underground water.”
A provincial official told China National Radio that these secret, illegal pumps have sucked up so much water that “it would take at least 10,000 years for [the resources] to recover.”
Based on such reports, is it any wonder that the Guangming Daily has reportedly called golf construction “a national disaster”?
China Daily's conclusion: “It is high time that the central government took resolute action to reduce the number of golf courses and punish those who give the green light to their construction and their use of groundwater.”
Of course, not everyone believes that criticism from such quarters will adversely affect golf development in the People's Republic.
Dan Washburn, a U.S. writer based in China, told the Toronto Globe & Mail, “The last couple years have been especially rife with announced crackdowns. But what's always the end result? More golf courses in China.”
True enough. But it's likely as well that future golf construction in China will be slower, accompanied by tighter regulations and added expenses. And none of those things are good for business.
china For Love or Money?
Other news reports emanating from across the Pacific lead me to ask this question: How much golf development in China has been a response to growing interest in the game, and how much has been merely the result of a cash-grab by government officials?
It may be impossible to untangle the two. But the Xinhua news service has weighed in on the topic, and its conclusion is this: “Local officials seeking profits from land sales are behind China's recent golf course boom.”
For the moment, let's take exception to that comment.
Without question, more people are playing golf in China than ever before, and sales of golf equipment are growing fast. On top of that, all kinds of anecdotal evidence suggests that golf is a game well-suited to the Chinese temperament and the lifestyle to which the nation's fast-growing middle class aspires. Add it all up, and it seems that golf has come to stay in China.
Now let's try to find some meat on Xinhua's bone.
Golf courses are being built at a furious pace in China, and we have no credible statistics about them -- the number of rounds they attract, the revenues they record, the profits they generate. It's entirely possible that the vast majority of China's golf courses are barely played, or that they serve effectively as loss leaders propped up (for the time being) by real estate sales. I have no way of knowing. China's courses don't post their balance sheets.
Moreover, it's entirely possible that some cash-strapped Chinese municipalities, in an effort to collect development fees, have approved projects that can't pencil out. In some ways, it makes sense. For every golf project they approve, local officials both raise money and increase property values in their communities. It's like killing two birds with one stone.
As you know, today China has close to 600 golf courses, the vast majority of which (430, by one count) have been built since the nation's central government banned golf construction in 2004.
How many of those courses were given a green light solely because they contributed to a municipality's bottom line? Or because a provincial executive wanted a prestige community built under his watch? Or simply because a corrupt official wanted to line his pockets?
Your guess is as good as mine. But maybe Xinhua knows something we don't.
talking points Nicklaus' Holey Trinity
Jack Nicklaus recently visited Wynstone Golf Club in suburban Chicago, which features a golf course that he designed roughly 20 years ago. (It's the only Nicklaus “signature” course in Illinois.) During his stay, a club member asked him what non-Nicklaus courses he admires most. His answer:
“To play: Pebble Beach. Place to play: Augusta. Design: Pinehurst.”
Friday, August 19, 2011
worth reading Going for the Gold
Sales of golf equipment in China reportedly hit $469 million last year, and the best-selling brands are familiar to anyone who's ever walked through a pro shop on this side of the Pacific.
Indeed, U.S. manufacturers of golf equipment have beaten a trail to the People's Republic, to stake their claims in a market that's said to be growing by 15 percent annually. China Daily calls it “the next gold rush,” and notes that the competition at the top is squeezing out any potential home-grown competitors.
In its story, the newspaper spelled out the dimensions of golf retailing in China. Here's an edited version of the account:
From the white ball to sportswear, from the putter to the tee driver, major golf equipment manufacturers are pouring into China, vying for a share of the lucrative market. . . .
At the moment, the Chinese golf equipment market is dominated by U.S. brands Callaway, Titleist, TaylorMade, and Nike as well as Japan's Mizuno and Honma. An average set of golf clubs costs about 15,000 yuan [$2,342].
The golf equipment market is subdivided further, with each brand having one or two competitive products. For example, Callaway's iron club and putt club are considered the best, Titleist's golf ball is ranked No. 1, and experts say TaylorMade makes the best wooden golf club.
Chinese golf players appear to prefer U.S. brands to those from Japan.
Wu Ming, director of Shanghai Jiaotong University's school of golf management, said the popularity of U.S. brands has a lot to do with their advertising as well as the popularity of the Professional Golf Association Tour among Chinese golfers.
“In order to copy their golf heroes, Chinese golfers use U.S. brands,” said Wu. . . .
[Liu Yongmao, the founder of China's largest golf retailer, 100 Golf] believes the reason the Chinese prefer U.S. brands has a lot to do with the successful golf culture in the U.S.: “Although this game originated in Scotland, the U.S. is the real golf Mecca. The U.S. tour is the most successful in the world, both in terms of attendance and economic returns. In addition, the U.S. has the world's best golf courses and top-ranking golfers.”
As a result, Japanese golf equipment brand Mizuno has found fierce competition in the China market over the past five years. Industrial analysts said the former second-best seller in China is now lagging behind its U.S. rivals and only ranked fourth or fifth among all golf equipment brands in the country.
As the first foreign golf brand in China, Mizuno has witnessed growing demand for better service among Chinese customers. As a result, the company decided to provide tailor-made clubs.
Callaway used to sell its products through distributors in China but started to open direct-sale stores in 2006, indicating the company's confidence in the Chinese market.
Liu believes all golf brands will enter China sooner or later. According to him, during the 2011 Orlando PGA Golf Show, one of the most important golf exhibitions, the first session's topic was how to do business in China's golf market.
Intense rivalry in the golf equipment market will lead to an industrial shake-up. It is growing harder for small brands to survive due to rising rental and surging labor costs, say observers. Net profit margin has narrowed to the lowest in history, to between 5 and 8 percent.
“It is possible [for Chinese golf brands to be successful], but very hard. It requires great capability, resolution, and long-term commitment,” said Liu. . . .
Indeed, U.S. manufacturers of golf equipment have beaten a trail to the People's Republic, to stake their claims in a market that's said to be growing by 15 percent annually. China Daily calls it “the next gold rush,” and notes that the competition at the top is squeezing out any potential home-grown competitors.
