united states Some Dealing from Wheeling
An investor from Wheeling, West Virginia has purchased a major piece of golf history for just $410,000.
The unidentified investor agreed to buy Oakhurst Links, one of the nation’s oldest golf courses, at an auction held yesterday. The nine-hole track was built in the mid 1880s and requires its customers to play the 19th-century way, with hickory-shafted clubs and gutta-percha balls. Kilts and knickers are optional.
The seller, Lewis Keller, Sr., is 89 and has been trying to sell the course for several years. Just a year or so ago, a group from Richmond, Virginia had offered $2.5 million for the 30-acre property, but it couldn’t secure the financing to complete the transaction.
The Associated Press reports that Keller was “disheartened by the winning bid” and the “lack of interest” that “the golfing industry” showed in his course.
“I felt like it was worth more to the world of golf than it is,” Keller told the news service.
Keller believes the prospective owner will maintain Oakhurst Links’ traditions and run it pretty much the way he did. The course is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
worth reading An Update on the Bleeding
Is the financial condition of U.S. golf communities even worse than cynics like me believe it is?
A week or so ago, Nancy Keates of the Wall Street Journal delivered a gruesome account of the price-slashing that’s taking place at some high-profile golf communities these days. Sadly, she writes, $150,000 lots are being dumped for as little as a dollar, and initiation fees at some high-priced spreads have been cut by six figures.
This is part of the fallout from our industry’s development binge. Most everyone believes that prices have bottomed out, but there are clearly a lot of property owners who are being squeezed.
Here’s part of Keates’ report on the decline and fall of the golf community:
The past two decades saw an unprecedented boom in the building of high-end golf courses linked to luxury real-estate communities. Betting that aging baby boomers would embrace golf as their pastime of choice, the National Golf Foundation set a goal of building “A Course a Day” beginning in 1988. Real-estate developers teamed up with top-name golf-course architects, building exclusive communities adjacent to courses and requiring homeowners to pay annual club dues -- sometimes even if they didn’t play. Then, in a moment of spectacularly bad timing, both the golf industry and the real-estate market took a nose dive at once.
Now, private golf communities are dealing with the fallout. Many sellers are dropping their prices radically, in some cases even paying people to take their land. Gated communities that once traded on their exclusivity are aiming to appeal to a wider swath of buyers, building family-friendly “village centers” with ice cream shops, hiking trails, and bowling alleys. A few are even “repurposing” by reducing courses to nine holes from 18 and selling off the reclaimed land. . . .
From 1990 to 2003, some 3,000 new courses were built in the U.S., swelling the total number of courses nationally by 19 percent and costing about $20 billion, according to the National Golf Foundation.
Many of these new courses were inextricably linked to the luxury real-estate market.
About 40 percent of the courses built during the 1990s were tied to real-estate communities -- a shift from the previous decades, when that number was closer to 18 percent and the vast majority of golf courses didn’t have people living on them. The golf courses were the lure to get people to buy houses: The bigger the name of the architect who designed them, the greater the prestige and the more expensive the real estate. . . .
Many of these courses designed by brand-name golf-course architects were championship-level, too difficult for the average player. They took a long time to play and cost millions a year to maintain, pushing up annual dues.
“It was a perfect storm,” says David Hueber, former president and CEO of the National Golf Foundation.
talking points Another Update on the Bleeding
The U.S. golf business continues to lose its most important asset -- its customers -- at an alarming rate. In 2011, we lost another 1.9 million golfers. We’re now down to about 25 million.
I know, this is no surprise to most of you. But you may be surprised to learn who we’re losing.
Jim Koppenhaver, the president of Pellucid Corporation, says that in 2011 “the largest departing age group” consisted of players between the ages of 18 and 34 and “the largest declining group” consisted of players earning $75,000 or more a year. Once upon a time, people in these groups were our bread and butter.
Writing in July’s Pellucid Perspective, Koppenhaver put the losses in perspective:
We shed almost 2 million golfers, or 7 percent, in 2011. . . .
Golf’s consumer base now stands at the threshold it crossed in 1990, during its growth trajectory. An inconvenient truth not pointed out among the industry eternal optimists is that back in 1990 the population was 25 percent smaller than today, which means in participation (i.e., relevance to the total potential participant universe), we’ve declined from being a sport of choice to nearly 11 percent of the population to today’s level of under 9 percent of the population. . . .
