Short Notice june 29, 2012

For months, Donald Trump has been raging about the wind farm that the Scottish government wants to build within view of his soon-to-open links course in Aberdeenshire, contending that it’ll not only ruin his business but also wreck the nation’s travel industry. This week, however, Jack Nicklaus submitted a brief on behalf of the planet. “I can’t see wind turbines putting people off from playing golf,” Nicklaus told the Scotsman. “That suggestion is just crazy.” So much for Nicklaus’ invitation to Trump’s inaugural event, eh?

Speaking of Scotland, the people who run the nation’s golf business hope to spend more than $11 million over the next eight years to “grow the game.” This isn’t, ultimately, a very large amount -- just $1.4 million annually -- but Scottish Golf and related entities believe it’ll fund a variety of initiatives that will ensure, in the words of the Scotsman, “the long-term sustainability of clubs and courses.” The next step is to find the money, which the newspaper says will come from “a variety of public-sector and private sources.”

     The Biebs and Bubba: They're pals, apparently.

In my recent ramblings about young celebrities who should be helping us grow the game, I failed to mention maybe the biggest, most famous star of them all: Justin Bieber. This unfortunate and regrettable oversight is ample proof of how sadly out of touch I am with youth culture. I didn’t even realize the Biebs played until I stumbled across notice of an incident he had with “paparazzi hiding in the bushes” at Calabasas Country Club in California. “dear paps,” Bieber tweeted afterwards. “golf is supposed to be a relaxing sport. u arent supposed to be in the bushes yelling at me with cameras. let me finish the game.” I can understand if the powers that be in golf don’t care for my suggestion that Britney Spears promote golf in television commercials. So let me ask: Would Bieber be a suitable alternative?

Golf is still occasionally being played at Cordillera Golf Club, but now it’s being done under the cloud of a bankruptcy filing. The tony club, part of a community that occupies 12 square miles in the Vail Valley of smoke-hazed Colorado, has faced a cash crunch for two years or more -- three of its four golf courses didn’t open last summer -- and last week its owner, David Wilhelm, was forced to seek Chapter 11 protection. If you’re wondering, the club features regulation-length courses designed by Jack Nicklaus, Tom Fazio, and Hale Irwin, plus a “short course” designed by Dave Pelz.

Brits are beginning to play golf again. Over the past six months, according to a survey by Sport England, the number of people who play at least once a week in England has increased by 69,000. “Golf is heading in the right direction,” concluded the COO of the England Golf Partnership. “We have responded to earlier, disappointing results by understanding the needs of golfers and developing improved plans to keep people playing regularly. But there is still more work to be done, particularly to encourage young adults.” One caveat: The survey reports that 20 other sports have also been trending upward in England since the end of 2011.

indonesia Lombok's Next Attraction

Tourism officials in Indonesia aim to turn a 3,000-acre swath of southern Lombok Island into a resort destination that will include at least one 18-hole golf course.

The Mandalika resort is being co-developed by the Indonesian government and the Bali Tourism Development Corporation, in an effort to lure travelers who might have otherwise vacationed on the island of Bali, Lombok’s western neighbor. The resort will take shape near Praya, a short drive from the new Bandara international airport, and within a decade of its opening it’s expected to attract a million people a year.

Mandalika will spread over nearly five miles of beaches facing the Indian Ocean. It’s been master-planned to include luxury villas, “environmentally friendly” accommodations for both short- and long-term stays, resort-style hotels, theme and amusement parks, entertainment venues, conference facilities, shopping areas, and a “world-class” marina that will serve as a base for the surfers and divers who’ve turned Lombok into Asia’s Surf City.

The first phase of construction at Mandalika is expected to include some houses, a theme park, a maritime museum, a Formula One race track, and a “green” golf course designed to have a minimal impact on the surrounding landscape.

Among the firms being considered for the commission is Nicklaus Design of North Palm Beach, Florida. “It’s a prospect that we are hopeful for,” says Ray Ball, the head of the firm’s design crew. “We hope to get something signed.”

The BTDC, which will manage Mandalika, plans to preserve 7,000 adjacent acres as a conservation area. It’ll seek private-sector developers to build the resort’s amenities and attractions.

The original version of this post first appeared in the April 2012 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.

The Week That Was, june 24, 2012

china Mission Hills’ Next Mission

Mission Hills Group intends to spread its sphere of influence beyond its massive, multi-course golf properties in Shenzhen and Haikou.

Ken Chu, the company’s chairman, recently told China Daily that he’s created a golf management division that will work for golf course owners all over the mainland. His immediate targets are under-performing properties that believe they can improve their bottom lines by associating themselves with the Mission Hills “brand.”

“We are bringing our tried-and-true brand and golf management services to Beijing, Shanghai, Xi’an, Yunnan, Chongqing, and other destinations,” Chu explained. “Just like hoteliers developing hotel chains, we’ll spread the golf brand throughout China.”