In its story, the newspaper spelled out the dimensions of golf retailing in China. Here's an edited version of the account:
From the white ball to sportswear, from the putter to the tee driver, major golf equipment manufacturers are pouring into China, vying for a share of the lucrative market. . . .
At the moment, the Chinese golf equipment market is dominated by U.S. brands Callaway, Titleist, TaylorMade, and Nike as well as Japan's Mizuno and Honma. An average set of golf clubs costs about 15,000 yuan [$2,342].
The golf equipment market is subdivided further, with each brand having one or two competitive products. For example, Callaway's iron club and putt club are considered the best, Titleist's golf ball is ranked No. 1, and experts say TaylorMade makes the best wooden golf club.
Chinese golf players appear to prefer U.S. brands to those from Japan.
Wu Ming, director of Shanghai Jiaotong University's school of golf management, said the popularity of U.S. brands has a lot to do with their advertising as well as the popularity of the Professional Golf Association Tour among Chinese golfers.
“In order to copy their golf heroes, Chinese golfers use U.S. brands,” said Wu. . . .
[Liu Yongmao, the founder of China's largest golf retailer, 100 Golf] believes the reason the Chinese prefer U.S. brands has a lot to do with the successful golf culture in the U.S.: “Although this game originated in Scotland, the U.S. is the real golf Mecca. The U.S. tour is the most successful in the world, both in terms of attendance and economic returns. In addition, the U.S. has the world's best golf courses and top-ranking golfers.”
As a result, Japanese golf equipment brand Mizuno has found fierce competition in the China market over the past five years. Industrial analysts said the former second-best seller in China is now lagging behind its U.S. rivals and only ranked fourth or fifth among all golf equipment brands in the country.
As the first foreign golf brand in China, Mizuno has witnessed growing demand for better service among Chinese customers. As a result, the company decided to provide tailor-made clubs.
Callaway used to sell its products through distributors in China but started to open direct-sale stores in 2006, indicating the company's confidence in the Chinese market.
Liu believes all golf brands will enter China sooner or later. According to him, during the 2011 Orlando PGA Golf Show, one of the most important golf exhibitions, the first session's topic was how to do business in China's golf market.
Intense rivalry in the golf equipment market will lead to an industrial shake-up. It is growing harder for small brands to survive due to rising rental and surging labor costs, say observers. Net profit margin has narrowed to the lowest in history, to between 5 and 8 percent.
“It is possible [for Chinese golf brands to be successful], but very hard. It requires great capability, resolution, and long-term commitment,” said Liu. . . .
Thursday, August 18, 2011
honduras Monkey Time
It took more than seven years, but construction has finally begun on Gary Player’s first golf course in Central America.
The 27-hole, $5 million complex will be the centerpiece of Los Micos Beach & Golf Resort, a “sustainable” vacation destination that’s taking shape near Tela Bay, on the northern coast of Honduras. At build-out, Los Micos –- “the Monkeys” -– will consist of more than 450 villas and condos, several beachfront hotels, a marina, an equestrian center, a shopping area, and a beach club.
“This is a fantastic project that we are all excited about,” Player said in a press release. “I am especially pleased that the Honduran government has made protecting the land a major part of the design of the entire development.”
The Honduran government is developing Los Micos in partnership with a private group that calls itself Desarrollo Turístico Bahía de Tela. Player, who’s based in Travelers Rest, South Carolina, was hired in 2004, and construction was supposed to begin in 2005. But Los Micos has been beset by controversies, mostly because it’s being built on environmentally sensitive land.
The golf complex is scheduled to open in the fall of 2013, and, to Player’s credit, won’t feature tournament-quality golf.
“We are designing the course to be very user-friendly -– not an easy course, but playable for all levels of golfers,” said Marc Player, the CEO of Black Knight International.
Incidentally, Player’s company now offers three “tiers” of design service: “signature” courses, Black Knight courses, and Player Design courses. I suspect that Los Micos will be one of the latter.
The 27-hole, $5 million complex will be the centerpiece of Los Micos Beach & Golf Resort, a “sustainable” vacation destination that’s taking shape near Tela Bay, on the northern coast of Honduras. At build-out, Los Micos –- “the Monkeys” -– will consist of more than 450 villas and condos, several beachfront hotels, a marina, an equestrian center, a shopping area, and a beach club.
“This is a fantastic project that we are all excited about,” Player said in a press release. “I am especially pleased that the Honduran government has made protecting the land a major part of the design of the entire development.”
The Honduran government is developing Los Micos in partnership with a private group that calls itself Desarrollo Turístico Bahía de Tela. Player, who’s based in Travelers Rest, South Carolina, was hired in 2004, and construction was supposed to begin in 2005. But Los Micos has been beset by controversies, mostly because it’s being built on environmentally sensitive land.
The golf complex is scheduled to open in the fall of 2013, and, to Player’s credit, won’t feature tournament-quality golf.
“We are designing the course to be very user-friendly -– not an easy course, but playable for all levels of golfers,” said Marc Player, the CEO of Black Knight International.
Incidentally, Player’s company now offers three “tiers” of design service: “signature” courses, Black Knight courses, and Player Design courses. I suspect that Los Micos will be one of the latter.
Sunday, August 14, 2011
The Week That Was, august 14, 2011
scotland Gleneagles Preps for its Makeover
Just weeks ago, Jack Nicklaus sized up the PGA Centenary course at the Gleneagles resort, to gear up for a renovation that will prepare the track for the Ryder Cup matches in 2014.
Last year, the famed resort in Perthshire hired Nicklaus to oversee a $3 million “refinement” of the 7,088-yard course that he designed in the early 1990s. A major element of the makeover will be a bunker renovation, to toughen up the course for pros and other long hitters. In addition, the club will likely spend more than $800,000 to install a SubAir moisture-removal system in the layout's greens. Drier soil, the club hopes, will help the grass grow better.
“The fact is that the wet is a bigger villain than the dry at the moment,” the club's general manager told the Scotsman, “so if this can help with that, then it is the right thing to do.”