Adding insult to the injury of us collectively (Pellucid included) presiding over an unprecedented decline in the golfer base since its apex of 30 million in 2002 is the fact that this is occurring in the face of the most expansive player development effort ever undertaking in the industry.
wild card click
My search for fresh insights into the wired generation continues.
Sunday, July 29, 2012
Friday, July 27, 2012
Short Notice, july 27, 2012
By now I’m sure you’ve heard about last month’s official opening of Cabot Links in Inverness, Nova Scotia, and you may have even heard Mike Keiser promise that a second course will be built if course number one is a hit. Well, Keiser must like what he sees in the early bookings, because Forbes reports that the Coore & Crenshaw-designed second course has a name (Cabot Cliffs) and a scheduled opening date (2015). What’s more, ground work is already said to be under way.
The members of Ashlar Golf Club, a fixture in suburban Sydney, Australia since the late 1940s, are expected to move into their new home next month. The new digs will feature a Greg Norman-designed layout -- his first in the Sydney area -- that winds through Stonecutters Ridge, a planned community northwest of the city. The course, according to promotional materials, “has been designed to be ranked in Australia’s Top 100 Courses.” If you’re wondering, Stonecutters Ridge is being developed by Medallist, a joint venture between Norman’s Great White Shark Enterprises and Macquarie Group, Ltd.
Some information in this post originally appeared in the October 2011 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
In recent weeks I’ve asked why the Powers That Be in our industry don’t enlist Britney Spears, Justin Bieber, Justin Timberlake,
Emily Blunt, or Adam Levine to star in television commercials that might inspire young people to take up golf. This week I happily add another name to the list: Kristen Stewart. The Twilight starlet was recently seen teeing off in Malibu, California with her father. She certainly didn’t dress up for the occasion (check out her FiveFingers shoes), but I’m sure her fans didn’t notice.
Attention, Donald Trump: Rain Bird is about to start selling wind turbines, and it plans to concentrate its initial sales efforts on golf properties in the United Kingdom. “Our turbine perfectly tailors the need of European member golf clubs and their electrical consumption,” says one of the company’s business development managers. Rain Bird, which made its reputation with irrigation systems, hasn’t said whether its salespeople will try to shoot the breeze with Trump, but he’ll no doubt be a hard sell. He believes a proposed off-shore wind farm that can be seen from his new golf course in Aberdeenshire will destroy Scottish tourism.
The members of Ashlar Golf Club, a fixture in suburban Sydney, Australia since the late 1940s, are expected to move into their new home next month. The new digs will feature a Greg Norman-designed layout -- his first in the Sydney area -- that winds through Stonecutters Ridge, a planned community northwest of the city. The course, according to promotional materials, “has been designed to be ranked in Australia’s Top 100 Courses.” If you’re wondering, Stonecutters Ridge is being developed by Medallist, a joint venture between Norman’s Great White Shark Enterprises and Macquarie Group, Ltd.
Some information in this post originally appeared in the October 2011 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
In recent weeks I’ve asked why the Powers That Be in our industry don’t enlist Britney Spears, Justin Bieber, Justin Timberlake,
Emily Blunt, or Adam Levine to star in television commercials that might inspire young people to take up golf. This week I happily add another name to the list: Kristen Stewart. The Twilight starlet was recently seen teeing off in Malibu, California with her father. She certainly didn’t dress up for the occasion (check out her FiveFingers shoes), but I’m sure her fans didn’t notice.
Attention, Donald Trump: Rain Bird is about to start selling wind turbines, and it plans to concentrate its initial sales efforts on golf properties in the United Kingdom. “Our turbine perfectly tailors the need of European member golf clubs and their electrical consumption,” says one of the company’s business development managers. Rain Bird, which made its reputation with irrigation systems, hasn’t said whether its salespeople will try to shoot the breeze with Trump, but he’ll no doubt be a hard sell. He believes a proposed off-shore wind farm that can be seen from his new golf course in Aberdeenshire will destroy Scottish tourism.
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
china Hanse Across the Water
Whenever anyone brings up Gil Hanse’s name these days, most of us immediately think of Brazil and the coveted commission he recently won to design the golf course for the 2016 Olympics. But the Malvern, Pennsylvania-based architect was previously tapped to create new courses in at least five other countries, including a high-profile project in China that the PGA Tour is trying desperately to keep under wraps.