The members of the golf properties within the network will receive reciprocal playing privileges at the world-famous Mission Hills clubs that Chu and his late father have already developed. The original club, in Guangdong Province, features a dozen courses designed by many of the world’s best-known “signature” architects. The property on Hainan Island currently has 10 courses, and it’s rumored to have others either under construction or in planning.

It sounds as though Chu is taking this step in reaction to the moratorium that’s put the squeeze on golf development on China’s mainland.

“I understand that there is land restriction in golf development in China, so it doesn’t mean Mission Hills will roll out and go to different cities to build new Mission Hills,” he told the newspaper. “I can help existing golf courses that are not doing as well as they should to reposition them, to re-market them, and to make them profitable for the existing owners because Mission Hills has 20 years of experience in golf management.”

China currently has about 600 golf courses, and its management business will eventually offer a wealth of opportunities to both domestic and foreign operators. It’ll be interesting to see how effectively Chu capitalizes on his company’s formidable reputation.

united states Going Out of Business

The owners of golf courses from coast to coast happily continue to ring up rounds this year. The number of rounds played across the country was up by 22 percent through the first quarter of the year, according to the National Golf Foundation, and Golfweek reports that the number was up by 17 percent in April. Through the first four months of the year, says Golfweek, the nation’s courses have registered a 20 percent increase over the numbers they posted in 2011.

That being said, many U.S. courses are still hurting, particularly municipal courses. Here are five munis whose future is threatened:

   -- To ease financial pressure, Tucson, Arizona is thinking about closing one of its four golf properties. The most likely candidate is Fred Enke Golf Course, a layout that’s long bled money. City officials have given the golf operation’s managers four months to come up with a plan to turn a profit and pay off debts incurred when the courses were last renovated. The city’s director of golf told Tucson News Now that it’s still “premature to talk about whether to close golf courses,” but he admitted that “the golf utility will not look the same a year from now.”

   -- One of the eight municipal courses in Salt Lake City, Utah is also on the critical list. The city’s golf managers may soon pull the plug on Jordan River Par-3 Golf Course, a nine-hole track that reportedly loses $60,000 a year. “It’s a great place for beginners to learn golf,” a councilmember told the Salt Lake Tribune, “but it’s tough to subsidize it year after year. It’s chewing away at a lot of our operating revenue.”

   -- You can already circle the date: Oaklawn Golf Course, a municipal track in Marshall, Texas, will go to the gallows on September 15. The city hasn’t officially decided how to re-purpose the course’s property, but the smart money is betting on a version of general-purpose recreation. “This option gives us a great opportunity to build a park for our entire city to enjoy,” a city official told the Marshall News Messenger.

   -- The cost-cutters in Bethlehem, New York may close Colonial Acres Golf Course, despite losses of just $20,000 in 2011. Since 2009, revenues collected at the town-owned nine-hole track have reportedly fallen from $148,668 to $89,591, partly because an 18-hole course with better clubhouse amenities opened in a nearby town.

   -- The town of Stoneham, Massachusetts wants to close one of its two nine-hole golf courses. The likely victim is Stoneham Oaks Golf Course, which isn’t a financial drain but is unfortunately located on property too valuable for golf. “Stoneham, like many communities, is struggling, and we have got to maximize the assets we own,” the town’s administrator told the Boston Globe. “Maintaining a golf course that is barely breaking even is not maximizing its value or assets.”

russia Unlocking Moscow’s Secrets

A local development group wants to build a golf community in metropolitan Moscow.

Let me confess at the outset that I can’t tell you a whole lot about the to-be-named community. I stumbled across this news while researching a related subject, and translations of Russian and Eastern European news stories can sometimes be extremely difficult to interpret.

Here’s what I can deduce: The community will take shape on 370 acres along or near Kaluzhskoe Highway, which maps show as being southwest of downtown Moscow. The community will feature an 18-hole, “championship-standard” course that will occupy about 250 acres, and construction is scheduled to begin next year.

A Russian news source says the community is being developed by Anton Wiener, the principal of Khimki Group, but I’m not even sure that I’ve got Wiener’s name spelled correctly. In the United States, at least, Wiener is more commonly spelled “Weiner,” and the account identifies Wiener as the son of a famous rhythmic gymnastics coach named Irina Viner.

And you thought writing about international golf development was easy.

Khimki plans to lease the site from the landowners, who’ll become partners in the venture. “We are not going to buy land, because in this case the project becomes uneconomical due to the high time of return,” Wiener explained to a newspaper called Kommersant.

The “time of return” is expected to be seven or eight years, maybe more.

Finally, the golf community is just one of several real estate ventures that Khimki is working on the area.

wild card click You know what they say about people who live in glass houses.

