All the Russian money flowing into Ukraine is about to spark the development of the nation’s fifth golf course.
The nine-hole, regulation-length track is being designed by Peter Harradine, a third-generation Swiss architect, and it’ll be the centerpiece of a mid-scale golf community in Stugna, a suburb of Kiev.
Stugna Golf Club will be part of a community that’s been designed by a Swiss firm, IN-VI. The community’s unidentified developers also plan to build houses, a hotel, a small shopping area, and an international school.
Harradine, an ardent promoter of “affordable” courses that can be enjoyed by average golfers, has described the layout as “a new and unpretentious type of course” that will be “sustainable” and serve as “a welcome contrast to the usual monster 18-hole ‘championship’ courses that have already ruined the game in most emerging golfing markets.”
Ukraine’s golf portfolio currently consists of nine-hole courses in Kharkov, Lugansk, and Makarovsky and a 36-hole facility in Kiev, all of which have opened in this century. One of the nine-hole courses, Superior Golf Club in Kharkov, is expected to soon grow into an 18-hole, championship-length track.
Harradine’s 18-hole course at Pravets Golf & Spa Resort in Pravets, Bulgaria officially opened in May, and these days the Erlen-based architect is redesigning the Nad al-Sheba Golf Course in Dubai. The course, which will eventually grow to 18 holes, is part of the new Meydan horse-racing facility.
Some information in this post originally appeared in the March 2011 and July 2011 issues of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Sunday, September 25, 2011
The Week That Was, september 25, 2011
mongolia Postcard from Ron Fream
A couple of days ago I received this dispatch, via postcard, from our faithful, Malaysia-based correspondent:
Khövsgöl Lake -- Hello, Bob! Golfplan is doing 18 holes at Ulaanbaatar, Sky Resort-Golf-Ski. Winter is approaching in higher areas. We are 500 miles west of Ulaanbaatar. Reindeer herders have left for higher, greener places. Many yak, casmin goats. Yak soup and yak cheese is good here. Cheers! Ron Fream
A few notes:
1. Khövsgöl Lake is located in northern Mongolia, not far from the Russian border. It's one of the world's 17 “ancient lakes” -- it's said to be 2 million years old -- and one of the most pristine. Its water is said to be pure enough to drink.
2. Ulaanbaatar is Mongolia's capital.
3. Golfplan's course will be Mongolia's first championship-length track. It's been designed by David Dale.
4. Sky Resort will have houses, a hotel, and ski trails. It's being developed by Ulaanbaatar-based MCS Group, which is controlled by Odjargal Jambaljamts and his brother, Od. In addition to its development activities, MCS distributes Proctor & Gamble projects and is Mongolia’s Coca-Cola bottler.
5. Finally, yes, that's a picture of a yak in the wild.
Some information in this post originally appeared in the October 2009 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
india Will Trump Tower Over India?
The Trump Organization wants to export its brand of uber-luxurious hotels to India.
In a recent interview with Daily News & Analysis, Donald Trump, Jr. outlined some of the company's thoughts about India and had the following to say about its prospects:
I have been to [a] majority of the emerging markets, and I am bullish on India. After visiting the country at least six times in the past five years, I have realized that our brand can add significant value to India. . . .
We are proactively seeking management contracts that are aligned with the company’s long-term strategic vision of operating a collection of iconic properties in key cities and resort destinations globally. For India, this means a handful of hotels, likely ranging from approximately 150 to 500 rooms, depending on the market. . . .
We continue to strategically review opportunities in major cities and resort destinations including Mumbai, New Delhi (Central), Bangalore, and Goa and are working with local developers who carry strong track records to bring [the] Trump Hotel Collection to the market. Selectivity is fundamental, as we only want to be part of the best developments. . . .
My question: If the Trumps are looking to build hotels in India, can a golf course be far behind?
scotland Trump's Scotland Yard
Speaking of the Trump Organization, it's released an artist's rendering of the clubhouse it plans to build at Trump International Golf Club Scotland.
Here's what the 17,200-square-foot building will look like:
According to a story in the Galloway Gazette, the building's design “echoes that of Trump's home in Scotland,” the 19th-century MacLeod House on the Menie Estate.
One of Trump's colleagues has said that the building “will be second to none,” but some members of the design community disagree. The New York Post found a Scottish professor who describes the structure as a “hideous leftover from the Victorian era” that's “not even worthy of Disneyland.”
The clubhouse was designed by Acanthus Architects, an Aberdeenshire-based firm.
A couple of days ago I received this dispatch, via postcard, from our faithful, Malaysia-based correspondent:
Khövsgöl Lake -- Hello, Bob! Golfplan is doing 18 holes at Ulaanbaatar, Sky Resort-Golf-Ski. Winter is approaching in higher areas. We are 500 miles west of Ulaanbaatar. Reindeer herders have left for higher, greener places. Many yak, casmin goats. Yak soup and yak cheese is good here. Cheers! Ron Fream
A few notes:
1. Khövsgöl Lake is located in northern Mongolia, not far from the Russian border. It's one of the world's 17 “ancient lakes” -- it's said to be 2 million years old -- and one of the most pristine. Its water is said to be pure enough to drink.
2. Ulaanbaatar is Mongolia's capital.
3. Golfplan's course will be Mongolia's first championship-length track. It's been designed by David Dale.
4. Sky Resort will have houses, a hotel, and ski trails. It's being developed by Ulaanbaatar-based MCS Group, which is controlled by Odjargal Jambaljamts and his brother, Od. In addition to its development activities, MCS distributes Proctor & Gamble projects and is Mongolia’s Coca-Cola bottler.
5. Finally, yes, that's a picture of a yak in the wild.
Some information in this post originally appeared in the October 2009 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
india Will Trump Tower Over India?
The Trump Organization wants to export its brand of uber-luxurious hotels to India.
In a recent interview with Daily News & Analysis, Donald Trump, Jr. outlined some of the company's thoughts about India and had the following to say about its prospects:
I have been to [a] majority of the emerging markets, and I am bullish on India. After visiting the country at least six times in the past five years, I have realized that our brand can add significant value to India. . . .
We are proactively seeking management contracts that are aligned with the company’s long-term strategic vision of operating a collection of iconic properties in key cities and resort destinations globally. For India, this means a handful of hotels, likely ranging from approximately 150 to 500 rooms, depending on the market. . . .
We continue to strategically review opportunities in major cities and resort destinations including Mumbai, New Delhi (Central), Bangalore, and Goa and are working with local developers who carry strong track records to bring [the] Trump Hotel Collection to the market. Selectivity is fundamental, as we only want to be part of the best developments. . . .
My question: If the Trumps are looking to build hotels in India, can a golf course be far behind?
scotland Trump's Scotland Yard
Speaking of the Trump Organization, it's released an artist's rendering of the clubhouse it plans to build at Trump International Golf Club Scotland.
Here's what the 17,200-square-foot building will look like:
According to a story in the Galloway Gazette, the building's design “echoes that of Trump's home in Scotland,” the 19th-century MacLeod House on the Menie Estate.
