The Week That Was, october 2, 2011

russia Zero, Nothing, Nada

So much talk, so little action.

That's how I started a post about golf in Russia back in July 2010, and nothing has happened since to change my opinion.

Russia is one of the richest nations on the planet (I believe Moscow is still home to more billionaires as any other city), it provides office space to virtually every major international corporation on the planet, and the Olympics, with thousands of tourists in their wake, are headed to Sochi. Nonetheless, I don't believe the nation's golf business has managed to build even 20 golf courses since way back in the 1970s, when Armand Hammer told Leonid Brezhnev that he needed to commit to golf if he wanted to woo Western money.

Just a few years ago, the Russian Golf Association hatched a grand plan to build 500 golf facilities by 2018, and do you know what came of it? Nada. Today, whenever anybody in golf talks about Russia, he talks about the same thing people were talking about at the turn of the century: development potential.


So excuse me if I ho-hum the news that PGA National Golf Course will soon open in the Zavidovo Lakes area north of Moscow, or that a publication described as the city's “leading real estate magazine” has already named it “Best New Design in Russia 2011.” For my money, it's too little, too late.

Here's what's passing for golf news in Russia these days:

The ridiculously long (7,400-yard) course, designed by Dave Sampson of European Golf Design, is scheduled to open next fall. It's the centerpiece of the 3,282-acre Zavidovo resort community, which is taking shape along the southern shore of the Ivankovskoe Reservoir, about 80 miles north of Moscow. If all goes as planned, the community will eventually include 5,000 houses, a town center, hotels, office and meeting space, a spa, two marinas, a water sports center, and a short, nine-hole layout that will be part of a PGA National Golf Academy.

Sounds like nothing more than a real estate play to me, but I'm just another ugly American.

Oh yeah, one other thing: Maria Verchenova, Russia's first (and, I believe, still only) LPGA pro, will be, according to a press release, “attached” to the club. I think she knows her role, even if the press release isn't willing to spell it out.

“I always like to bring something extra-special to the golf course,” Verchenova once said, “so if I’m wearing sexier, more stylish stuff -- like a shorter skirt or a nice, tennis-style dress -- and people notice, then great.”

Some information in this post originally appeared in the December 2008 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.

netherlands Holland Daze

Golf Course Architecture has published some new information about Frank Pont's golf course in southern Holland, which is under construction and could open at least nine of its 27 holes sometime next year.

De Swinkelsche is taking shape on a 240-acre farm owned by Harry and Hendrik Swinkels in the town of Someren. Earlier this year, Pont told me that it would be “one of the Netherlands’ best new courses built in the last 30 years.” Based on what he told GCA, reaching that goal will require him to combine both minimalist and maximalist design approaches.

Allow me to explain.

The Swinkels' farm is mostly flat and featureless. But a glimpse of its more interesting past can be found in the forest that stands adjacent to it. The forest is full of contours and undulations that lend themselves poorly to farming but well to golf.

Pont plans to build five holes in the forest, disturbing as little of the topography as possible, as a minimalist would. The other 13 holes, however, will be laid out on the farm, which needs to be utterly and completely transformed, Tom Fazio-style, into an expanse that resembles the forest. As Pont explained it, “That means everything -- from the run of the little creek to the positions of hills, humps and hillocks, ponds and wetlands -- will be created. The key will be to create a credible, wild, and natural landscape from scratch.”

Sounds like fun.

Pont earned an MBA at the University of Chicago and, after a stint as an investment banker in England, studied golf design in Edinburgh and did an apprenticeship with David McLay Kidd. He's enlisted Conor Walsh, Kidd's favorite shaper (they worked together on Kidd's celebrated Scottish courses, Machrihanish Dunes and the Castle course at St. Andrews) to do the dirty work at De Swinkelsche.

“It has the potential to be an amazing course,” Walsh said.

Pont has also invited a Canadian architect, Jeff Mingay, to provide some design ideas. “I’ve always wanted to sort of do the equivalent of a jam session in building a golf course,” he told GCA.

When all is said and done, De Swinkelsche will offer a regulation-length 18-hole track, a nine-hole “practice” course, and an aqua range.

Some information in this post originally appeared in the January 2011 issue of World Edition of the Golf Course Report.