Short Notice, june 22, 2012

The Chinese financiers who pull the strings at the Baha Mar mega-resort in the Bahamas will break ground on their Jack Nicklaus “signature” golf course next month. The track will take shape on property that was once home of Cable Bay Golf Club, which opened in the late 1920s (it was designed by Devereaux Emmet) and was the Bahamas’ first golf course. Baha Mar is a 1,000-acre spread along Nassau’s Cable Beach that will eventually have hundreds of villas and condos, the biggest casino in the Caribbean, the biggest convention center in the Bahamas, a shopping area, and at least six hotels. The course is expected to open in late 2013.

Some information in the previous post originally appeared in the May 2010 and April 2012 issues of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.

David Murdock has agreed to sell his 98 percent share of Lanai, one of the Hawaiian islands, to Oracle’s CEO, Larry Ellison. Murdock, the billionaire who owns Dole Food Company, bought Lanai in 1985 and built two golf courses on it, the Challenge at Manele (Jack Nicklaus, designer) and the Experience at Koele (Greg Norman). He also owns Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks, California and, via Castle & Cooke, golf properties in Arizona, North Carolina, and California. He’s 89, and I’m wondering if the sale of Lanai means that his other golf properties are also on the market.

Government officials in Andalucia, Spain have nixed proposals to build nine golf courses. The problem, according to the territory’s tourism minister, is that the developers were trying to “circumvent the planning regulations” by building “predominately residential projects.” The snubbed projects are in Almogia, Lucena, Almería, Casarabonela, Granada, and Barbate.

Later this year, the number-one Toyota dealer in Nigeria expects to officially open an 18-hole, “championship-standard” golf course in suburban Akure, the capital of the state of Ondo. The track will have a Florida flavor, as it’s been designed by Lakeland-based Ron Garl and built by Vero Beach-based Total Golf Construction. You can find it at Michael Ade Ojo’s Elizade Golf Resort, which will eventually sprout a 200-room hotel, a water park, and some condos. The course has already drawn comparisons to IBB International Golf & Country Club in Abuja and Le Meridien Ibom Golf Course in Uyo, which a Nigerian newspaper says are “the only Nigerian courses with world-class attributes.”

Some information in the preceding post originally appeared in the July 2010 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.

A partially completed, Gary Player-designed golf course in Thailand’s Chonburi Province is for sale. Sri Racha International Golf Course, part of a resort located roughly 60 miles southeast of Bangkok, opened in 1992 and has 12 completed holes. I can’t tell you why the course wasn’t finished, but I can report that an Asian travel site calls it “a relatively easy course best suited for less-experienced players.”

canada Can Du

Chinese investors aren’t just buying wineries in Bordeaux.

An industrialist from Inner Mongolia has targeted one in the Thousand Islands region of Eastern Ontario, and he plans to make it the centerpiece of a “green” community that aims to attract a crop of international corporate executives.

Du Zhongyi is negotiating to buy the Eagle Point Winery in Mallorytown, which currently devotes only about 15 of its nearly 600 acres to grape growing and wine production. On the rest of the property, Du envisions luxury houses for white-collar professionals, overnight accommodations, a shopping area, and an 18-hole “signature”-type golf course capable of hosting professional tournaments.

“This is just a start, the catalyst,” the winery’s development manager, Tom Lawler, told the Brockville Recorder & Times earlier this year. “This is an example of ‘If you build it, they will come.’”

Lawler told me that Du’s final development is currently taking shape. It may, he said, include a second golf course.

The newspaper says that Du, who’s based in Wuhai, controls “a diverse portfolio of investments in China, Mongolia, and other international locales.” Said to be among his holdings is China’s third-largest coal producer, and Lawler believes that he may own a piece of a golf course in China.

Du bought Eagle Point from Terry and Marsha Dixon. The Dixons opened the winery in the spring of 2011.

Local government officials have showered praise on Du’s proposal and will likely bend over backwards to ensure that it bears fruit. Chinese investment has been at the top of their wish list for nearly a decade, and they believe a destination-worthy Eagle Point could be the straw that stirs the drink.

The original version of this story appeared in the April 2012 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.

The Week That Was, june 17, 2012

china Jack Nicklaus: Both Sides Now

With the help of a deep-pocketed partner, Jack Nicklaus has decided to mount a major marketing assault on China. And in the process, it appears that he’s going to become the genial front man for some of China’s corporate interests in the United States.

Nicklaus and his colleagues at his Florida-based architectural firm have been working in the People’s Republic since the early 1990s, when they opened an 18-hole track at Chung Shan Hot Spring Golf Club in Guangdong Province. Over the years, according to information posted at Nicklaus.com, they’ve added 14 more courses at 12 golf properties, and they’re said to have nearly two dozen additional courses either under development or in planning.

But golf design is, ultimately, small potatoes, and Nicklaus knows it. That’s why he’s created Nicklaus-China, an entity that aims, in the words of a press release, to “explore business opportunities outside design and development that involve Jack Nicklaus and the Nicklaus brands.”