The course I’m not supposed to discuss will be the centerpiece of TPC Beijing, a venue that will be designed specifically to accommodate crowds for PGA Tour events and other prominent professional tournaments. The Tour and its local partner, Beijing-based Sunshine Valley Sports Development Company, Ltd., have been negotiating the project’s development parameters since 2010, if not before, and Hanse signed a design contract early last year.
What’s more, the Tour has assigned one of its touring pros, Adam Scott, to “co-design” the course with Hanse.
Nonetheless, the PGA Tour doesn’t want to talk about TPC Beijing.
“It’s not been announced yet,” says Steve Wenzloff, the Tour’s vice president of design services. “It’s not a live project.”
When will it be announced?
“We haven’t set a date yet,” Wenzloff replies.
Sunshine Valley plans to surround Hanse’s course with high-end houses and a hotel, and it aims to make TPC Beijing the premier golf club in the capital city.
If the club is built, it’ll be just the second Tournament Players Club to be licensed outside the United States. The other one is in Cancun, Mexico.
Of course, TPC Beijing can’t be built until China’s central government lifts its moratorium on golf construction. When that day comes, Hanse also turn his attention to another project he’s booked in China, East Port Golf Links in Tianjin.
These days Hanse’s list of upcoming work also includes new courses in South Korea (a to-be-named track on Anmyeondo Island), Mexico (the second course at the Querencia resort community in Cabo San Lucas), and Canada (Union Bay Golf Club on Vancouver Island), as well as two courses in the United States, in Oregon and Nebraska. And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the renovations that Hanse will oversee at Doral Golf Resort in Miami, Florida.
But at the top of the list is the golf course in Rio de Janeiro, where construction is scheduled to begin this fall. The work in Brazil will occupy Hanse for 18 months or more, and only then will he be able to devote full-time attention his other design agreements.
The original version of this story first appeared in the May 2012 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
The course I’m not supposed to discuss will be the centerpiece of TPC Beijing, a venue that will be designed specifically to accommodate crowds for PGA Tour events and other prominent professional tournaments. The Tour and its local partner, Beijing-based Sunshine Valley Sports Development Company, Ltd., have been negotiating the project’s development parameters since 2010, if not before, and Hanse signed a design contract early last year.
What’s more, the Tour has assigned one of its touring pros, Adam Scott, to “co-design” the course with Hanse.
Nonetheless, the PGA Tour doesn’t want to talk about TPC Beijing.
“It’s not been announced yet,” says Steve Wenzloff, the Tour’s vice president of design services. “It’s not a live project.”
When will it be announced?
“We haven’t set a date yet,” Wenzloff replies.
Sunshine Valley plans to surround Hanse’s course with high-end houses and a hotel, and it aims to make TPC Beijing the premier golf club in the capital city.
If the club is built, it’ll be just the second Tournament Players Club to be licensed outside the United States. The other one is in Cancun, Mexico.
Of course, TPC Beijing can’t be built until China’s central government lifts its moratorium on golf construction. When that day comes, Hanse also turn his attention to another project he’s booked in China, East Port Golf Links in Tianjin.
These days Hanse’s list of upcoming work also includes new courses in South Korea (a to-be-named track on Anmyeondo Island), Mexico (the second course at the Querencia resort community in Cabo San Lucas), and Canada (Union Bay Golf Club on Vancouver Island), as well as two courses in the United States, in Oregon and Nebraska. And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the renovations that Hanse will oversee at Doral Golf Resort in Miami, Florida.
But at the top of the list is the golf course in Rio de Janeiro, where construction is scheduled to begin this fall. The work in Brazil will occupy Hanse for 18 months or more, and only then will he be able to devote full-time attention his other design agreements.
The original version of this story first appeared in the May 2012 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
Sunday, July 22, 2012
The Week That Was, july 22, 2012
scotland Scenes from the Unveiling
Accompanied by the skirl of bagpipes, “the world’s greatest golf course” was recently unveiled on Scotland’s fabulously wrinkled northeastern coast.
Trump International Golf Links opened officially on July 10, in a celebfest that drew cheers and jeers from all over the planet. No, I wasn’t invited to the opening, but I’ve read all the stories and have collected a few items that you might have missed.
1. The day before the ribbon was cut, an anonymous tipster told police that an unexploded bomb, left over from World War II, was located somewhere on the site of the golf course. An investigation was conducted but turned up nothing. A spokesman for the Trump Organization called the claim “ludicrous” and identified the tipster as “a disgruntled ex-contractor.”