One of Trump's colleagues has said that the building “will be second to none,” but some members of the design community disagree. The New York Post found a Scottish professor who describes the structure as a “hideous leftover from the Victorian era” that's “not even worthy of Disneyland.”
The clubhouse was designed by Acanthus Architects, an Aberdeenshire-based firm.
Friday, September 23, 2011
worth reading The Rise of the Soul-Less City
We all know the world's mega-cities, and may have even visited some of them: Beijing, New York City, Tokyo, Mumbai, Mexico City, London. These are the sprawling urban centers that define nations, fuel ambitions, and capture imaginations. If you can make it there, as the song goes, you can make it anywhere.
But Edwin Heathcote of the Financial Times believes that “the real, phenomenal growth in world cities is happening outside these famous, historic -– almost romantic -– centers, in the second-tier cities of Asia that can seem to spring up overnight.”
The way Heathcote sees it, these meticulously planned second-tier cities will serve as models for Asia's urban future and may soon re-define the way all of us live. Here's an edited version of his story about these emerging urban centers in China:
Earlier this year, I ascended the 100 stories or so of Guangzhou International Finance Centre –- the tallest building ever built by a British architect, Wilkinson Eyre. It is an elegant, streamlined cigar of a building. From the top, you could see perhaps four or five miles in every direction before the yellowish industrial smog swallowed up the horizon. The young architect showing me around said that when construction on the tower started, a couple of years ago, virtually nothing was there; it was all farmland, there was no city to see from the site.
Guangzhou has exploded -– the same goes for Wuhan, Chengdu, Shenzhen, and dozens of others. But these are not cities growing through informal settlements at their edges, haphazardly; they are ruthlessly planned. A McKinsey report published in March this year predicted that, in 2025, 100 of the world’s 600 top cities will be new entries from China.
It is calculated that 40 percent of global growth over the next 15 years will come from 400 mid-size cities, many of which we will never have heard of. That growth equates to more than that predicted for all the world’s developed economies and the mega-cities of the emerging markets (including São Paulo, Mumbai, Shanghai, and the others) together.
The top five fastest-growing cities in the world are all in Asia -– and they may come as quite a surprise: Beihai (China), Ghaziabad (India), Sana’a (Yemen), Surat (India again), and, despite everything, Kabul [Afghanistan]. Somehow business will need to re-orientate itself towards these exploding cities and their vast opportunities.
The Chinese government has long realized that its extraordinary industrial boom is not only attracting former agricultural workers from the country to these new mid-size cities but that it is creating a new bourgeoisie, a business class of entrepreneurs and managers.
This emerging and increasingly wealthy middle class is exactly where China has decided to invest. It has realized that they will begin to demand the infrastructure of bourgeois city life, from education, health care, and public transport to leisure facilities, shopping, and parks. And China’s notably top-down planning system allows the creation of these at a stroke. Huge, almost unimaginable infrastructure projects are being put in place not only in the big centers, in Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong, but in these secondary cities. . . .
The established mega-cities -– New York, Istanbul, London, Cairo, Beijing, Tokyo, and São Paulo -- developed over many centuries, from historic cores that bred poorer, less formal settlements around them, which were then themselves subsumed and upgraded into new quarters, so that cities grew in concentric rings.
These new cities, theoretically, will allow their planners to bypass the problems of historic cores and aging infrastructure, to wire in connected city tissue from the outset. And if you stroll along the green spine of Guangzhou’s Zhujiang new town, which conceals a subway built beneath a central pedestrian park space and a seemingly endless shopping mall at sub-basement level, you get the feeling that these cities could work. . . .
It is easy to criticize these new cities as soul-less and corporate –- which they are -– but the scale of the achievement in building these places is astonishing. These are cities that will be capable of housing the millions still pouring in from the country. The rural population, currently standing at 900 million, is expected to decrease by 500 million over the next 30 years. . . .
Is it a choice between vibrancy and inefficiency versus the grimly repetitive but inarguably efficient? One is making do and getting by, the other is getting on with it. It is impossible not to admire the Chinese for their extraordinary determination, even if their vision of the future is not necessarily one we all might want to live in.
At least they have a vision.
But Edwin Heathcote of the Financial Times believes that “the real, phenomenal growth in world cities is happening outside these famous, historic -– almost romantic -– centers, in the second-tier cities of Asia that can seem to spring up overnight.”
The way Heathcote sees it, these meticulously planned second-tier cities will serve as models for Asia's urban future and may soon re-define the way all of us live. Here's an edited version of his story about these emerging urban centers in China:
Earlier this year, I ascended the 100 stories or so of Guangzhou International Finance Centre –- the tallest building ever built by a British architect, Wilkinson Eyre. It is an elegant, streamlined cigar of a building. From the top, you could see perhaps four or five miles in every direction before the yellowish industrial smog swallowed up the horizon. The young architect showing me around said that when construction on the tower started, a couple of years ago, virtually nothing was there; it was all farmland, there was no city to see from the site.
Guangzhou has exploded -– the same goes for Wuhan, Chengdu, Shenzhen, and dozens of others. But these are not cities growing through informal settlements at their edges, haphazardly; they are ruthlessly planned. A McKinsey report published in March this year predicted that, in 2025, 100 of the world’s 600 top cities will be new entries from China.
It is calculated that 40 percent of global growth over the next 15 years will come from 400 mid-size cities, many of which we will never have heard of. That growth equates to more than that predicted for all the world’s developed economies and the mega-cities of the emerging markets (including São Paulo, Mumbai, Shanghai, and the others) together.
The top five fastest-growing cities in the world are all in Asia -– and they may come as quite a surprise: Beihai (China), Ghaziabad (India), Sana’a (Yemen), Surat (India again), and, despite everything, Kabul [Afghanistan]. Somehow business will need to re-orientate itself towards these exploding cities and their vast opportunities.
The Chinese government has long realized that its extraordinary industrial boom is not only attracting former agricultural workers from the country to these new mid-size cities but that it is creating a new bourgeoisie, a business class of entrepreneurs and managers.
This emerging and increasingly wealthy middle class is exactly where China has decided to invest. It has realized that they will begin to demand the infrastructure of bourgeois city life, from education, health care, and public transport to leisure facilities, shopping, and parks. And China’s notably top-down planning system allows the creation of these at a stroke. Huge, almost unimaginable infrastructure projects are being put in place not only in the big centers, in Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong, but in these secondary cities. . . .
The established mega-cities -– New York, Istanbul, London, Cairo, Beijing, Tokyo, and São Paulo -- developed over many centuries, from historic cores that bred poorer, less formal settlements around them, which were then themselves subsumed and upgraded into new quarters, so that cities grew in concentric rings.
These new cities, theoretically, will allow their planners to bypass the problems of historic cores and aging infrastructure, to wire in connected city tissue from the outset. And if you stroll along the green spine of Guangzhou’s Zhujiang new town, which conceals a subway built beneath a central pedestrian park space and a seemingly endless shopping mall at sub-basement level, you get the feeling that these cities could work. . . .