Still to be determined is what Nicklaus plans to do with the course's 18th hole. A year or so ago, the Scotsman said the hole as it currently stands would “probably be the worst closing hole in Ryder Cup history.” The paper appears to have tempered its opinion, for it now simply says that the hole “is weak in comparison to the closing hole on most of the courses used for the Ryder Cup in recent times.”
Either way, it appears that the newspaper wouldn't mind if Nicklaus blew the whole thing up and started over.
st. helena Trouble in Paradise?
Question: Could a golf-focused resort bring droves of tourists to a tiny, remote, rarely visited island in the South Atlantic?
Answer: Maybe, as long as it's packaged with the island's first airport.
You've been given a glimpse of the future in St. Helena, a British territory that appears to be located literally in the middle of nowhere. If you're one of those people who likes to get away from it all, try this on for size: St. Helena is 1,200 miles from Africa, 1,800 miles from South America, and 700 miles from the nearest inhabited island. Its only regular visitor is a mail ship that shows up once a month.
The Guardian describes St. Helena (population: 4,900) as a nearly Edenic place. According to the paper, it's full of “natural and historical treasures,” including a wealth of “flora and fauna whose diversity astonished even Charles Darwin.” On top of that, it's got “a negligible crime rate, fine food, friendly people, and no traffic.”
Unfortunately, St. Helena is also a drain on British taxpayers. That's why the U.K. would love for it to be economically self-sufficient. The big picture: By funding the airport construction, Britain hopes it can eventually end its financial support of the island.
The idea is to foot the bill -- as much as $500 million -- for the airport, and then to enlist private groups to build the tourist facilities.
Are you wondering who'd be crazy enough to risk untold millions on such a dicey resort venture? Well, the company's name is St. Helena Leisure Corporation, a.k.a. Shelco. The company has already scoped out a 300-acre site near the airport where it'll build some houses, a resort-style hotel, and the golf course.
“The U.K. government believes a new airport is the best way to bring new financial opportunities to the island, not least a boom in tourism,” the British government's Department for International Development stated in a report on the construction plans. “With an airport, it is estimated that more than 29,000 tourists will visit each year.”
According to the Guardian, some tourism insiders believe the number could reach 50,000 visitors a year.
Of course, not everyone is eager to put a little slice of paradise on so many vacation itineraries. On and off the island, conservationists and environmentalists are mounting campaigns against the development plans, though it doesn't appear that their efforts have yet gained traction.
The critics have even taken on the proposed golf course.
“People can play golf anywhere,” one of them said to the Guardian. “The whole point of going to St. Helena is to get away from all that.”
talking points The Golden Standard
Here's John Harbottle, a Tacoma, Washington-based architect, on the prevailing wind in today's golf course design:
No doubt, you see more bunkers, more water, more contour, more trees on today’s courses, and there is no doubt that all the elements provide interest and character for the game. But mere difficulty is not what the great architects strive to provide with their designs. Golden Era architects like Macan, MacKenzie, Thomas, and Ross wished to make the course challenging for proficient players but enjoyable for the average golfer.
Variety is more important than mere length, and interest more important than difficulty. I think we are clearly seeing a trend back toward Golden Era values in today's new designs and renovations. They are simply more playable, maintainable, and sustainable.
Just weeks ago, Jack Nicklaus sized up the PGA Centenary course at the Gleneagles resort, to gear up for a renovation that will prepare the track for the Ryder Cup matches in 2014.
Last year, the famed resort in Perthshire hired Nicklaus to oversee a $3 million “refinement” of the 7,088-yard course that he designed in the early 1990s. A major element of the makeover will be a bunker renovation, to toughen up the course for pros and other long hitters. In addition, the club will likely spend more than $800,000 to install a SubAir moisture-removal system in the layout's greens. Drier soil, the club hopes, will help the grass grow better.
“The fact is that the wet is a bigger villain than the dry at the moment,” the club's general manager told the Scotsman, “so if this can help with that, then it is the right thing to do.”
Still to be determined is what Nicklaus plans to do with the course's 18th hole. A year or so ago, the Scotsman said the hole as it currently stands would “probably be the worst closing hole in Ryder Cup history.” The paper appears to have tempered its opinion, for it now simply says that the hole “is weak in comparison to the closing hole on most of the courses used for the Ryder Cup in recent times.”
Either way, it appears that the newspaper wouldn't mind if Nicklaus blew the whole thing up and started over.
st. helena Trouble in Paradise?
Question: Could a golf-focused resort bring droves of tourists to a tiny, remote, rarely visited island in the South Atlantic?
Answer: Maybe, as long as it's packaged with the island's first airport.
You've been given a glimpse of the future in St. Helena, a British territory that appears to be located literally in the middle of nowhere. If you're one of those people who likes to get away from it all, try this on for size: St. Helena is 1,200 miles from Africa, 1,800 miles from South America, and 700 miles from the nearest inhabited island. Its only regular visitor is a mail ship that shows up once a month.
The Guardian describes St. Helena (population: 4,900) as a nearly Edenic place. According to the paper, it's full of “natural and historical treasures,” including a wealth of “flora and fauna whose diversity astonished even Charles Darwin.” On top of that, it's got “a negligible crime rate, fine food, friendly people, and no traffic.”
Unfortunately, St. Helena is also a drain on British taxpayers. That's why the U.K. would love for it to be economically self-sufficient. The big picture: By funding the airport construction, Britain hopes it can eventually end its financial support of the island.
The idea is to foot the bill -- as much as $500 million -- for the airport, and then to enlist private groups to build the tourist facilities.
Are you wondering who'd be crazy enough to risk untold millions on such a dicey resort venture? Well, the company's name is St. Helena Leisure Corporation, a.k.a. Shelco. The company has already scoped out a 300-acre site near the airport where it'll build some houses, a resort-style hotel, and the golf course.
“The U.K. government believes a new airport is the best way to bring new financial opportunities to the island, not least a boom in tourism,” the British government's Department for International Development stated in a report on the construction plans. “With an airport, it is estimated that more than 29,000 tourists will visit each year.”
According to the Guardian, some tourism insiders believe the number could reach 50,000 visitors a year.