2. Colin Montgomerie, who played in Trump’s celebrity foursome, raved about the Martin Hawtree-designed layout. “I expected good,” he said, “but this has surpassed my expectations. It’s as dramatic as you get. It’s not for me to say this is the world’s greatest golf course. What I can say is that it’s one of, if not the best links course I’ve ever played.”
3. While Trump has boasted that tee times are “selling like hot cakes,” other sources have reported that early morning and late afternoon slots are readily available. “They offered me a tee time for four people at 3.15 PM on the opening day,” a surprised golfer told the Sunday Mail. “I was really taken aback. I was expecting to be told it would be some time after Christmas before I could get a round there.” Trump’s spokespeople explained that they’d made additional tee times available in response to demand and that times between 8:00 AM and 3:00 PM are booked solid through August 5.
4. A week or so after the unveiling, officials from Trump’s club told reporters that they’d processed “a surge of bookings” and that the course is fully booked for the next two months. “The phone hasn’t stopped ringing,” a spokesman for Trump told the Daily Record. “We’ve sold 8,000 rounds already, and we had our 1000th golfer play the course on Thursday.”
5. A professor from Glasgow University has predicted that the coastal holes on Trump’s course will inevitably be reclaimed by the North Sea. “The Trump Organization has gone ahead and protected about 250 meters of foreshore,” Jim Hansom told the Scottish Express, “but if you protect one part of the shore, you automatically create erosion at other parts of the shore. Basically, you’re robbing Peter to pay Paul.” Such prophecies are usually easy to ignore, but consider this: The Express reports that Trump has already had to make “emergency repairs” to the green on hole #3.
6. While the mood at the opening was overwhelmingly festive, a little friction could be found at the edges of the celebration. The troublemaker was a specter on the horizon: the planned off-shore wind farm that’s supposed to take shape within sight of Trump’s property. Trump has vowed not to build the rest of his tony resort community -- the houses, the hotel, the permanent clubhouse, and the second golf course -- until Scottish officials promise to keep the seacoast clear. “As soon as we find out they are not going to destroy Scotland by building windmills all over the place,” Trump said at the debut, “we will start immediately on the hotel.”
7. On opening day, the question on most everyone’s mind was, When will the course host its first professional event? The answer appears to be Sooner rather than later. As George O’Grady, the CEO of the European Tour, put it: “What [Trump] and I have agreed is that, when we are both ready, we would try and persuade someone to come here -- and I don’t think it will be too difficult a task. There’s the Scottish Open to think about, and I’m sure that’s in the mind of our sponsors, but there are other events as well. It’s certainly capable of taking the biggest and best, I would say.” The next question: Is the course a fit venue for the Open Championship itself? The answer: Not without the hotel and the clubhouse.
united states The Perils of Pinehurst
I’m sure you’ve heard that Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw have been tapped to design Course No. 9 at the Pinehurst resort in North Carolina. What you may not know is that the track won’t be built until business picks up at the celebrated resort.
I know, just a couple of months ago I told you that Pinehurst was “ringing up rounds at a pre-Great Recession pace.” I wasn’t lying. I was just quoting Don Padgett, Jr., the resort’s president, who’d told Golf Digest that Coore & Crenshaw’s restoration of Course No. 2 had “driven our business levels beyond what we expected.”
“Our numbers are back to the 2008 levels,” Padgett said at the time. “We haven’t had a spring like this since 2008.”
As it turns out, Pinehurst is having a that-was-then, this-is-now moment. A few weeks ago, in an interview with Cybergolf.com, Padgett acknowledged Pinehurst’s robust spring but admitted that bookings for the fall have fallen way off.
“Over a period of time, as people travel to different resorts and all the different opportunities they have, to add a Coore-Crenshaw ninth golf course would give you another shot in the arm, like the restoration of No. 2,” Padgett said. “Before that happens, though, we have to have greater demand than we have right now, or we would just be shifting revenues. General business levels have to come up quite a bit.”
Pinehurst hasn’t added a course since the mid 1990s, when Tom Fazio produced Course No. 8.
talking points Go East, Young Man
As part of the promotional campaign for its upcoming conference in Brunei, Asian Golf Monthly asked Colin Montgomerie to wax poetic about the future of golf in Asia. Here’s a little of what the former Scottish golf pro had to say:
The future of this game is in Asia, in countries like China and South Korea. . . .