It is easy to criticize these new cities as soul-less and corporate –- which they are -– but the scale of the achievement in building these places is astonishing. These are cities that will be capable of housing the millions still pouring in from the country. The rural population, currently standing at 900 million, is expected to decrease by 500 million over the next 30 years. . . .
Is it a choice between vibrancy and inefficiency versus the grimly repetitive but inarguably efficient? One is making do and getting by, the other is getting on with it. It is impossible not to admire the Chinese for their extraordinary determination, even if their vision of the future is not necessarily one we all might want to live in.
At least they have a vision.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
canada Tilting at Windmill
The Royal Canadian Golf Association can breathe a sign of relief: After more than two years’ worth of delays, it appears that Windmill Golf Group will soon break ground on the course that may host the 2016 Canadian Open.
The 7,800-yard course, in suburban Calgary, has been pegged for Canada’s premier golf event since 2009, when it was known as the Legacy Club. Since then, the track has been given a new name -– Copithorne Club, after Bill and Harriette Copithorne, who own the land it’ll sit upon –- and all indications are that construction will begin in the spring of 2012.
Windmill owns three golf properties in and around Calgary, including Silverwing Golf Course and Elbow Springs Golf Club. Its track at Copithorne has been co-designed by a pair of well-known touring pros, Johnny Miller and Stephen Ames, with assistance from two of Tom Fazio’s former associates, Tim Jackson and David Kahn of Phoenix, Arizona-based Jackson Kahn Design.
Copithorne will be among the attractions at Harmony, a 1,748-acre community that’s being developed by Calgary-based Bordeaux Developments. The course, which could eventually grow to 27 or even 36 holes, is now scheduled to open in 2015.
That still may be cutting it a bit close for the RCGA.
The 7,800-yard course, in suburban Calgary, has been pegged for Canada’s premier golf event since 2009, when it was known as the Legacy Club. Since then, the track has been given a new name -– Copithorne Club, after Bill and Harriette Copithorne, who own the land it’ll sit upon –- and all indications are that construction will begin in the spring of 2012.
Windmill owns three golf properties in and around Calgary, including Silverwing Golf Course and Elbow Springs Golf Club. Its track at Copithorne has been co-designed by a pair of well-known touring pros, Johnny Miller and Stephen Ames, with assistance from two of Tom Fazio’s former associates, Tim Jackson and David Kahn of Phoenix, Arizona-based Jackson Kahn Design.
Copithorne will be among the attractions at Harmony, a 1,748-acre community that’s being developed by Calgary-based Bordeaux Developments. The course, which could eventually grow to 27 or even 36 holes, is now scheduled to open in 2015.
That still may be cutting it a bit close for the RCGA.
Sunday, September 18, 2011
The Week That Was, september 18, 2011
turkey Arrested Development?
Mostly because its golf properties attracted 450,000 rounds in 2009, an increase of 17 percent over 2008, KPMG’s Golf Advisory Practice has dubbed Turkey as a place with “great development potential.”
No doubt, golf is well-regarded and well-supported in Turkey. The government has identified the sport as a key element in its plan to boost tourism, and several years ago, you may recall, the Turkish Golf Federation outlined a plan to build 100 new courses. (It won’t happen in our lifetimes, but it’s the thought that counts.)
These days most of the nation’s roughly 15 golf properties are located in one of the Mediterranean’s favored vacation destinations, the Belek region of Antalya Province. The heavily populated Istanbul area has just three golf properties, and there’s virtually no interest in golf anywhere else, as Turkey has just 6,300 “registered” golfers.
Without indigenous demand, it’s hard to predict when -– or even whether -– Turkey will realize its potential as a golf market. Until it develops golfers of its own, it seems likely that Turkey will remain “a golf market in infancy,” as KPMG describes it, that “relies heavily on international golf tourism.”
bulgaria Gary Player's Cliffs-Hanger
The partnership between Gary Player and Krassimir Guergov continues to go forth and multiply.
In 2009, the duo opened their first golf course, at BlackSeaRama along Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast, and a couple of months ago they opened their second, at Thracian Cliffs Golf Resort & Spa in nearby Cape Kaliakra.
“I’ve been playing golf for 56 years and have never seen a site like this anywhere in the world,” Player said of the property at Thracian Cliffs. “It is truly incredible.”
Player’s 6,747-yard “signature” course is the centerpiece of a 410-acre community with hillside and golf-view houses, a marina village with stores and restaurants, a couple of hotels, meeting space, and a spa.
Thracian Cliffs is being developed by Guergov, an ad man and media mogul (he brought CNN to Bulgaria) who founded the Bulgarian Golf Association and currently serves as the president of the nation’s board of tourism. Before teaming up with Player, Guergov built St. Sofia Golf Club in suburban Sofia.
Without question, he’s become the face of golf in Bulgaria.
Mostly because its golf properties attracted 450,000 rounds in 2009, an increase of 17 percent over 2008, KPMG’s Golf Advisory Practice has dubbed Turkey as a place with “great development potential.”
No doubt, golf is well-regarded and well-supported in Turkey. The government has identified the sport as a key element in its plan to boost tourism, and several years ago, you may recall, the Turkish Golf Federation outlined a plan to build 100 new courses. (It won’t happen in our lifetimes, but it’s the thought that counts.)
These days most of the nation’s roughly 15 golf properties are located in one of the Mediterranean’s favored vacation destinations, the Belek region of Antalya Province. The heavily populated Istanbul area has just three golf properties, and there’s virtually no interest in golf anywhere else, as Turkey has just 6,300 “registered” golfers.
Without indigenous demand, it’s hard to predict when -– or even whether -– Turkey will realize its potential as a golf market. Until it develops golfers of its own, it seems likely that Turkey will remain “a golf market in infancy,” as KPMG describes it, that “relies heavily on international golf tourism.”
bulgaria Gary Player's Cliffs-Hanger
The partnership between Gary Player and Krassimir Guergov continues to go forth and multiply.
In 2009, the duo opened their first golf course, at BlackSeaRama along Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast, and a couple of months ago they opened their second, at Thracian Cliffs Golf Resort & Spa in nearby Cape Kaliakra.
“I’ve been playing golf for 56 years and have never seen a site like this anywhere in the world,” Player said of the property at Thracian Cliffs. “It is truly incredible.”
Player’s 6,747-yard “signature” course is the centerpiece of a 410-acre community with hillside and golf-view houses, a marina village with stores and restaurants, a couple of hotels, meeting space, and a spa.
Thracian Cliffs is being developed by Guergov, an ad man and media mogul (he brought CNN to Bulgaria) who founded the Bulgarian Golf Association and currently serves as the president of the nation’s board of tourism. Before teaming up with Player, Guergov built St. Sofia Golf Club in suburban Sofia.
Without question, he’s become the face of golf in Bulgaria.
Friday, September 16, 2011
talking points The World According to Doak
In a recent interview with Golf magazine (posted at golf.com), Tom Doak addresses “minimalism,” awkward encounters with architects he’s criticized, his non-membership in the American Society of Golf Course Architects, course designers he can’t relate to, his forthcoming golf courses in China, and lots of other topics.