Of course, not everyone is eager to put a little slice of paradise on so many vacation itineraries. On and off the island, conservationists and environmentalists are mounting campaigns against the development plans, though it doesn't appear that their efforts have yet gained traction.
The critics have even taken on the proposed golf course.
“People can play golf anywhere,” one of them said to the Guardian. “The whole point of going to St. Helena is to get away from all that.”
talking points The Golden Standard
Here's John Harbottle, a Tacoma, Washington-based architect, on the prevailing wind in today's golf course design:
No doubt, you see more bunkers, more water, more contour, more trees on today’s courses, and there is no doubt that all the elements provide interest and character for the game. But mere difficulty is not what the great architects strive to provide with their designs. Golden Era architects like Macan, MacKenzie, Thomas, and Ross wished to make the course challenging for proficient players but enjoyable for the average golfer.
Variety is more important than mere length, and interest more important than difficulty. I think we are clearly seeing a trend back toward Golden Era values in today's new designs and renovations. They are simply more playable, maintainable, and sustainable.
Friday, August 12, 2011
worth reading The City in a Box
Here's a snapshot of recent population growth in China, as reported by Advertising Age:
Between 1990 and 2005, China's urban population more than doubled, from 254 million to 572 million -- an increase equal to the total population of the United States. Over the same stretch, China added a staggering 600 million members to its emerging middle class, nearly all of them in cities. China expects to add another 350 million urban residents by 2025, this time in hundreds of small cities poised to explode in size.
To accommodate all those people, China needs to mass-produce cities -- and a U.S. developer is helping to make it happen. Here's an edited version of Ad Age's story, which was written by Greg Lindsay and John D. Kasarda.
Perhaps it was inevitable in a country that is building cities at an unprecedented pace that the city itself would become a brand, and that Western architects would quietly become marketers.
Last summer's 2010 World Expo in Shanghai was the largest marketing campaign in history, lasting six months, drawing 73 million visitors, and spending $58 billion to demolish and rebuild large swaths of the city, all to sell the message “Better City, Better Life.” . . .
While peasants waited hours to tour faux Roman ruins and other sights, China's mayors skipped the Expo to tour the city's most fashionable neighborhood. Nestled in the winding streets of the French Concession, Xintiandi (“New Heaven and Earth”) is Shanghai's answer to Manhattan's SoHo -- an upscale shopping district packed with outdoor cafes and pedestrians.
But Xintiandi is largely the creation of one man, billionaire developer Vincent Lo. . . .
Xintiandi was a big hit upon completion in 2003, inspiring copycats around the city. Today, Mr. Lo's Shui On Group is one of the most sought-after developers in China, and its most popular product is clones of Xintiandi. . . . Lo is busily building sequels in the second-tier cities of Hangzhou (“Xihu Tiandi”), Wuhan (“Wuhan Tiandi”), and Chongqing (“Chongqing Tiandi”), among others.
Rome may not have been built in a day, but China is building the equivalent every two weeks, having added as much new housing last year as the entirety of Spain's, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit. One reason is demographics, but another is sheer greed. Land prices doubled across China in the wake of the global financial crisis, as billions of dollars in stimulus funds sloshed into real-estate speculation. Entire “ghost cities” of sold-out apartments have appeared as storehouses of wealth.
Alarmed officials have tried to crack down on runaway lending, but their efforts have been hampered by local mayors and party secretaries. Municipal governments typically raise anywhere between 15 percent to 25 percent of their annual budgets from land sales to private developers, a powerful incentive to keep building.
One way to skirt the central government's disapproval is to promote prestige projects by proven developers -- leading some of them to become brands unto themselves.
Xintiandi and its sequels are one. Plaza 66, a Shanghai luxury mall-and-office tower complex developed by Hong Kong's Hang Lung Properties and its billionaire chairman, Ronnie Chan, is another.
Boasting the highest concentration of luxury brands of any mall in China, Plaza 66 posted a 31 percent gross margin last year. This spawned Palace 66 in Shenyang, “herald[ing] an era where we will open one or more new world-class commercial complexes each year,” Mr. Chan promised in his annual letter to shareholders.
He wasn't exaggerating. Next up is Parc 66 in Jinan, followed by Riverside 66 (Tianjin), Olympia 66 (Dalian), Center 66 (Wuxi), and Forum 66 (Shenyang again). . . .
Leave it to an American developer to take this development strategy to its extreme.
Stan Gale, chairman of New York-based Gale International, has approached officials in Chongqing and Changsha about building what he calls a “city in a box” -- a dense urban district of more than 100 million square feet with state-of-the-art energy-saving technologies. His template is Songdo International Business District, a $35 billion city being built from scratch on a man-made island off the coast of South Korea. At completion (currently scheduled for 2015), it will be roughly the size of downtown Boston, with 65,000 residents.
Commissioned in 2001 at the behest of the Korean government, Songdo was designed as a haven for foreign multinationals and their expatriate employees. As such, Songdo itself is a constellation of blue-chip brands, including a Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course, plans for a mall by Taubman properties, and a Central Park and street grid modeled on Manhattan's. It has subsequently been re-branded as the experimental prototype community of tomorrow.
Selling a city isn't dissimilar to selling any high-concept product: “First, you have to dissect your partner group: Who are we speaking to, and what do we need to say to them?” said Tom Murcott, Songdo's chief marketing officer and a former Grey Advertising executive.
In this case, the constituents are a skeptical Korean government, Seoul residents tired of living in soulless apartment blocks, and Chinese mayors on the prowl for prestige projects.
On Songdo's opening day in 2009, Mr. Gale announced his intentions to build as many as 20 sequels. The first was slated for Changsha, another of China's tier-two cities, but Gale couldn't come to terms on the deal. His local partners went ahead anyway, based on the master plan KPF had prepared.
“We delivered in six months what took seven years in Songdo,” said Mr. Murcott. “We know it can be done, and we know it's replicable.”
Between 1990 and 2005, China's urban population more than doubled, from 254 million to 572 million -- an increase equal to the total population of the United States. Over the same stretch, China added a staggering 600 million members to its emerging middle class, nearly all of them in cities. China expects to add another 350 million urban residents by 2025, this time in hundreds of small cities poised to explode in size.