You will find a major championship being played in Asia one day, definitely. You will see the spread of golf’s majors heading East. We know that the Masters is going nowhere, and the U.S. Open probably isn’t either, but the U.S. PGA Championship could possibly be the one to move. Or what is to stop there being five majors?
Even in 10 years’ time, Asia will be demanding a better say in the world of golf. Asia will have more major winners by then. There will be more great golf courses in Asia. And simply in numbers, there will be more people playing golf in Asia than on any other continent in the world. So why shouldn’t Asia have its own major?
wild card click When Colin Montgomerie talks about “more great golf courses in Asia,” is this what he means?
Accompanied by the skirl of bagpipes, “the world’s greatest golf course” was recently unveiled on Scotland’s fabulously wrinkled northeastern coast.
Trump International Golf Links opened officially on July 10, in a celebfest that drew cheers and jeers from all over the planet. No, I wasn’t invited to the opening, but I’ve read all the stories and have collected a few items that you might have missed.
1. The day before the ribbon was cut, an anonymous tipster told police that an unexploded bomb, left over from World War II, was located somewhere on the site of the golf course. An investigation was conducted but turned up nothing. A spokesman for the Trump Organization called the claim “ludicrous” and identified the tipster as “a disgruntled ex-contractor.”
2. Colin Montgomerie, who played in Trump’s celebrity foursome, raved about the Martin Hawtree-designed layout. “I expected good,” he said, “but this has surpassed my expectations. It’s as dramatic as you get. It’s not for me to say this is the world’s greatest golf course. What I can say is that it’s one of, if not the best links course I’ve ever played.”
3. While Trump has boasted that tee times are “selling like hot cakes,” other sources have reported that early morning and late afternoon slots are readily available. “They offered me a tee time for four people at 3.15 PM on the opening day,” a surprised golfer told the Sunday Mail. “I was really taken aback. I was expecting to be told it would be some time after Christmas before I could get a round there.” Trump’s spokespeople explained that they’d made additional tee times available in response to demand and that times between 8:00 AM and 3:00 PM are booked solid through August 5.
4. A week or so after the unveiling, officials from Trump’s club told reporters that they’d processed “a surge of bookings” and that the course is fully booked for the next two months. “The phone hasn’t stopped ringing,” a spokesman for Trump told the Daily Record. “We’ve sold 8,000 rounds already, and we had our 1000th golfer play the course on Thursday.”
5. A professor from Glasgow University has predicted that the coastal holes on Trump’s course will inevitably be reclaimed by the North Sea. “The Trump Organization has gone ahead and protected about 250 meters of foreshore,” Jim Hansom told the Scottish Express, “but if you protect one part of the shore, you automatically create erosion at other parts of the shore. Basically, you’re robbing Peter to pay Paul.” Such prophecies are usually easy to ignore, but consider this: The Express reports that Trump has already had to make “emergency repairs” to the green on hole #3.
6. While the mood at the opening was overwhelmingly festive, a little friction could be found at the edges of the celebration. The troublemaker was a specter on the horizon: the planned off-shore wind farm that’s supposed to take shape within sight of Trump’s property. Trump has vowed not to build the rest of his tony resort community -- the houses, the hotel, the permanent clubhouse, and the second golf course -- until Scottish officials promise to keep the seacoast clear. “As soon as we find out they are not going to destroy Scotland by building windmills all over the place,” Trump said at the debut, “we will start immediately on the hotel.”
7. On opening day, the question on most everyone’s mind was, When will the course host its first professional event? The answer appears to be Sooner rather than later. As George O’Grady, the CEO of the European Tour, put it: “What [Trump] and I have agreed is that, when we are both ready, we would try and persuade someone to come here -- and I don’t think it will be too difficult a task. There’s the Scottish Open to think about, and I’m sure that’s in the mind of our sponsors, but there are other events as well. It’s certainly capable of taking the biggest and best, I would say.” The next question: Is the course a fit venue for the Open Championship itself? The answer: Not without the hotel and the clubhouse.
united states The Perils of Pinehurst
I’m sure you’ve heard that Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw have been tapped to design Course No. 9 at the Pinehurst resort in North Carolina. What you may not know is that the track won’t be built until business picks up at the celebrated resort.
