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.