To accommodate all those people, China needs to mass-produce cities -- and a U.S. developer is helping to make it happen. Here's an edited version of Ad Age's story, which was written by Greg Lindsay and John D. Kasarda.
Perhaps it was inevitable in a country that is building cities at an unprecedented pace that the city itself would become a brand, and that Western architects would quietly become marketers.
Last summer's 2010 World Expo in Shanghai was the largest marketing campaign in history, lasting six months, drawing 73 million visitors, and spending $58 billion to demolish and rebuild large swaths of the city, all to sell the message “Better City, Better Life.” . . .
While peasants waited hours to tour faux Roman ruins and other sights, China's mayors skipped the Expo to tour the city's most fashionable neighborhood. Nestled in the winding streets of the French Concession, Xintiandi (“New Heaven and Earth”) is Shanghai's answer to Manhattan's SoHo -- an upscale shopping district packed with outdoor cafes and pedestrians.
But Xintiandi is largely the creation of one man, billionaire developer Vincent Lo. . . .
Xintiandi was a big hit upon completion in 2003, inspiring copycats around the city. Today, Mr. Lo's Shui On Group is one of the most sought-after developers in China, and its most popular product is clones of Xintiandi. . . . Lo is busily building sequels in the second-tier cities of Hangzhou (“Xihu Tiandi”), Wuhan (“Wuhan Tiandi”), and Chongqing (“Chongqing Tiandi”), among others.
Rome may not have been built in a day, but China is building the equivalent every two weeks, having added as much new housing last year as the entirety of Spain's, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit. One reason is demographics, but another is sheer greed. Land prices doubled across China in the wake of the global financial crisis, as billions of dollars in stimulus funds sloshed into real-estate speculation. Entire “ghost cities” of sold-out apartments have appeared as storehouses of wealth.
Alarmed officials have tried to crack down on runaway lending, but their efforts have been hampered by local mayors and party secretaries. Municipal governments typically raise anywhere between 15 percent to 25 percent of their annual budgets from land sales to private developers, a powerful incentive to keep building.
One way to skirt the central government's disapproval is to promote prestige projects by proven developers -- leading some of them to become brands unto themselves.
Xintiandi and its sequels are one. Plaza 66, a Shanghai luxury mall-and-office tower complex developed by Hong Kong's Hang Lung Properties and its billionaire chairman, Ronnie Chan, is another.
Boasting the highest concentration of luxury brands of any mall in China, Plaza 66 posted a 31 percent gross margin last year. This spawned Palace 66 in Shenyang, “herald[ing] an era where we will open one or more new world-class commercial complexes each year,” Mr. Chan promised in his annual letter to shareholders.
He wasn't exaggerating. Next up is Parc 66 in Jinan, followed by Riverside 66 (Tianjin), Olympia 66 (Dalian), Center 66 (Wuxi), and Forum 66 (Shenyang again). . . .
Leave it to an American developer to take this development strategy to its extreme.
Stan Gale, chairman of New York-based Gale International, has approached officials in Chongqing and Changsha about building what he calls a “city in a box” -- a dense urban district of more than 100 million square feet with state-of-the-art energy-saving technologies. His template is Songdo International Business District, a $35 billion city being built from scratch on a man-made island off the coast of South Korea. At completion (currently scheduled for 2015), it will be roughly the size of downtown Boston, with 65,000 residents.
Commissioned in 2001 at the behest of the Korean government, Songdo was designed as a haven for foreign multinationals and their expatriate employees. As such, Songdo itself is a constellation of blue-chip brands, including a Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course, plans for a mall by Taubman properties, and a Central Park and street grid modeled on Manhattan's. It has subsequently been re-branded as the experimental prototype community of tomorrow.
Selling a city isn't dissimilar to selling any high-concept product: “First, you have to dissect your partner group: Who are we speaking to, and what do we need to say to them?” said Tom Murcott, Songdo's chief marketing officer and a former Grey Advertising executive.
In this case, the constituents are a skeptical Korean government, Seoul residents tired of living in soulless apartment blocks, and Chinese mayors on the prowl for prestige projects.
On Songdo's opening day in 2009, Mr. Gale announced his intentions to build as many as 20 sequels. The first was slated for Changsha, another of China's tier-two cities, but Gale couldn't come to terms on the deal. His local partners went ahead anyway, based on the master plan KPF had prepared.
“We delivered in six months what took seven years in Songdo,” said Mr. Murcott. “We know it can be done, and we know it's replicable.”
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
dominican republic Doctor's Orders
After three years of waiting, Dolphin Capital Partners has finally written the prescription for its makeover of the Playa Grande resort in the Dominican Republic.
The first step in the process: An overhaul of Playa Grande’s Robert Trent Jones-designed golf course, a 7,085-yard oceanfront track that Dolphin likes to call “the Pebble Beach of the Caribbean.” The renovation, which begins this summer, is being overseen by Jones’ second son, Montclair, New Jersey-based Rees Jones.
While “the Open Doctor” treats the golf course, Dolphin will establish an Aman Golf Resort at Playa Grande. The “vertical structures” of this resort within a resort will consist of Aman-branded villas, a 30-suite, Aman-branded hotel with a beach club, and an Aman-branded golf clubhouse. (Needless to say, Aman is one of the resort’s minority owners.)
If you're wondering, Playa Grande spreads over 2,000 acres (and seven miles of coastline) just west of Cabrera.
Its golf course, which opened in 1997 (it’s one of Jones’ final original designs), will be lengthened a bit, via the addition and/or relocation of rear tees, and its bunkers will be rebuilt and relocated.
Cyprus-based Dolphin, which is controlled by Miltos Kambourides and Pierre Charalambides, also aims to build new resort communities in Cyprus, Greece, and the island of Crete.
The first step in the process: An overhaul of Playa Grande’s Robert Trent Jones-designed golf course, a 7,085-yard oceanfront track that Dolphin likes to call “the Pebble Beach of the Caribbean.” The renovation, which begins this summer, is being overseen by Jones’ second son, Montclair, New Jersey-based Rees Jones.