Nicklaus’ partner in this venture is Guang Yang, the co-owner (with an affiliate of Hainan Airlines) of Pasadera Country Club in Monterey, California. Yang, the CEO of Beijing-based Finergy Capital, is presumably funding the venture.

The press release offers little in the way of details, but it suggests that Nicklaus-China will engage in activities on both sides of the Pacific.

In China, the venture will focus on developing top-of-the-market golf communities, perhaps starting with ventures in Beijing and Shenzhen. (It hardly matters, of course, that similar high-priced spreads contributed to the collapse of the golf business in the United States.)

“Although golf is relatively new to China compared to other markets, they want it to be positioned as the very best,” Nicklaus commented in the press release. “That is where we can help. With over four decades working on golf courses in a variety of markets around the world, we can deliver the expertise to develop golf and real estate at the highest level, for enjoyment of the game, commitment to community, and responsibility to the environment.”

What really intrigues me, however, is what the partners plan to do here in the United States. Because as I see it, Nicklaus-China could potentially have a dramatic effect on all kinds of businesses on our side of the Pacific.

Pasadera, the press release notes, “represents the first Nicklaus-China collaboration and the opportunities the new partnership will explore in the United States.” The announcement doesn’t spell out the exact nature of the “opportunities” that will be explored, but acquisitions and development will certainly be among them.

It’s no secret that various Chinese multinationals have been looking to buy U.S. companies -- just weeks ago, Dalian Wanda Group agreed to purchase AMC Entertainment and its 346 multiplex movie theaters for $2.6 billion -- but I never imagined that the purchases might come, at least in part, via a tony golf club in Northern California.

My guess is that there’s a lot of bored Chinese money floating around at Pasadera. I say this because Yang isn’t the only wealthy Chinese businessman who tees off at the club’s Nicklaus “signature” golf course.

Niu Gengsheng is one of the club’s founding members. You’ve probably never heard of him -- I hadn’t -- but Gengsheng made his money in China’s dairy business, as the chairman of one of the nation’s biggest and best-known dairy companies. Mengnui Dairy Group is, in fact, big enough to have its own Wikipedia entry, and I encourage you to read it. If you do, you’ll learn that in 2008 Mengnui was implicated in the milk scandal that made headlines all over the planet.

Could Gengsheng also be exploring “opportunities” in the United States?

“In our opinion, Pasadera Country Club has an enormous amount of untapped potential,” Yang said in the press release. “The idea of the new Nicklaus-China venture started right here at Pasadera, and it shows the potential of Pasadera being a bridge between the U.S. and China, and how golf can serve as a social platform for business communities on either side of the world.”

Yes, golf can be an amazing facilitator. And so can its biggest stars.

talking points Greg Norman: Profits & Losses

In the space of barely a week, Greg Norman not only admitted that his workforce is 18 percent lighter than it used to be but managed to persuade an impressionable reporter that he has “a flourishing golf course design business.” He also visited six Asian cities in five days, strengthened his relationship with Fox News, and, to nobody’s surprise, talked up a storm.

Here are three of his more notable recent comments:

-- Norman spent some time in suburban Nashville, to promote his forthcoming golf course at the Grove, a community that had been abandoned but is now being revived by a new development group. While there, he told a reporter from the Tennessean what golf design means to him. “Your signature is going to be there for a century or centuries,” he explained. “It’s a testament to people’s beliefs in your skills. It’s a testament to the beliefs in you, that you can actually bring credibility to the development. It’s also a belief that my business model works.”

-- In his conversation with the Tennessean, Norman also reflected about Great White Shark Enterprises, his ever-growing holding company, and he predicted that its roster of products and services will long outlive him. “When I look at my brand, I think I’m only 10 percent of where I want to be,” he said. “The better you become at business and the more global you become, there are more opportunities out there. It’s an exciting time for me. I can build a business that goes on in perpetuity. When I’m pushing up daisies, hopefully my company and the logo will be running business as usual.”

-- Breaking one of the unwritten rules of golf, Norman joined the right-wing propagandists at “Fox & Friends” to take cheap shots at our nation’s economic policies and -- hint, hint -- President Obama. “We’re in a holding pattern, to tell you the truth,” he said. “I don’t think we’ve advanced. I think we may have gone backwards a little bit.” Norman also suggested that corporate tax breaks would solve our ills, wondered where we’d be “post-November of this year,” and shilled gamely for his new collection of sunglasses. And sadly, he was so enamored of his performance that that he posted the video on his website.

Without question, Norman has few peers when it comes to milking golf for all it’s worth. But that doesn’t mean you should put your money where his mouth is. After all, he thought Luke Donald would win the U.S. Open.

united states Oops! I’m Doing It Again

My recent post about our industry’s need to attract younger golfers -- yeah, the one with the picture of Britney Spears -- led me, in a roundabout way, to a story that included these salient facts: 54 percent of the golfers in the United States are 40 and older, and 54 percent of the rounds played in our nation are played by people who are 50 and older.