I know, just a couple of months ago I told you that Pinehurst was “ringing up rounds at a pre-Great Recession pace.” I wasn’t lying. I was just quoting Don Padgett, Jr., the resort’s president, who’d told Golf Digest that Coore & Crenshaw’s restoration of Course No. 2 had “driven our business levels beyond what we expected.”
“Our numbers are back to the 2008 levels,” Padgett said at the time. “We haven’t had a spring like this since 2008.”
As it turns out, Pinehurst is having a that-was-then, this-is-now moment. A few weeks ago, in an interview with Cybergolf.com, Padgett acknowledged Pinehurst’s robust spring but admitted that bookings for the fall have fallen way off.
“Over a period of time, as people travel to different resorts and all the different opportunities they have, to add a Coore-Crenshaw ninth golf course would give you another shot in the arm, like the restoration of No. 2,” Padgett said. “Before that happens, though, we have to have greater demand than we have right now, or we would just be shifting revenues. General business levels have to come up quite a bit.”
Pinehurst hasn’t added a course since the mid 1990s, when Tom Fazio produced Course No. 8.
talking points Go East, Young Man
As part of the promotional campaign for its upcoming conference in Brunei, Asian Golf Monthly asked Colin Montgomerie to wax poetic about the future of golf in Asia. Here’s a little of what the former Scottish golf pro had to say:
The future of this game is in Asia, in countries like China and South Korea. . . .
You will find a major championship being played in Asia one day, definitely. You will see the spread of golf’s majors heading East. We know that the Masters is going nowhere, and the U.S. Open probably isn’t either, but the U.S. PGA Championship could possibly be the one to move. Or what is to stop there being five majors?
Even in 10 years’ time, Asia will be demanding a better say in the world of golf. Asia will have more major winners by then. There will be more great golf courses in Asia. And simply in numbers, there will be more people playing golf in Asia than on any other continent in the world. So why shouldn’t Asia have its own major?
wild card click When Colin Montgomerie talks about “more great golf courses in Asia,” is this what he means?
Friday, July 20, 2012
Short Notice, july 20, 2012
Here’s further proof of Pete Dye’s profound influence on contemporary course design: Herb Kohler, one of the premier developers in our business, has built nothing but Dye-designed golf courses and plans to continue doing so wherever he next breaks ground. But when Matt Ginella of Golf Digest pressed him to name other architects he’d consider for future projects, Kohler mentioned that he has “a very high regard for Tom Doak” and for “the chap who’s going to design the Brazilian course for the Olympics, Gil Hanse.” Yes, Kohler is aware that both Doak and Hanse began their careers with Dye. Obviously, the apples didn’t fall far from the tree.
For the second time in three years, the money-losing municipal courses on Prince Edward Island are looking for private-sector buyers. The province’s government expects to begin marketing its four courses this weekend, with solicitations that will appear in Canadian newspapers. “There’s probably too many courses on the island right now, but every course in North America seems to be losing money,” a local golfer told CBC News. “It’s just what’s happening with the finances in the world.” If the province can’t find buyers, it’ll likely continue to operate the courses.
The big Baha Mar resort in Nassau has been financed by a Chinese bank, it’s being built by Chinese labor, and it’s apparently going to be filled with Chinese home owners. The South China Morning Post reports that Chinese investors bought $25 million worth of Baha Mar’s property at a recent sales event on Hainan Island, in part because the purchase gives them permanent residency status in the Bahamas. “Residency is important,” explained one of Baha Mar’s salespeople. “It allows buyers to visit without visas, and so the flats can become second homes in case they are needed.”
Before he died, Geoffrey Cornish made his friends and associates promise they wouldn’t hold a funeral for him. So, to honor his memory, they’re doing something better: On
August 15, they’ll stage what I hope is the first annual Geoffrey Cornish Invitational Golf Tournament, followed by a celebratory banquet. The event will be held at the first 18-hole track that Cornish designed, the Pines Course at International Golf Club in Bolton, Massachusetts. If you don’t know much about Cornish and the legacy he left to our business, I’m not surprised. As Brian Silva said in an obituary of Cornish that I wrote for Golf, Inc., “He was a person completely devoid of ego in an egocentric profession.” Proceeds from the event will benefit the Stockbridge School of Agriculture at UMass Amherst, where Cornish taught for decades.