While “the Open Doctor” treats the golf course, Dolphin will establish an Aman Golf Resort at Playa Grande. The “vertical structures” of this resort within a resort will consist of Aman-branded villas, a 30-suite, Aman-branded hotel with a beach club, and an Aman-branded golf clubhouse. (Needless to say, Aman is one of the resort’s minority owners.)
If you're wondering, Playa Grande spreads over 2,000 acres (and seven miles of coastline) just west of Cabrera.
Its golf course, which opened in 1997 (it’s one of Jones’ final original designs), will be lengthened a bit, via the addition and/or relocation of rear tees, and its bunkers will be rebuilt and relocated.
Cyprus-based Dolphin, which is controlled by Miltos Kambourides and Pierre Charalambides, also aims to build new resort communities in Cyprus, Greece, and the island of Crete.
Sunday, August 7, 2011
The Week That Was, august 7, 2011
brazil More Is Not Merrier
People always say that two is company and three is a crowd. If that's true, what's 18?
It's a question that Nick Faldo needs to answer. Because last week, just as the organizers of the 2016 Olympics seemed ready to hone in on a golf course designer, it was revealed that Faldo has gummed up the process by submitting an off-the-wall proposal. He wants the Powers That Be to award the design commission not to a single architect or to a design duo but to a gaudy parade of golf pros.
In a letter to the International Golf Federation, Faldo argues that the course in Rio de Janeiro should be designed by as many as 18 architects. Specifically, he's asked the IGF to consider using “a genuinely international collection of player-designers” who would work together “in the ultimate Olympic spirit” and create “a truly Olympic story.”
I don't know if the IGF is taking Faldo's proposal seriously. I sure hope it isn't.
Essentially, Faldo's argument boils down to this: A golf course designed by an individual or duo generates publicity in a nation or two, but one designed by high-profile professional golfers from every continent would generate publicity all over the world.
This is an idea that sounds good at first but ultimately leaks like a sieve. Without question, a grab-bag golf course designed by a troop of celebrities would generate publicity. Heck, the golf pros' agents and publicists would guarantee it. But the golf course that results would almost certainly end up being a mishmash of well-intentioned but disconnected design ideas. In matters of artistry, more is never merrier. Too many cooks spoil the pot.
One other thing, Nick: If a golf course designed by 18 golf pros is a good idea, wouldn't a golf course designed by 18 legitimate golf course architects be an even better idea? If so, why not offer this alternative to the IGF? (Among serious architects, the idea would never fly. They have too much self-respect to participate in such charades.)
And what happens after the games are played, when the people of Rio de Janeiro are left to maintain what amounts to an expensive novelty course? How does Brazil market the track after the novelty wears off, as it inevitably will?
Finally, I should note that Faldo hasn't proposed an original idea. Legends Golf & Safari Resort in Limpopo Province, South Africa features an 18-hole course that was designed by 18 golf pros -- Colin Montgomerie, Padraig Harrington, Vijay Singh, Bernard Langer, Mike Weir, and Sergio Garcia among them. The course opened in 2009, and I don't get the sense that the world's golfers have beaten a path to it.
That's because passionate golfers dream of playing courses that aspire to art, not artifice. They're attracted by greatness, not high concepts.
As far as I'm concerned, a course like the one Faldo has proposed would deliver only a hollow example of “the Olympic spirit.” And don't the Olympics already have enough of them?
canada Jones Returns to Glencoe
One of the top golf courses in Alberta has closed for a year-long renovation.
It's the 18-hole Glen Forest track at Glencoe Golf & Country Club in Calgary, the first golf course in Canada designed by Robert Trent Jones, Jr. In its most recent listing of Canada’s Top 100, ScoreGolf ranked the 7,147-yard layout as the province's seventh-best course. Nationwide, the magazine ranked it number 41.
The latter number is a problem, as it represents a drop of nine spots from ScoreGolf's previous ranking. So Glencoe is bringing Jones back to give the course a thorough overhaul. The course will be lengthened, its greens and bunkers will be rebuilt (some of the latter will be relocated), and drainage issues will be addressed.
When the work is completed, Glencoe hopes to restore Glen Forest's earlier ranking, if not improve upon it.
“We expect to have one of the best golf courses in Canada once we’re finished,” the club's chief operating officer said in a story posted at CanadianGolfer.com.
The Glen Forest course is expected to reopen in August or September 2013. Until then, Glencoe's 27-hole Glen Meadows complex remains open.
france Smyers Has a Partner
As it turns out, Steve Smyers isn't working alone on his renovation of Evian Masters Golf Club.
The Lakeland, Florida-based architect will be collaborating with Dave Sampson of European Golf Design, a British firm with ties to IMG. According to a press release from EGD, the overhaul will be done in two phases, with the first one to begin in November 2011. The made-over 6,620-yard track will debut in the spring 2013, just a few months before it becomes the site of the LPGA's fifth major.
I posted about the renovation of Evian Masters last Sunday.
The press release provides some additional notes about the renovation. To wit: All of the course's tees, greens, and bunkers will be rebuilt, and four of its holes -- #5, #15, #16, and #17 -- will be redesigned “to introduce more drama” and create spectator viewing areas. In addition, the architects will incorporate “Evian Masters brand identities,” whatever they may be, into the course.
The overhaul is expected to cost $6 million or more.
People always say that two is company and three is a crowd. If that's true, what's 18?
It's a question that Nick Faldo needs to answer. Because last week, just as the organizers of the 2016 Olympics seemed ready to hone in on a golf course designer, it was revealed that Faldo has gummed up the process by submitting an off-the-wall proposal. He wants the Powers That Be to award the design commission not to a single architect or to a design duo but to a gaudy parade of golf pros.
In a letter to the International Golf Federation, Faldo argues that the course in Rio de Janeiro should be designed by as many as 18 architects. Specifically, he's asked the IGF to consider using “a genuinely international collection of player-designers” who would work together “in the ultimate Olympic spirit” and create “a truly Olympic story.”
I don't know if the IGF is taking Faldo's proposal seriously. I sure hope it isn't.