Here’s some of what he had to say.
On collaboration in golf design: One of the things I learned from Pete Dye is to take good ideas from anybody who suggests them. Don’t feel like you have to take the credit. All the guys who’ve worked with me have always worked that way. Maybe half of the coolest greens I’ve done, a guy on the bulldozer came up with the idea. I’m the one who said, “Put the green there, and maybe put a bunker here,” but they did a lot of the details, which I tweaked.
On the pain and pleasure of co-designing a course (Sebonack Golf Club in Southampton, New York) with Jack Nicklaus: It was good but awkward. To his credit, he understood our client wasn’t paying for me to agree with Jack all the time. He wasn’t offended when I disagreed. We agreed that we both had to be happy with every hole. The downside of that, and it would be true of any architect I worked with, is that you finish the course and you’re not in love with it the way you’d be if you’d made all the decisions yourself. The course has been pretty well regarded, so I think it was successful. But I think Jack and I both feel like we’ve done courses on our own that we like better.
On the Tom Doak “style”: The one thing that Jack Nicklaus used to say when we did Sebonack that kind of offended me is that he was trying to learn this look of building courses that we were good at. I don’t think it’s a look at all. It’s a philosophy of how you want courses to play. They need to be wide enough for people to find their ball and keep going, otherwise it’s no fun. If you make it wide open, you have to make the challenges around the greens to keep good players interested. Why some people think that philosophy means shaggy-edged bunkers, I don’t know.
On the Chinese government’s recent crackdown on golf development: I can’t say that I understand China completely. I don’t think anybody from the West ever will. But they’re masters at making big rules and then making exceptions. Their government thinks golf sends the wrong message. Their president doesn't play, but a lot of state or regional party officials do play golf, and they sort of look the other way about golf projects because they like golf. Hainan Island is an exception. It’s the only place in China where the national government has said it’s okay to develop courses. Because it’s an island, it doesn’t make sense to develop it as an industrial place. There are 100 golf courses in planning in Hainan Island, which is crazy.
On the “most novel idea” that he’s come across: I’m not sure there are many novel ideas; to me, originality is a matter of one hole at a time. The best idea I’ve seen in setting up a course is not putting out tee markers and just letting everyone play from where they want. It gets the focus off your score and onto having fun.
Here’s some of what he had to say.
On collaboration in golf design: One of the things I learned from Pete Dye is to take good ideas from anybody who suggests them. Don’t feel like you have to take the credit. All the guys who’ve worked with me have always worked that way. Maybe half of the coolest greens I’ve done, a guy on the bulldozer came up with the idea. I’m the one who said, “Put the green there, and maybe put a bunker here,” but they did a lot of the details, which I tweaked.
On the pain and pleasure of co-designing a course (Sebonack Golf Club in Southampton, New York) with Jack Nicklaus: It was good but awkward. To his credit, he understood our client wasn’t paying for me to agree with Jack all the time. He wasn’t offended when I disagreed. We agreed that we both had to be happy with every hole. The downside of that, and it would be true of any architect I worked with, is that you finish the course and you’re not in love with it the way you’d be if you’d made all the decisions yourself. The course has been pretty well regarded, so I think it was successful. But I think Jack and I both feel like we’ve done courses on our own that we like better.
On the Tom Doak “style”: The one thing that Jack Nicklaus used to say when we did Sebonack that kind of offended me is that he was trying to learn this look of building courses that we were good at. I don’t think it’s a look at all. It’s a philosophy of how you want courses to play. They need to be wide enough for people to find their ball and keep going, otherwise it’s no fun. If you make it wide open, you have to make the challenges around the greens to keep good players interested. Why some people think that philosophy means shaggy-edged bunkers, I don’t know.
On the Chinese government’s recent crackdown on golf development: I can’t say that I understand China completely. I don’t think anybody from the West ever will. But they’re masters at making big rules and then making exceptions. Their government thinks golf sends the wrong message. Their president doesn't play, but a lot of state or regional party officials do play golf, and they sort of look the other way about golf projects because they like golf. Hainan Island is an exception. It’s the only place in China where the national government has said it’s okay to develop courses. Because it’s an island, it doesn’t make sense to develop it as an industrial place. There are 100 golf courses in planning in Hainan Island, which is crazy.
On the “most novel idea” that he’s come across: I’m not sure there are many novel ideas; to me, originality is a matter of one hole at a time. The best idea I’ve seen in setting up a course is not putting out tee markers and just letting everyone play from where they want. It gets the focus off your score and onto having fun.
Thursday, September 15, 2011
australia Design Duo Joins the Seniors Tour
Their overhaul of Bonnie Doon Golf Club in suburban Sydney isn’t yet finished, but Geoff Ogilvy and Michael Clayton are already turning their attention to another major renovation project, this one on the other side of Australia.
The duo, often characterized as “minimalists,” will redesign the 18-hole course at Sun City Country Club, the centerpiece of a seniors-only community north of Perth in Western Australia. A plan to build houses adjacent to the club will impact as many as 11 of the course’s holes, all of which will be redesigned or rerouted. The designers’ master plan also calls for upgrades to the other holes, giving Sun City’s members what amounts to a new course.
Doug Hannaford, the club’s general manager, told a local newspaper that Ogilvy and Clayton were selected because the members felt their “purist approach” would transform the 35-year-old track into “an iconic Australian golf experience.”
Ogilvy Clayton Golf Design is headquartered in Sandringham, Victoria. In addition to their work at Bonnie Doon, these days Ogilvy and Clayton are among the architects vying to design a new course for Horton Park Golf Club in Queensland.
The duo, often characterized as “minimalists,” will redesign the 18-hole course at Sun City Country Club, the centerpiece of a seniors-only community north of Perth in Western Australia. A plan to build houses adjacent to the club will impact as many as 11 of the course’s holes, all of which will be redesigned or rerouted. The designers’ master plan also calls for upgrades to the other holes, giving Sun City’s members what amounts to a new course.
Doug Hannaford, the club’s general manager, told a local newspaper that Ogilvy and Clayton were selected because the members felt their “purist approach” would transform the 35-year-old track into “an iconic Australian golf experience.”
Ogilvy Clayton Golf Design is headquartered in Sandringham, Victoria. In addition to their work at Bonnie Doon, these days Ogilvy and Clayton are among the architects vying to design a new course for Horton Park Golf Club in Queensland.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Shameless Self-Promotion, september 2011
I'm loving the monthly Pop Quiz so much I just can't stop doing it.
Here's this month's edition, with all the questions (and the answers, naturally) based on stories that appeared in the recently published World Edition of the Golf Course Report. Good luck!