This isn’t a model for sustainable growth, folks. Before our business calcifies completely, we absolutely must bring in fresh blood.

Maybe you missed it, but various sources recently reported that the United States Golf Association is sitting on $250 million in cash and securities. So the next time you hear officials from the USGA brag about how much they do to “grow the game,” remember this: They’re capable of doing a lot more.

wild card click  Sometimes, war is swell.

Short Notice, june 15, 2012

Circle the date: On August 3, PBS will air a documentary about golf course architecture that I believe will be called “Golf’s Grand Design.” I can’t tell you much about it, but I read somewhere that it would focus on 14 starchitects -- among them A. W. Tillinghast, Donald Ross, and Pete Dye -- and that some of the filming was done in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina and Bandon, Oregon. PBS has made 13 short videos available, but I don’t know if they’ve been lifted from the doc or whether they’re out-takes. I particularly enjoyed the “conversations” with David McLay Kidd and Tom Doak, not to mention the music video about National Golf Links. And yes, there will be a companion book, written in part by Ron Whitten, Bob Cupp, Bill Coore, and Billy Fuller.

Les Furber has transformed a sand-and-gravel pit in northeastern Edmonton into an 18-hole golf course that officially opened today. The Quarry checks in 7,487 yards, and it’ll be joined by an equally long third nine in 2013. Furber, who’s based in Canmore, Alberta, believes some combination of the nines is worthy of hosting one of Canada’s premier professional events, maybe the Canadian Open. “It looks very good to the eye,” he said of the course in an interview with the Edmonton Journal. “That makes it memorable. Respected and recognized. At the end of it all, that’s what you try and accomplish when you have an excellent opportunity like this.”

Donald Trump’s golf course in Scotland debuts on July 10, and the New York-based developer has mailed 250 invitations to play and party. Among the celebrities and star-gazers expected to be on hand, according to the Scotsman, are George O’Grady of the European Tour and Sandy Jones of the British PGA, two of the CEOs who can influence the choice of venues for the Open Championship, and a pair of famous Scottish golfers, Colin Montgomerie and Paul Lawrie. Conspicuous by his absence will be Alex Salmond, the Scottish first minister who greased the wheels for the resort’s development but who’s clashed with Trump since. And it pains me to report that Sean Connery, who’s retired to the Bahamas, sent his regrets.

Speaking of Trump’s new course, the Brit who designed it recently completed improvements to the world-class layouts at Ireland’s legendary Ballybunion Golf Club. Martin Hawtree, whose family has been designing courses for a century, made no major changes, but he tinkered with the tees, greens, and bunkers on both the Old and Cashen courses. “These skillfully executed tweaks make golfers’ journeys all the more memorable,” said a club official in a press release.

Talk about “growing the game”: A school for toddlers in China’s Guangdong Province is opening a golf course for its students. If you twist my arm, I’ll grudgingly admit that it’s just three holes cut into artificial turf. But you and I both know the addictions that programs like this can lead to. A government official told China Daily, fractured syntax and all, “Let the children get in touch with golf is a good trial.”

canada Swan Lake Takes Center Stage

A soon-to-open tribal casino in southern Manitoba will be complemented by destination-friendly attractions, including an 18-hole golf course.

The Spirit Sands Casino, which is jointly owned by the province’s 64 First Nations, is under construction and could open by the end of this year. It’s taking shape on land in Carberry owned by the 1,250-member Swan Lake First Nation.

Gaming has helped to make the Swan Lake tribe more financially secure than other Canadian First Nations, which are often crippled by chronic poverty. On its reservation in Swan Lake, where 725 members live, the tribe has its own gaming center, the proceeds from which have enabled it to build an elementary school and a health-care center. It generates additional income from a pair of smoke shops, some office space, agricultural land that it leases to local farmers, a small gambling center in Headingley, and a buffalo ranch. These days it’s also building a wind farm, set to open next year, to help power the reserve.

But those ventures pale in comparison to what’s planned at Spirit Sands, where the tribe aims to build “luxury cabins,” a 100-room hotel, meeting space, an entertainment venue, an RV park, a recreation center, the golf course, and a “winter resort” for the pleasure of cross-country skiers and snow-mobilers.

The casino in Carberry, one of the gateway towns to Spruce Woods Provincial Park, will include 500 slot machines, five table games, and a pair of restaurants. Its owners believe that it’ll attract a substantial part of its business from gamblers from Winnipeg, a 100-mile drive east.

The above post originally appeared, in a slightly different form, in the March 2012 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.

The Week That Was, june 10, 2012

wales Terry Matthews, To the Manor Born

Terry Matthews is again talking about building a fourth golf course at his Celtic Manor Hotel & Country Club in Newport.

Matthews -- he’s known as “Sir” Terry in the United Kingdom -- last spoke publicly about the new course about a year ago, within months after his resort hosted a wildly successful Ryder Cup championship. The course isn’t a new idea, as it’s been on the drawing board since the late 1990s, but it’s reassuring to hear that it hasn’t been forgotten.