Essentially, Faldo's argument boils down to this: A golf course designed by an individual or duo generates publicity in a nation or two, but one designed by high-profile professional golfers from every continent would generate publicity all over the world.
This is an idea that sounds good at first but ultimately leaks like a sieve. Without question, a grab-bag golf course designed by a troop of celebrities would generate publicity. Heck, the golf pros' agents and publicists would guarantee it. But the golf course that results would almost certainly end up being a mishmash of well-intentioned but disconnected design ideas. In matters of artistry, more is never merrier. Too many cooks spoil the pot.
One other thing, Nick: If a golf course designed by 18 golf pros is a good idea, wouldn't a golf course designed by 18 legitimate golf course architects be an even better idea? If so, why not offer this alternative to the IGF? (Among serious architects, the idea would never fly. They have too much self-respect to participate in such charades.)
And what happens after the games are played, when the people of Rio de Janeiro are left to maintain what amounts to an expensive novelty course? How does Brazil market the track after the novelty wears off, as it inevitably will?
Finally, I should note that Faldo hasn't proposed an original idea. Legends Golf & Safari Resort in Limpopo Province, South Africa features an 18-hole course that was designed by 18 golf pros -- Colin Montgomerie, Padraig Harrington, Vijay Singh, Bernard Langer, Mike Weir, and Sergio Garcia among them. The course opened in 2009, and I don't get the sense that the world's golfers have beaten a path to it.
That's because passionate golfers dream of playing courses that aspire to art, not artifice. They're attracted by greatness, not high concepts.
As far as I'm concerned, a course like the one Faldo has proposed would deliver only a hollow example of “the Olympic spirit.” And don't the Olympics already have enough of them?
canada Jones Returns to Glencoe
One of the top golf courses in Alberta has closed for a year-long renovation.
It's the 18-hole Glen Forest track at Glencoe Golf & Country Club in Calgary, the first golf course in Canada designed by Robert Trent Jones, Jr. In its most recent listing of Canada’s Top 100, ScoreGolf ranked the 7,147-yard layout as the province's seventh-best course. Nationwide, the magazine ranked it number 41.
The latter number is a problem, as it represents a drop of nine spots from ScoreGolf's previous ranking. So Glencoe is bringing Jones back to give the course a thorough overhaul. The course will be lengthened, its greens and bunkers will be rebuilt (some of the latter will be relocated), and drainage issues will be addressed.
When the work is completed, Glencoe hopes to restore Glen Forest's earlier ranking, if not improve upon it.
“We expect to have one of the best golf courses in Canada once we’re finished,” the club's chief operating officer said in a story posted at CanadianGolfer.com.
The Glen Forest course is expected to reopen in August or September 2013. Until then, Glencoe's 27-hole Glen Meadows complex remains open.
france Smyers Has a Partner
As it turns out, Steve Smyers isn't working alone on his renovation of Evian Masters Golf Club.
The Lakeland, Florida-based architect will be collaborating with Dave Sampson of European Golf Design, a British firm with ties to IMG. According to a press release from EGD, the overhaul will be done in two phases, with the first one to begin in November 2011. The made-over 6,620-yard track will debut in the spring 2013, just a few months before it becomes the site of the LPGA's fifth major.
I posted about the renovation of Evian Masters last Sunday.
The press release provides some additional notes about the renovation. To wit: All of the course's tees, greens, and bunkers will be rebuilt, and four of its holes -- #5, #15, #16, and #17 -- will be redesigned “to introduce more drama” and create spectator viewing areas. In addition, the architects will incorporate “Evian Masters brand identities,” whatever they may be, into the course.
The overhaul is expected to cost $6 million or more.
Friday, August 5, 2011
worth reading It's All in the Stars
Golf course design is, like the movie business, a form of celebrity culture. The stars get the primo projects, sign the most lucrative contracts, and draw the most adoring crowds. In both places, what ultimately matters is the box office tally.
Here's an edited version of a newspaper column recently written by Mary Armstrong, a golf course architect formerly of New Hampshire who's now based in New Mexico. In it, she addresses an age-old issue: What is the true role of a golf course designer?
The profession is filled with historic and contemporary quirky characters and entertaining stories. The influx of professional golfers into the ranks has only enforced the perception that golf architects are special. When I arrive at a new project, I sometimes feel the client is disappointed if I'm not eccentric, or at least on the crazy side of normal.
In other words, some entertaining is expected. . . .
It's easy to understand the hype, as golf architects are not only allowed but paid handsomely to play in a 200-acre sandbox, sometimes without interruption or intervention by the client. Media and lore seemingly tie our creations to our personas. In some circles, our creations are admired and “collected” with even more vigor and fanaticism than art collectors pursue a Van Gogh or a Rembrandt.
Where does this notoriety come from in golf course architecture? Was it the public's adoration of [Donald] Ross' creations? [Desmond] Muirhead's unrelenting personal expressionism? Never-ending stories of [A. W.] Tillinghast's adventures? [Tom] Bendelow's 12 stakes on a Sunday afternoon? Or perhaps the globe-trotting persona of Robert Trent Jones?
Whatever the derivation, we as a profession have never discouraged this type of publicity, and many have gone out of their way to encourage it. . . .
Sadly, today we hear all kinds of discussion about what's wrong with golf. More than occasionally that involves “golf is becoming too expensive.” There are lots of reasons that golf is becoming more expensive, most of which are out of the hands of golf architects. . . .
Golf course architecture, perhaps more than any design discipline that I know, requires a strong knowledge in a diverse range of subjects such as civil engineering, landscape architecture, agronomy, and, of course, the game itself. And yet the public's attachment to celebrity results in project after project being designed by a “name” -- one that doesn't have that knowledge or experience. The best-case scenario is [that] the “name” has able assistants that cover for the “name.” The worst case is that the “name” has such an ego that he or she does the “arm-waiving thing” and blows the budget with a golf course that no one can play or maintain.
Believe me, it happens.
Celebrity golf architect or not, we as the designers of the “game boards” must pay closer attention to the everyday player's declining purchasing power. Here are some things that I would like to see golf architects promote to hold the line on costs:
-- Stay within budget. The construction budget should be relatively easy to meet, but the resulting maintenance budget is more elusive and all too often hardly considered.