1. The Chinese entrepreneur who wants to build a golf resort in Iceland fancies himself as . . .
a) a once and future king
b) a poet and an adventurer
c) a gentleman and a scholar
d) an officer and a gentleman
2. The only golf course in Tatarstan was built by . . .
a) Alexey Dreev
b) Dmitry Medvedev
c) Rustam Minnikhanov
d) Carl Yastrzemski
3. The “aliens” who've invaded India's golf industry are . . .
a) O'Brien McGarey and Cynthia Dye McGarey
b) Hjorleifur and Hrafnkell Sveinbjornsson
c) Hari and Venkat Challa
d) Michael Sorrentino and Nicole Polizzi
4. An 18-hole golf course will soon take shape in the city known as the “steel heart of the republic.” Where is it?
a) Saltillo, Mexico
b) Magnitogorsk, Russia
c) Ostrava, Czech Republic
d) Gary, Indiana
5. Jack Nicklaus says that he's been given a “special piece of property” upon which he aims to design “an extraordinary golf course.” What's the name of the property?
a) The Ury Estate in Scotland
b) Fanjing Mountain in China
c) Montecristo Beach in Nicaragua
d) Dream Island in Azerbaijan
6. Jeffrey Blume, a golf architect from Texas, is designing a course in a place he describes as “the Wild West.” Where is it?
a) San Vincente, Bolivia
b) Wendeng, China
c) Penticton, British Columbia
d) Syreyka, Russia
7. The Pakistan Golf Federation hopes to build a public golf course in . . .
a) Abbottabad
b) Islamabad
c) Faisalabad
d) Ahmedabad
8. Which course designer said that “the opportunities for golf in China are yet to be fully understood”?
a) Greg Norman
b) Tony Cashmore
c) Howard Swan
d) Andrew Goosen
9. The Omega project in Tamil Nadu, India will include houses, factories, office space, a school, a hospital, and an 18-hole golf course. Who are the developers trying to attract?
a) Japanese auto companies
b) Hollywood movie studios
c) Middle Eastern oil producers
d) Brazilian soccer teams
10. The motto of the Chinese group that wants to build golf communities all over the world is . . .
a) “We are young, we dream big.”
b) “Authentic Finds. Inspired Life.”
c) “Let's do more for society.”
d) “Vacationers of the world, unite!”
Wish you had a cheat sheet? The equivalent is September'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.
Here's this month's edition, with all the questions (and the answers, naturally) based on stories that appeared in the recently published World Edition of the Golf Course Report. Good luck!
1. The Chinese entrepreneur who wants to build a golf resort in Iceland fancies himself as . . .
a) a once and future king
b) a poet and an adventurer
c) a gentleman and a scholar
d) an officer and a gentleman
2. The only golf course in Tatarstan was built by . . .
a) Alexey Dreev
b) Dmitry Medvedev
c) Rustam Minnikhanov
d) Carl Yastrzemski
3. The “aliens” who've invaded India's golf industry are . . .
a) O'Brien McGarey and Cynthia Dye McGarey
b) Hjorleifur and Hrafnkell Sveinbjornsson
c) Hari and Venkat Challa
d) Michael Sorrentino and Nicole Polizzi
4. An 18-hole golf course will soon take shape in the city known as the “steel heart of the republic.” Where is it?
a) Saltillo, Mexico
b) Magnitogorsk, Russia
c) Ostrava, Czech Republic
d) Gary, Indiana
5. Jack Nicklaus says that he's been given a “special piece of property” upon which he aims to design “an extraordinary golf course.” What's the name of the property?
a) The Ury Estate in Scotland
b) Fanjing Mountain in China
c) Montecristo Beach in Nicaragua
d) Dream Island in Azerbaijan
6. Jeffrey Blume, a golf architect from Texas, is designing a course in a place he describes as “the Wild West.” Where is it?
a) San Vincente, Bolivia
b) Wendeng, China
c) Penticton, British Columbia
d) Syreyka, Russia
7. The Pakistan Golf Federation hopes to build a public golf course in . . .
a) Abbottabad
b) Islamabad
c) Faisalabad
d) Ahmedabad
8. Which course designer said that “the opportunities for golf in China are yet to be fully understood”?
a) Greg Norman
b) Tony Cashmore
c) Howard Swan
d) Andrew Goosen
9. The Omega project in Tamil Nadu, India will include houses, factories, office space, a school, a hospital, and an 18-hole golf course. Who are the developers trying to attract?
a) Japanese auto companies
b) Hollywood movie studios
c) Middle Eastern oil producers
d) Brazilian soccer teams
10. The motto of the Chinese group that wants to build golf communities all over the world is . . .
a) “We are young, we dream big.”
b) “Authentic Finds. Inspired Life.”
c) “Let's do more for society.”
d) “Vacationers of the world, unite!”
Wish you had a cheat sheet? The equivalent is September'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.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
The Week That Was, september 11, 2011
asia Random News & Notes
Here are some development-related factoids, as provided by an Asian news service affiliated with the Wall Street Journal. Some of you will consider this old news, but I think it's worth repeating.
-- China now has close to 600 courses, all of them built since 1984, and about 1.3 million golfers. The People’s Republic aims to increase the number of golfers “to 30 million in the next 20 years,” notes Mario Rodrigues of LiveMint.com, and “the country will need to develop 2,000 courses over the next eight years” to do so.
-- In a story distributed by the Xinhua news service, the Forward Chinese Amateur Tour says that China had 490 18-hole courses at the end of 2010, including 97 in Guangdong Province, 51 in Shandong Province, and 70 in and around Beijing. Xinhua did some math and determined that the number of courses in China has tripled since 2004, from 170 to more than 570 today -– a stunning achievement, considering that a ban on golf construction has been in place in the People’s Republic since 2004. Xinhua helpfully points out that “only 10” of the new courses “were approved by the government and given business licenses, which implies that most of China’s golf courses were illegally built.”
-- Finally, let’s not ignore some dark clouds that may be gathering on the development horizon in Asia. Rodrigues says that Thailand and Malaysia, which have grown markedly as golf destinations over the past two decades, “are now facing their own issues of oversupply -– more courses than golfers.”
china Site-Seeing in the People's Republic
Have all the best sites for golf courses in China already been exhausted?
In a nation as large as China, it hardly seems possible. But over the past year or so, a growing number of U.S. architects have issued complaints about the quality of the properties they're expected to build courses upon.
“There are still some good sites there,” one of them recently told me, “but they're few and far between.”
I'm not going to reveal any identities or pinpoint any places. Suffice to say that in the past few weeks alone I've spoken with two architects -- one who lives east of the Mississippi and one who lives west of it -- who are finding it increasingly difficult to do their best work in China.
The problem: As China's government more rigorously protects farm land, course architects are being asked to work on wickedly difficult places, including the sides of mountains, expanses of solid rock, and featureless areas such as landfills. Heck, several (if not all) of the courses at the Mission Hills resort on Hainan Island were built on what's been described as “a dense bed of lava rock” that had to be capped with up to three feet of grass-accommodating soil.
“We're going to get complicated sites from now on,” says Mr. West. “They aren't going to give up farm land anymore.”
I'm not suggesting that a shortage of ideal sites is going to slow golf construction in China in an appreciable way or that high-quality courses can no longer be built there. What I'm suggesting is that the future of golf design in the nation may require ever-larger doses of what we used to call American ingenuity.