Matthews is one of the great characters in the golf business, one who’s as entertaining as Donald Trump. There’s something like fate connected to his ownership of Celtic Manor, seeing as how he was born in a maternity hospital that once operated on the property. He bought the hospital in 1980, converted it into what’s become the resort’s Manor House, and began accumulating land. Today he owns 1,400 acres, upon which can be found a pair of hotels (330 total rooms), a 200-year-old inn, condos, meeting space, a spa, and a slew of recreational amenities.

He brought up the fourth course during a conversation with a reporter from the South Wales Argus, as part of a publicity campaign he’s mounted to secure permission for other, more lucrative development at Celtic Manor. In particular, he aims to add 230 overnight accommodations to the number currently in operation and make Celtic Manor one of the world’s premier meeting destinations.

“The crossover between business and golf is huge, and we’ve got the golf accolades,” he said. “Can I marry up the conference facilities to the golf ones? I think I can. But the government will need to be on our side and support our vision.”

Obviously, Matthews believes that the three courses currently operating at Celtic Manor don’t constitute a crowd. The resort’s first course, Roman Road, was designed by Robert Trent Jones and opened in 1995. The next year, Matthews added Coldra Woods, a par-59 practice course, and he followed it in 1999 with Wentworth Hills, a track designed by Robert Trent Jones, Jr.

The Coldra Woods and Wentworth Hills courses were eventually razed. Colin Montgomerie used parts of both tracks to create the resort’s Montgomerie course, which debuted in 2007, and Ross McMurray of European Golf Design used roughly half of Wentworth Hills to create the Twenty Ten Course, which was expressly created to host the 2010 Ryder Cup.

Matthews, the richest individual in Wales (the Argus says he’s worth close to $1.7 billion), doesn’t golf, and so far he hasn’t provided any specifics about Celtic Manor’s next course. The only clue I can provide comes from an interview he did last year with the Western Mail, in which he said that his objective is to offer three championship-length tracks.

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

united states History for Sale

Our nation’s oldest golf course, the forlorn Oakhurst Links in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, will be sold in an auction next month.

The nine-hole track opened in 1884 and remains as old-timey as all get-out, as it can only be played with hickory sticks and gutta-percha balls. Alas, these restrictions have severely diminished the course’s economic prospects, and its owner, Lewis Keller, has decided that he’s had enough.

“It’s going to be very hard to sell,” he told the Charleston State Journal. “I think it may be harder than I anticipate.”

Keller is just the second owner in the course’s history, and these days, at the age of 89, he’s pretty old-timey himself. He’s owned Oakhurst Links since 1959, buying it (with encouragement from a friend, Sam Snead) after it had been abandoned for nearly a half-century. He enlisted Bob Cupp to restore the track in the mid 1990s, and not long afterward it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

For all practical purposes, Keller closed the 30-acre course in 2008 and officially put it on the market in 2009. Shortly thereafter, a local group agreed to buy it for $2.5 million but couldn’t deliver on the promise.

The auction will be held on July 28.

brazil The World’s a Stage

Representatives from the International Olympic Committee were in Rio de Janeiro last week, where they had a front-row seat to view the sideshow that’s taken possession of the 2016 Olympics. And appropriately enough, the IOC even contributed its bit to the drama.

In fact, last week all of the leading actors in this sorry soap opera took the stage.

The spotlight shined most brightly on the lawyer for Elmway Participacoes, the company that’s laid a claim on the property where the games’ golf course is to be built. Sergio Antunes Lima, Jr. announced to the Associated Press that his client is “not against having the golf course built on the land” and is therefore “willing to negotiate” with city officials if the nation’s courts give it possession of the property.

Applause rocked the rafters. Some in the crowd had been afraid that Elmway was planning to go off script.

“We can definitely negotiate after the court rules in our favor,” said Lima. “Elmway is willing to sit down and listen to what the city has to say and see what it has to offer. It will be a business negotiation, but the company will not be intransigent when it gets the land.”

Lima’s chief antagonist, the city’s mayor, was also in an agreeable mood, as he professed his willingness to “make a deal with whoever owns the land.”

As if he has any other options.

For its part, the IOC stayed in character, maintaining its perpetually bright smile and sunny disposition. “We are fully confident we will find a solution,” stated its executive director, although he didn’t explain why.

Maybe we’re supposed to figure out what’s happening behind the scenes on our own.

talking points The Half-Full Monty

You can add Colin Montgomerie’s name to the list of those who believe that golf participation is down because too many of today’s golf courses are too long and too difficult for Joe Average.

Here’s what the former Scottish golf star and “signature” architect had to say on the subject in his new book, Monty: An Autobiography: “The biggest mistake in modern design -- and I have been guilty of it myself -- is making courses too long.”