-- In the last 20 years, the trend has been to opening-day conditions that are perfect. Indeed, most courses built today will never be better than the day they open. The industry needs to retract from this trend and encourage owners to reduce costs by delaying excessive work until the project has proven itself and cash flow can support improving conditions or adding niceties. In the old days, a course had to mature; we should go back to that standard.
-- The enormous earth-moving capability and large construction budgets have reduced the skill required by golf architects in course routing. It has also made horrible golf courses out of undesirable property.
-- Hold the ego in check. There was a time when “signature hole” was usually one of a few holes that were especially dramatic, aesthetic or strategic. Today, many courses have 18 signature holes.
Above all, keep golf courses fun. If the architect is trying to prove something, most often he or she will bring your game to its knees.
Here's an edited version of a newspaper column recently written by Mary Armstrong, a golf course architect formerly of New Hampshire who's now based in New Mexico. In it, she addresses an age-old issue: What is the true role of a golf course designer?
The profession is filled with historic and contemporary quirky characters and entertaining stories. The influx of professional golfers into the ranks has only enforced the perception that golf architects are special. When I arrive at a new project, I sometimes feel the client is disappointed if I'm not eccentric, or at least on the crazy side of normal.
In other words, some entertaining is expected. . . .
It's easy to understand the hype, as golf architects are not only allowed but paid handsomely to play in a 200-acre sandbox, sometimes without interruption or intervention by the client. Media and lore seemingly tie our creations to our personas. In some circles, our creations are admired and “collected” with even more vigor and fanaticism than art collectors pursue a Van Gogh or a Rembrandt.
Where does this notoriety come from in golf course architecture? Was it the public's adoration of [Donald] Ross' creations? [Desmond] Muirhead's unrelenting personal expressionism? Never-ending stories of [A. W.] Tillinghast's adventures? [Tom] Bendelow's 12 stakes on a Sunday afternoon? Or perhaps the globe-trotting persona of Robert Trent Jones?
Whatever the derivation, we as a profession have never discouraged this type of publicity, and many have gone out of their way to encourage it. . . .
Sadly, today we hear all kinds of discussion about what's wrong with golf. More than occasionally that involves “golf is becoming too expensive.” There are lots of reasons that golf is becoming more expensive, most of which are out of the hands of golf architects. . . .
Golf course architecture, perhaps more than any design discipline that I know, requires a strong knowledge in a diverse range of subjects such as civil engineering, landscape architecture, agronomy, and, of course, the game itself. And yet the public's attachment to celebrity results in project after project being designed by a “name” -- one that doesn't have that knowledge or experience. The best-case scenario is [that] the “name” has able assistants that cover for the “name.” The worst case is that the “name” has such an ego that he or she does the “arm-waiving thing” and blows the budget with a golf course that no one can play or maintain.
Believe me, it happens.
Celebrity golf architect or not, we as the designers of the “game boards” must pay closer attention to the everyday player's declining purchasing power. Here are some things that I would like to see golf architects promote to hold the line on costs:
-- Stay within budget. The construction budget should be relatively easy to meet, but the resulting maintenance budget is more elusive and all too often hardly considered.
-- In the last 20 years, the trend has been to opening-day conditions that are perfect. Indeed, most courses built today will never be better than the day they open. The industry needs to retract from this trend and encourage owners to reduce costs by delaying excessive work until the project has proven itself and cash flow can support improving conditions or adding niceties. In the old days, a course had to mature; we should go back to that standard.
-- The enormous earth-moving capability and large construction budgets have reduced the skill required by golf architects in course routing. It has also made horrible golf courses out of undesirable property.
-- Hold the ego in check. There was a time when “signature hole” was usually one of a few holes that were especially dramatic, aesthetic or strategic. Today, many courses have 18 signature holes.
Above all, keep golf courses fun. If the architect is trying to prove something, most often he or she will bring your game to its knees.
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
australia Tom Doak: Idol Hands
Tom Doak has locked up what just might be his dream job.
Royal Melbourne Golf Club, Australia’s oldest (founded in 1891) and most renowned golf venue, has hired Doak as its design consultant, a position formerly held by Martin Hawtree. It’s “as good of a gig as I can imagine,” the Traverse City, Michigan-based designer said in a comment posted at GolfClubAtlas.com.
For Doak, the main attraction of the job is a chance to work on a pair of true world-class layouts, particularly the club’s West course, which he said in a recent interview “might be the place which has influenced my own design style the most.” The track, which opened in 1931, was designed by one of his idols, Alister MacKenzie, and is a fixture in rankings of the best courses on the planet.
Noteworthy factoid: MacKenzie never laid eyes on the completed course.
No renovation plans are currently in order, but Doak knows that the club’s courses are, as he put it, “feeling pressure from technology.” He’s expected to make a site visit later this year, presumably before November, when Royal Melbourne hosts the Presidents Cup.
One other thing: Rumor has it that the club, which is located in a southern suburb of Melbourne, may purchase an adjacent golf property, Sandringham Golf Club, and renovate it.
Royal Melbourne Golf Club, Australia’s oldest (founded in 1891) and most renowned golf venue, has hired Doak as its design consultant, a position formerly held by Martin Hawtree. It’s “as good of a gig as I can imagine,” the Traverse City, Michigan-based designer said in a comment posted at GolfClubAtlas.com.
For Doak, the main attraction of the job is a chance to work on a pair of true world-class layouts, particularly the club’s West course, which he said in a recent interview “might be the place which has influenced my own design style the most.” The track, which opened in 1931, was designed by one of his idols, Alister MacKenzie, and is a fixture in rankings of the best courses on the planet.
Noteworthy factoid: MacKenzie never laid eyes on the completed course.
No renovation plans are currently in order, but Doak knows that the club’s courses are, as he put it, “feeling pressure from technology.” He’s expected to make a site visit later this year, presumably before November, when Royal Melbourne hosts the Presidents Cup.
One other thing: Rumor has it that the club, which is located in a southern suburb of Melbourne, may purchase an adjacent golf property, Sandringham Golf Club, and renovate it.
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