Mr. East, for example, is working with a major Chinese golf developer on a project within a two-hour drive of Beijing. The course is to be part of a community that includes villas and a hotel, both of which will occupy decent land. For the golf course, Mr. East got what he calls “a severe site.”
“When I first saw it,” he says, “I didn't think there was any way to build a golf course there.”
Of course, where there's a will, there's a way. And when there's a paycheck involved, you can bet that a solution won't be far behind.
anguilla The “Sanctuary” Is Sold
CuisinArt Resort & Spa has acquired the troubled Temenos resort community, the home of the only golf course on the island of Anguilla.
CuisinArt placed the high bid on the half-built, 280-acre community during a public auction in June and closed on the purchase in August. The resort had been dying a slow death since 2008, when its owners decided to quit throwing money at it.
Temenos has beachfront mansions, high-priced villas, a hotel, and an 18-hole, Greg Norman-designed golf course. Simon Fuller, the creator of “American Idol” and “So You Think You Can Dance,” owns property in the community, as does Dan Brown, the author of The Da Vinci Code and other novels.
CuisinArt plans to give the resort a new name -- CuisinArt Golf Resort & Spa -- and has promised to make unspecified improvements to the 7,063-yard golf course and its 33,500-square-foot clubhouse. The golf course opened in 2007 and was closed for a spell in 2009, due to the resort's financial difficulties.
One of the island's government officials once called Temenos -- it's a Greek word that means sanctuary -- “the most important project Anguilla ever had.” Late last year a group led by Roger Staubach, the one-time Dallas Cowboys quarterback, had hoped to buy it, but the deal fell through.
Here are some development-related factoids, as provided by an Asian news service affiliated with the Wall Street Journal. Some of you will consider this old news, but I think it's worth repeating.
-- China now has close to 600 courses, all of them built since 1984, and about 1.3 million golfers. The People’s Republic aims to increase the number of golfers “to 30 million in the next 20 years,” notes Mario Rodrigues of LiveMint.com, and “the country will need to develop 2,000 courses over the next eight years” to do so.
-- In a story distributed by the Xinhua news service, the Forward Chinese Amateur Tour says that China had 490 18-hole courses at the end of 2010, including 97 in Guangdong Province, 51 in Shandong Province, and 70 in and around Beijing. Xinhua did some math and determined that the number of courses in China has tripled since 2004, from 170 to more than 570 today -– a stunning achievement, considering that a ban on golf construction has been in place in the People’s Republic since 2004. Xinhua helpfully points out that “only 10” of the new courses “were approved by the government and given business licenses, which implies that most of China’s golf courses were illegally built.”
-- Finally, let’s not ignore some dark clouds that may be gathering on the development horizon in Asia. Rodrigues says that Thailand and Malaysia, which have grown markedly as golf destinations over the past two decades, “are now facing their own issues of oversupply -– more courses than golfers.”
china Site-Seeing in the People's Republic
Have all the best sites for golf courses in China already been exhausted?
In a nation as large as China, it hardly seems possible. But over the past year or so, a growing number of U.S. architects have issued complaints about the quality of the properties they're expected to build courses upon.
“There are still some good sites there,” one of them recently told me, “but they're few and far between.”
I'm not going to reveal any identities or pinpoint any places. Suffice to say that in the past few weeks alone I've spoken with two architects -- one who lives east of the Mississippi and one who lives west of it -- who are finding it increasingly difficult to do their best work in China.
The problem: As China's government more rigorously protects farm land, course architects are being asked to work on wickedly difficult places, including the sides of mountains, expanses of solid rock, and featureless areas such as landfills. Heck, several (if not all) of the courses at the Mission Hills resort on Hainan Island were built on what's been described as “a dense bed of lava rock” that had to be capped with up to three feet of grass-accommodating soil.
“We're going to get complicated sites from now on,” says Mr. West. “They aren't going to give up farm land anymore.”
I'm not suggesting that a shortage of ideal sites is going to slow golf construction in China in an appreciable way or that high-quality courses can no longer be built there. What I'm suggesting is that the future of golf design in the nation may require ever-larger doses of what we used to call American ingenuity.
Mr. East, for example, is working with a major Chinese golf developer on a project within a two-hour drive of Beijing. The course is to be part of a community that includes villas and a hotel, both of which will occupy decent land. For the golf course, Mr. East got what he calls “a severe site.”
“When I first saw it,” he says, “I didn't think there was any way to build a golf course there.”
Of course, where there's a will, there's a way. And when there's a paycheck involved, you can bet that a solution won't be far behind.
anguilla The “Sanctuary” Is Sold
CuisinArt Resort & Spa has acquired the troubled Temenos resort community, the home of the only golf course on the island of Anguilla.
CuisinArt placed the high bid on the half-built, 280-acre community during a public auction in June and closed on the purchase in August. The resort had been dying a slow death since 2008, when its owners decided to quit throwing money at it.
Temenos has beachfront mansions, high-priced villas, a hotel, and an 18-hole, Greg Norman-designed golf course. Simon Fuller, the creator of “American Idol” and “So You Think You Can Dance,” owns property in the community, as does Dan Brown, the author of The Da Vinci Code and other novels.
CuisinArt plans to give the resort a new name -- CuisinArt Golf Resort & Spa -- and has promised to make unspecified improvements to the 7,063-yard golf course and its 33,500-square-foot clubhouse. The golf course opened in 2007 and was closed for a spell in 2009, due to the resort's financial difficulties.
One of the island's government officials once called Temenos -- it's a Greek word that means sanctuary -- “the most important project Anguilla ever had.” Late last year a group led by Roger Staubach, the one-time Dallas Cowboys quarterback, had hoped to buy it, but the deal fell through.
Friday, September 9, 2011
talking points Let Us Now Praise Famous Courses
Phil Mickelson may not have won this year’s Scottish Open, but he came away from the event bubbling with appreciation for its venue. And he isn’t the only one: Castle Stuart Golf Links, which was co-designed Gil Hanse and Mark Parsinen and opened in 2009, is already ranked among the world’s top courses.
Here’s what Mickelson had to say about it, in remarks published by the Scotsman:
This is great golf course architecture. Most of the greatest holes that have ever been designed have been designed 60 to 100 years ago. I don’t see that type of greatness in a lot of modern-day architecture. But with Gil Hanse, that type of thought-provoking, fun golf course is being brought back.
Our modern-day architects have this feeling that equipment has changed the game and therefore they must make every hole long and hard and totally unplayable for the average player. And unfortunately, that has driven a lot of people away from the game of golf. I think it’s one of the leading reasons why a lot of participation has been down, because [their courses] are not fun. . . .
Hanse recognizes that golf is not about longer and harder. Longer and harder is just longer and harder. It’s monotonous and ultimately not very thought-provoking. [The game] is about fun and creativity, and it doesn’t have to beat you up all the time.
It should be a prerequisite to play Castle Stuart before you’re allowed to design courses nowadays.
Here’s what Mickelson had to say about it, in remarks published by the Scotsman:
This is great golf course architecture. Most of the greatest holes that have ever been designed have been designed 60 to 100 years ago. I don’t see that type of greatness in a lot of modern-day architecture. But with Gil Hanse, that type of thought-provoking, fun golf course is being brought back.