For the second time in three years, the money-losing municipal courses on Prince Edward Island are looking for private-sector buyers. The province’s government expects to begin marketing its four courses this weekend, with solicitations that will appear in Canadian newspapers. “There’s probably too many courses on the island right now, but every course in North America seems to be losing money,” a local golfer told CBC News. “It’s just what’s happening with the finances in the world.” If the province can’t find buyers, it’ll likely continue to operate the courses.
The big Baha Mar resort in Nassau has been financed by a Chinese bank, it’s being built by Chinese labor, and it’s apparently going to be filled with Chinese home owners. The South China Morning Post reports that Chinese investors bought $25 million worth of Baha Mar’s property at a recent sales event on Hainan Island, in part because the purchase gives them permanent residency status in the Bahamas. “Residency is important,” explained one of Baha Mar’s salespeople. “It allows buyers to visit without visas, and so the flats can become second homes in case they are needed.”
Before he died, Geoffrey Cornish made his friends and associates promise they wouldn’t hold a funeral for him. So, to honor his memory, they’re doing something better: On
August 15, they’ll stage what I hope is the first annual Geoffrey Cornish Invitational Golf Tournament, followed by a celebratory banquet. The event will be held at the first 18-hole track that Cornish designed, the Pines Course at International Golf Club in Bolton, Massachusetts. If you don’t know much about Cornish and the legacy he left to our business, I’m not surprised. As Brian Silva said in an obituary of Cornish that I wrote for Golf, Inc., “He was a person completely devoid of ego in an egocentric profession.” Proceeds from the event will benefit the Stockbridge School of Agriculture at UMass Amherst, where Cornish taught for decades.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
estonia Growing the Appetite for Golf
Estonian Golf & Country Club built its reputation on Sea power. Now it’s about to enter the Stone age.
Estonian, in suburban Tallin, aims to transform its nine-hole Stone course into what will essentially be a new 18-hole track, in the hope of creating one of the premier 36-hole complexes in the Old World. The club plans to hire what it calls “a headline course architect” this summer and to begin construction in the fall of 2013.
The re-imagined Stone course will complement Estonian’s 7,067-yard Sea course, the nation’s top-ranked venue and, according to Golf World, one of the top 100 tracks in Europe. Both courses were designed by Lassi Pekka Tilander and opened in 2006.
The upcoming investment is a reflection of Estonian’s optimism about the future. The club is located just a short drive east of the nation’s historic capital city, a UNESCO World Heritage Site whose charming medieval architecture has of late been drawing ever-larger numbers of vacationers and sight-seers. The tourist traffic has also benefited Estonian, which reports that it rang up a healthy 7 percent increase in rounds last year and expects another increase in 2012.
“We are seeing more and more visitors from overseas, particularly from the U.K.,” the club’s general manager told a local publication earlier this year. “The appetite for golf in Estonia is growing.”
With 36 holes, Estonian also believes it can grow the appetite for its luxury houses. Its accompanying community offers some of the best addresses in the former Soviet satellite, and the club likes to remind prospective home owners that it’s a link in the six-member chain of European Tour Properties, along with Kungsängen Golf Club in suburban Stockholm, Sweden, Fleesensee Golf & Country Club in Göhren-Lebbin, Germany, and other high-prestige clubs in Spain, Portugal, and Finland.
The new course will no doubt be more resident-friendly than the Sea course, which even the club admits is “a real challenge even for the golfer of the highest rank.”
I suspect that the architect who wins the commission will try to preserve the Stone track’s character, for it’s said to have “an air of links spirits that is so common to traditional British courses.”
The original version of this story first appeared in the May 2012 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
Estonian, in suburban Tallin, aims to transform its nine-hole Stone course into what will essentially be a new 18-hole track, in the hope of creating one of the premier 36-hole complexes in the Old World. The club plans to hire what it calls “a headline course architect” this summer and to begin construction in the fall of 2013.
The re-imagined Stone course will complement Estonian’s 7,067-yard Sea course, the nation’s top-ranked venue and, according to Golf World, one of the top 100 tracks in Europe. Both courses were designed by Lassi Pekka Tilander and opened in 2006.
The upcoming investment is a reflection of Estonian’s optimism about the future. The club is located just a short drive east of the nation’s historic capital city, a UNESCO World Heritage Site whose charming medieval architecture has of late been drawing ever-larger numbers of vacationers and sight-seers. The tourist traffic has also benefited Estonian, which reports that it rang up a healthy 7 percent increase in rounds last year and expects another increase in 2012.