Of course, talk is cheap. These days Montgomerie has a course in the works in Kazakhstan that’s supposedly going to stretch to 8,019 yards. It doesn’t appear that he’s learned from his mistakes, does it?

wild card click  Here’s just one of many reasons I have to miss Chicago.

Short Notice, june 8, 2012

The fallout continues: An abandoned golf course in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan will be converted into a solar farm. Laforet Shirakawa Golf Course, which hasn’t been played since the nuclear disaster in March 2011, is expected to begin its second life next summer. Its owner, Mori Trust Company, also owns Laforet Shuzenji Country Club in Shizuoka Prefecture and Laforet & Matsuo Golf Club in Chiba Prefecture.

Speaking of Japan, a Japanese composting process now serves as the foundation of a no-waste food initiative taking place at a country club in Massachusetts. Ferncroft Country Club claims to be the first country club in the United States to use bokashi composting to break down its food scraps and turn them into a natural fertilizer that the club’s chef will spread on his organic garden. The club’s general manager believes the initiative will keep more than 4 tons of food waste out of the state’s landfills every year.

Wilfried Moroder has been tapped to redesign Golf Club Colli Berici outside Venice, Italy. The club features an 18-hole track that was designed by Marco Croze and opened in 1988. Moroder, who’s based in Bolzano, Italy, says that he’s been directed to make the course “less tough, both from a playing and a walking perspective, and to make it strategically more interesting and therefore attractive for tourism.” A master plan is being prepared.

For the first time, a track in Thailand has been ranked as one of Golf Digest’s top 100 courses outside the United States. It’s the Phil Ryan-designed layout at Black Mountain Golf Club in Hua Hin. The course may have barely squeezed onto the list – it checks in at number 98 – but it’s one of only 14 Asian courses that the magazine saw fit to name.

Vive la Revolution! The long-awaited revival of golf construction in Cuba will begin next year, according to the nation’s tourism ministry. The nation currently has 13 courses on its to-do list, and they’re expected to be ready for play in 2016. This has been a dispatch from the Department of We’ll Believe It When We See It.

australia Renewed Hope for Nicklaus?

Could a ground-breaking for one of the highest-profile golf properties in Australia be on the horizon?

A couple of months ago, planning officials in New South Wales approved the long-delayed Jack Nicklaus Golf Club Australia, which is supposed to eventually become a link in a chain of 25 world-class private golf enclaves built on properties personally selected by Jack Nicklaus. These spare-no-expense clubs are to feature Nicklaus “signature” golf courses and amenities approved by the Golden Bear himself, not to mention reciprocal playing privileges.

The Australian club will be built by Capital Corporation, as part of a 600-acre community in Cessnock that will consist of 300 high-end single-family houses, 250 villas and apartments for short stays, and a 50-room, Hilton-branded hotel. Capital Corporation expects the course, which will also be open to the hotel’s guests, to someday host the Australia Open or a comparable professional event.



Cessnock is located in the Hunter Valley of New South Wales, which is already a hot-spot for wine connoisseurs. Capital’s managing director told a local newspaper that his community would help turn the area into “a major international tourist destination,” and a local elected official said that it would be “a massive economic driver for this area over the next 20, 30, and 40 years.”

Capital Corporation initially lodged its development application in 2005. The company hasn’t announced when it’ll start building the golf course, but its desire to follow through on its plans gives renewed hope to the Jack Nicklaus Golf Club concept, which has been stymied by economic hard times.

As best I can determine, the network currently has only about a half-dozen properties. It includes previously existing clubs in the United States (in Florida, Ohio, and Nebraska) that were grandfathered into the system, as well as clubs in New Zealand and the Dominican Republic. However, only one freshly developed property (in New Songdo City, South Korea) has been added to the chain since the Great Recession took hold. Clubs planned in Mexico and Anguilla have recently showed signs of life, but others in Canada, Scotland, Argentina, St. Lucia, and other desirable locales are either dormant or dead.

Assuming it’s built, the course in Cessnock would be Nicklaus’ fourth in Australia. The North Palm Beach, Florida-based architect has produced one other course in New South Wales, Australian Golf Club in Rosebery, as well as Heritage Golf & Country Club in Melbourne, Victoria and Lakelands Golf Club in Robina, Queensland.

I suppose it’s worth noting that Nicklaus’ firm will begin a renovation of Australian Golf Club this summer.

A slightly different version of this story appeared in the April 2012 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.

The Week That Was, june 3, 2012

talking points In Defense of Britney Spears

Here’s a headline that pretty much sums up the problem our business has with attracting young people: BRITNEY SPEARS TAKES UP GOLF, SCARES OFF GOLFERS.

The headline was written by a wag at the Arizona Republic, in the mistaken belief that he (or she) was doing the golf business a favor by making fun of a celebrity who’s learning to golf. The unfortunate truth is, Spears isn’t scaring off anybody on any golf course in the world. In fact, when she steps up to a tee, large crowds gather. And if the so-called leaders of the golf industry had any guts, they’d enlist her to attract a lot more.