Our modern-day architects have this feeling that equipment has changed the game and therefore they must make every hole long and hard and totally unplayable for the average player. And unfortunately, that has driven a lot of people away from the game of golf. I think it’s one of the leading reasons why a lot of participation has been down, because [their courses] are not fun. . . .
Hanse recognizes that golf is not about longer and harder. Longer and harder is just longer and harder. It’s monotonous and ultimately not very thought-provoking. [The game] is about fun and creativity, and it doesn’t have to beat you up all the time.
It should be a prerequisite to play Castle Stuart before you’re allowed to design courses nowadays.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
china Size and Whispers
If there’s one thing Richard Mandell has learned about golf development in China, it that more always seems to be merrier.
“The Chinese certainly like to do things big,” he wrote earlier this year in a column for the Washington Times. “It is amazing to me how many multiple-course facilities are under construction and in planning.”
Don’t be surprised if Mandell is soon working on some of those multi-course complexes. Today he’s cultivating nine prospects who could deliver design contracts on more than a dozen 18-hole courses, including a pair of 54-hole complexes and one 72-hole complex.
The Pinehurst, North Carolina-based designer has been introduced to these prospects over the past year or so, during the 11 trips he’s made to Zhangjiajie, in Hunan Province, in connection with the design and construction of Skydoor Golf Club.
In fact, as if to prove that size really matters in the People’s Republic, Skydoor itself may grow bigger than originally expected. The club’s first 18 is scheduled to open next month, with a long-planned third nine to follow. And if all goes well, the club’s developers could add up to 18 more holes.
“The Chinese certainly like to do things big,” he wrote earlier this year in a column for the Washington Times. “It is amazing to me how many multiple-course facilities are under construction and in planning.”
Don’t be surprised if Mandell is soon working on some of those multi-course complexes. Today he’s cultivating nine prospects who could deliver design contracts on more than a dozen 18-hole courses, including a pair of 54-hole complexes and one 72-hole complex.
The Pinehurst, North Carolina-based designer has been introduced to these prospects over the past year or so, during the 11 trips he’s made to Zhangjiajie, in Hunan Province, in connection with the design and construction of Skydoor Golf Club.
In fact, as if to prove that size really matters in the People’s Republic, Skydoor itself may grow bigger than originally expected. The club’s first 18 is scheduled to open next month, with a long-planned third nine to follow. And if all goes well, the club’s developers could add up to 18 more holes.
Sunday, September 4, 2011
The Week That Was, september 4, 2011
japan The Fallout
I'm sure it won't surprise anyone to learn that the golf business in Fukushima Prefecture is hurting as a result of the devastating earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan in March.
The Daily Yomiuri reports that 12 of the prefecture's 63 courses are closed until further notice due to radioactive contamination. Of those courses, three are in the prefecture's dead zone and one is in the half-dead zone just outside it.
Note: My use of the phrases dead zone and half-dead zone hasn't been approved by the Japanese government.
The eight other shuttered courses in Fukushima, located in supposedly safe areas, are free to open if they want to but haven't done so and may not anytime soon -- or perhaps ever. It costs a bundle to decontaminate a course, and there's little reason to believe that educated golfers are ever going to feel comfortable playing on radioactive grass.
The prefecture's still-operating courses are also suffering, as they're having a hard time attracting players and holding on to their members. This is to be expected in an area where golfers have more pressing things to do, like maybe rebuilding their shattered lives. To wit: The number of players at the 40 golf properties affiliated with the Fukushima Prefectural Golf Association was down by 49 percent in May 2011 as compared to May 2010.
What's worse, the newspaper says, is that “future prospects remain dim.”
china More at Mission Hills?
Will more golf courses soon emerge at Mission Hills Hainan? And if so, how many?
As most everyone knows, golf construction at Mission Hills Hainan has been taking place on an epic scale. David and Ken Chu, the principals of Mission Hills Group, opened the resort's first three courses in April 2010, added another trio in September 2010, and then delivered four more tracks earlier this year.
But 10 courses are not apparently enough.
Ron Gluckman of the Wall Street Journal reports that “work on more courses at the site,” which occupies 19,800 acres on Hainan Island, “is continuing.”
Gluckman doesn't say how much work is continuing, but he issued some details about a goofy-sounding course -- “outlandish,” he calls it -- that the Chus apparently allowed him to write about. According to his report, the 18-hole, Brian Curley-designed layout will feature “a replica of the Great Wall, a hole inside a giant bowl of noodles, a small-scale version of the Bird's Nest Stadium from the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and a tee tucked behind a waterfall.”
Curley, who's designed all of the existing courses at Mission Hills Hainan, likens this “fantasy” course to miniature golf, “but on a grandiose scale.”
“Purists might not like [the course], but I think it's exactly what golf needs,” he says. “Golf has been stagnant for way too long.”
Exactly what golf needs? Seriously?
The Chus are extremely tight-lipped about their golf activities, so much so that Mission Hills Hainan was once known only by its code name: Project 791. For a while, in fact, they even denied its existence, despite the fact that construction updates were regularly making their way out of the People's Republic.
The question now is, How many more courses do the Chus plan to build at Mission Hills Hainan? Before you answer, consider this: An early master plan for the resort showed 18 courses, and some reporters were led to believe that as many as 22 were in the works.
denmark Makeover for a Great Dane
A Danish design team has broken ground on what they describe as “the biggest reconstruction project ever to take place in Denmark.”
The venue is the New course at Himmerland Golf & Country Club in Gatten, an American- and Scottish-influenced track that was designed by Jan Sederholm. The club aims to give the course a major overhaul, in the hope of landing an event on the European PGA Tour in 2014.
Philip Spogárd and Michiel VanderVaart have been commissioned to oversee the renovation. The course will be lengthened with a set of so-called tournament tees (when all is said and done, it'll be the nation's longest layout), its greens will be rebuilt to USGA specifications, and its bunkers will be relocated and rebuilt. A new par-3 hole will be created, some fairways will be recontoured to eliminate blind shots, and a new irrigation system will be installed.
The construction is being done by David Nelson, a Scottish builder.
Himmerland is said to be one of the top resorts in Scandinavia. It has a second 18-hole course, the Old course, as well as a nine-hole, par-3 track. Spogárd and VanderVaart also expect to upgrade the latter.
The golf upgrades are part of a larger-scale rejuvenation taking place at the club. The property's clubhouse is being enlarged, and its hotel is adding meeting space and a spa.
“We will be able to offer something pretty unique when both the golf course and our other facilities are ready,” the club’s chief executive said in a press release.
The redesigned course is scheduled to debut in August 2012.
I'm sure it won't surprise anyone to learn that the golf business in Fukushima Prefecture is hurting as a result of the devastating earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan in March.
The Daily Yomiuri reports that 12 of the prefecture's 63 courses are closed until further notice due to radioactive contamination. Of those courses, three are in the prefecture's dead zone and one is in the half-dead zone just outside it.
Note: My use of the phrases dead zone and half-dead zone hasn't been approved by the Japanese government.
The eight other shuttered courses in Fukushima, located in supposedly safe areas, are free to open if they want to but haven't done so and may not anytime soon -- or perhaps ever. It costs a bundle to decontaminate a course, and there's little reason to believe that educated golfers are ever going to feel comfortable playing on radioactive grass.
The prefecture's still-operating courses are also suffering, as they're having a hard time attracting players and holding on to their members. This is to be expected in an area where golfers have more pressing things to do, like maybe rebuilding their shattered lives. To wit: The number of players at the 40 golf properties affiliated with the Fukushima Prefectural Golf Association was down by 49 percent in May 2011 as compared to May 2010.
What's worse, the newspaper says, is that “future prospects remain dim.”
china More at Mission Hills?
Will more golf courses soon emerge at Mission Hills Hainan? And if so, how many?
As most everyone knows, golf construction at Mission Hills Hainan has been taking place on an epic scale. David and Ken Chu, the principals of Mission Hills Group, opened the resort's first three courses in April 2010, added another trio in September 2010, and then delivered four more tracks earlier this year.
But 10 courses are not apparently enough.
Ron Gluckman of the Wall Street Journal reports that “work on more courses at the site,” which occupies 19,800 acres on Hainan Island, “is continuing.”
Gluckman doesn't say how much work is continuing, but he issued some details about a goofy-sounding course -- “outlandish,” he calls it -- that the Chus apparently allowed him to write about. According to his report, the 18-hole, Brian Curley-designed layout will feature “a replica of the Great Wall, a hole inside a giant bowl of noodles, a small-scale version of the Bird's Nest Stadium from the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and a tee tucked behind a waterfall.”
Curley, who's designed all of the existing courses at Mission Hills Hainan, likens this “fantasy” course to miniature golf, “but on a grandiose scale.”
“Purists might not like [the course], but I think it's exactly what golf needs,” he says. “Golf has been stagnant for way too long.”
Exactly what golf needs? Seriously?
The Chus are extremely tight-lipped about their golf activities, so much so that Mission Hills Hainan was once known only by its code name: Project 791. For a while, in fact, they even denied its existence, despite the fact that construction updates were regularly making their way out of the People's Republic.
The question now is, How many more courses do the Chus plan to build at Mission Hills Hainan? Before you answer, consider this: An early master plan for the resort showed 18 courses, and some reporters were led to believe that as many as 22 were in the works.
denmark Makeover for a Great Dane
A Danish design team has broken ground on what they describe as “the biggest reconstruction project ever to take place in Denmark.”
The venue is the New course at Himmerland Golf & Country Club in Gatten, an American- and Scottish-influenced track that was designed by Jan Sederholm. The club aims to give the course a major overhaul, in the hope of landing an event on the European PGA Tour in 2014.
Philip Spogárd and Michiel VanderVaart have been commissioned to oversee the renovation. The course will be lengthened with a set of so-called tournament tees (when all is said and done, it'll be the nation's longest layout), its greens will be rebuilt to USGA specifications, and its bunkers will be relocated and rebuilt. A new par-3 hole will be created, some fairways will be recontoured to eliminate blind shots, and a new irrigation system will be installed.
The construction is being done by David Nelson, a Scottish builder.
Himmerland is said to be one of the top resorts in Scandinavia. It has a second 18-hole course, the Old course, as well as a nine-hole, par-3 track. Spogárd and VanderVaart also expect to upgrade the latter.
The golf upgrades are part of a larger-scale rejuvenation taking place at the club. The property's clubhouse is being enlarged, and its hotel is adding meeting space and a spa.
“We will be able to offer something pretty unique when both the golf course and our other facilities are ready,” the club’s chief executive said in a press release.
The redesigned course is scheduled to debut in August 2012.
Friday, September 2, 2011
worth reading The Long Good-Bye?
You can add another name to the list of people complaining about today's ever-longer golf courses -- and it comes all the way from the Czech Republic.
It's Rick Woelfel, who begins a recent opinion piece on the state of the game by saying, If the course setup for the just-concluded PGA Championship was indicative of where golf course design is headed, there are some dark clouds on the horizon.
The course, at Atlanta Athletic Club, played to 7,467 yards -- way too long for Woelfel's tastes. Below is an abridged version of his commentary. It was originally posted at ExeGolf.com, a “community portal” operated by the European Society YOOP SE.
Our concern is that in an unceasing effort to protect against the skills of today’s touring professionals, golf course architects and tournament administrators have set a trend which has resulted in courses becoming increasingly difficult, perhaps too difficult, for the average golfer.
In recent years, the courses that the PGA Tour plays have gotten increasingly longer; they are now well over 7,000 yards in most cases. No one is suggesting that recreational players tackle a course of that length; something between 6,300 to 6,500 yards is plenty long enough for most amateurs. A case could be made that many people should tee it up closer, to an even 6,000 yards, which allow them a legitimate chance to reach most par fours in two or reach the bend in a dogleg without driving the ball 270 yards-plus.
The problem is that as tour courses get longer, architects and greens committees feel compelled to make their own facilities play increasingly longer and harder. In the end, this creates a situation that becomes increasingly frustrating for the average player. At a time when the number of golfers has leveled off and when the industry claims to be focused on “growing the game,” the powers that be must take extra care not to drive golfers away from the game by presenting them with playing conditions that are overwhelming. . . .
If the game is to continue to thrive and survive, architects must remember that not everyone who plays their courses is a single-digit handicapper. The game will be better for it.
It's Rick Woelfel, who begins a recent opinion piece on the state of the game by saying, If the course setup for the just-concluded PGA Championship was indicative of where golf course design is headed, there are some dark clouds on the horizon.
The course, at Atlanta Athletic Club, played to 7,467 yards -- way too long for Woelfel's tastes. Below is an abridged version of his commentary. It was originally posted at ExeGolf.com, a “community portal” operated by the European Society YOOP SE.
Our concern is that in an unceasing effort to protect against the skills of today’s touring professionals, golf course architects and tournament administrators have set a trend which has resulted in courses becoming increasingly difficult, perhaps too difficult, for the average golfer.
In recent years, the courses that the PGA Tour plays have gotten increasingly longer; they are now well over 7,000 yards in most cases. No one is suggesting that recreational players tackle a course of that length; something between 6,300 to 6,500 yards is plenty long enough for most amateurs. A case could be made that many people should tee it up closer, to an even 6,000 yards, which allow them a legitimate chance to reach most par fours in two or reach the bend in a dogleg without driving the ball 270 yards-plus.
The problem is that as tour courses get longer, architects and greens committees feel compelled to make their own facilities play increasingly longer and harder. In the end, this creates a situation that becomes increasingly frustrating for the average player. At a time when the number of golfers has leveled off and when the industry claims to be focused on “growing the game,” the powers that be must take extra care not to drive golfers away from the game by presenting them with playing conditions that are overwhelming. . . .
If the game is to continue to thrive and survive, architects must remember that not everyone who plays their courses is a single-digit handicapper. The game will be better for it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