The Republic’s story, like so many others about golf presented by the lamestream media, is really ugly and demoralizing.

For starters, it identifies Spears as the singer of a song called “Toxic,” and we all know that “toxic” things are bad things. The suggestion, I presume, is that Spears is toxic for golf.

Don’t think I’m making a mountain of a molehill. Spears has released something like seven albums. She’s sung dozens of songs that a newspaper writer could link to her. To cite just one example, a story in the Sun, where I believe the news of Spears’ interest in golf broke, linked her to “Oops!... I Did It Again.” What makes “Toxic” a more appropriate association?

The story says that golfers are “struggling to deal with Britney’s inability to play the game, as she regularly lets go of her club and cannot hit the ball.” News flash: This is typical of beginners.

Finally, the story repeats a comment from a golfer originally published by the Sun: “'It’s heads-up when she’s around. She’s hit a few golfers and managed to land balls in golf carts.” So did Gerald Ford, folks.

You know, I never in my life imagined I’d write so many words about Britney Spears, let alone so many in her defense. And I’m not done yet.

Justin Timberlake, the singer and actor, is so passionate about our game that he bought a golf course in Tennessee. Emily Blunt, the love interest in The Adjustment Bureau, has taken up golf. (“There’s something cool about whizzing around on a golf cart with ice-cold beers,” she says.) Adam Levine of Maroon 5, a “Haney Project” graduate, was recently spotted playing nine holes at a course in New Jersey.

These are young, popular, successful people who enjoy golf, and in recent years our industry has been desperately seeking to attract others just like them. But do you think we’ll see them – or any crowd-attracting, opinion-making young stars – in an advertising campaign for golf anytime soon?

The answer is no. Our tradition-bound business would rather let the press joke about young celebrities who play golf, especially when they don’t quite fit the mold that country-clubbers prefer. (See Cooper, Alice.) Our idea of reaching out to new markets is to trot out geezers and has-beens at celebrity tournaments, in the mistaken belief that they’ll make kids laugh and “grow the game.” (Note: I still love you, Bill Murray.)

It wouldn’t be so awful to see a television commercial featuring Spears mis-hitting a few balls, making some jokes about herself, and ending with a tag line that goes something like, “Join me. It’s fun!” I know she sometimes comes off as white-trashy, but jeez, she plays at Sherwood Country Club.

Like rats, we eat our young.

And in Other News . . .

. . . russia  An important piece of golf history -- Moscow City Golf Club, the home of Russia’s first golf course -- will soon have a new owner. The club, which was built on a garbage dump in downtown Moscow, opened in 1988, as Moscow Golf Club. Its debut was weighty enough to lure some internationally known sports dignitaries, notably Mike Tyson and Pelé, to hit ceremonial balls on opening day. The club’s nine-hole course was designed by Sven Tumba, a Swede who took up golf -- first as a touring pro, later as an architect -- after he retired from a renowned career in ice hockey. Tumba died late last year, and his family, which co-owns the club with the city of Moscow, has been looking for a buyer. The search led it to Sberbank, an entity controlled by Bank of Russia, the nation’s central bank. I wish I could report that Moscow Golf Club’s opening sparked the glorious history of golf in Russia, but it wouldn’t be true. Over the past 14 years, developers have managed to open only 14 other golf properties in Russia.

. . . india  Construction has begun on Gary Player’s first golf course in India. The track will be the second at DLF Golf & Country Club in suburban New Delhi, and it appears that Player has been required to weave some design magic. “I want you to tell you that the surface I was given to work with is as flat as this stage I am standing on,” the South Carolina-based architect said at a recent press function. The club is among the attractions at DLF City, India’s premier planned community, which is probably best known as the business center where General Electric, Nestle, PepsiCo, British Airways, American Express, and other multinational giants have set up shop. The club’s first course, an Arnold Palmer-designed track, is widely regarded as one of the nation’s most challenging venues, and it’s hosted several noteworthy professional events, including the Johnnie Walker Classic and the Avantha Masters. Kushal Pal Singh, the community’s developer, expects to open the first nine holes of Player’s course next spring, the second nine in 2014.

Some information in the previous post originally appeared in the September 2009 and June 2010 issues of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.

. . . brazil  For the first time in weeks, we’ve received encouraging news from Rio de Janeiro: The golf events of the 31st Olympiad may take place as scheduled, because a judge has rejected a petition that would have prevented contracts from being signed and construction from taking place. The petition was filed by Elmway Participacoes, which has laid a claim to the property where the games’ Gil Hanse-designed course will be built. The judge’s decision doesn’t serve as a ruling on the legal dispute over the land, but it will allow the city and the Olympic organizers to resume business as usual. Naturally, however, Elmway Participacoes will appeal.

. . . wild card click This week, we got another reason to sing the blues.