“We are seeing more and more visitors from overseas, particularly from the U.K.,” the club’s general manager told a local publication earlier this year. “The appetite for golf in Estonia is growing.”
With 36 holes, Estonian also believes it can grow the appetite for its luxury houses. Its accompanying community offers some of the best addresses in the former Soviet satellite, and the club likes to remind prospective home owners that it’s a link in the six-member chain of European Tour Properties, along with Kungsängen Golf Club in suburban Stockholm, Sweden, Fleesensee Golf & Country Club in Göhren-Lebbin, Germany, and other high-prestige clubs in Spain, Portugal, and Finland.
The new course will no doubt be more resident-friendly than the Sea course, which even the club admits is “a real challenge even for the golfer of the highest rank.”
I suspect that the architect who wins the commission will try to preserve the Stone track’s character, for it’s said to have “an air of links spirits that is so common to traditional British courses.”
The original version of this story first appeared in the May 2012 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
Sunday, July 15, 2012
The Week That Was, july 15, 2012
estonia A Repeat Performance?
Lassi Pekka Tilander has designed his second golf course in Estonia, the location of what is arguably his greatest professional success.
In 2006, the Espoo, Finland-based architect produced Estonia’s top-ranked golf property, the 27-hole complex at Estonian Golf & Country Club in suburban Tallinn. Golf World ranks the club’s 18-hole Sea course among Europe’s top 100.
An investment group called Golfer OÜ evidently believes that Tilander can work similar magic in Pärnu, a beach town along Estonia’s western coast. Tilander believes the property he’s been given is capable of producing Estonia’s “first true links-style golf course.”
David Nelson of Greenmakers, the Scottish firm that’s building the track, has described the site as “a great foundation to create one of the greatest golf courses ever built in Northern Europe.”
The to-be-named course will be accompanied by houses and, potentially, a hotel and a spa. It’s expected to open in 2014.
Some information in this post originally appeared in the April 2012 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
russia Putting the Cart Before the Horse
If a story in the Moscow News is to be believed, Russia’s golf industry remains bound almost completely to real estate development, a formula that looks great on paper but leaves something to be desired in real life.
This is why golf development in Russia proceeds at a turtle’s pace. Some problems can’t be solved with money alone, no matter how deep a developer’s pockets may be. A country needs golfers before it needs golf courses.
But don’t tell that to the aspirational Russian billionaires who are itching to live in oversized, overpriced estates along lush fairways. Let them learn the score 10 or 20 years from now, when they find themselves in possession of a 175-acre value-enhancer that’s slowly bleeding them dry.
The News’ story offers a glimpse into the Russian lifestyle and the current mind-set of opinion-makers in the golf business. These are its concluding paragraphs:
More and more new golf venues are springing up in Moscow and near to Moscow. Forest Hill is about to open in the north of the city, a course in the Skolkovo innovation hub is under construction, and two golf courses at the prestigious Rublevka village and one in the south of the Moscow region are also being developed.
There is a problem, however: New golf clubs open in Russia much faster than the public can keep up with. The number of golf players and fans is rising, but at a slower pace.
“Golf remains the game for the rich in Russia. There are very few simple and affordable courses with an affordable design and infrastructure, so the number of players here remain low,” said Alexey Mogila, director of the department of elite commercial real estate at Penny Lane Realty.
There is hope, nevertheless, that foreigners may help fill the void.
“In a few years, there will be approximately twice as many golf courses in the Moscow region as there are right now, which will make it a successful tourist destination for players from abroad,” Mogila said.
united states Boomers to Bust
Remember the good old days, when we all believed that waves of retiring baby boomers would sustain the golf business for decades to come?
Well, the baby boomers haven’t kept their part of the bargain. They don’t much care for golf and can’t abide the idea of living in a place that revolves around it. As a result, many of the nation’s retirement communities can’t maintain their increasingly expensive, rapidly deteriorating golf courses.
That’s what’s happening in Sun City Summerlin, a seniors-only spread outside Las Vegas, Nevada. To save money, the community’s property owners are thinking about closing one of their three 18-hole golf courses.
We’ve all heard a version of this story before. Sun City Summerlin’s golf operation spends $4 million annually on courses that are currently being sustained by fewer than 1,000 of the community’s 12,000 residents, perhaps by only 700.
“The demographics of Sun City were great in 1988, when everybody was between 55 and 65 years old,” a resident said in comments published by the Las Vegas Review Journal. “Those days are gone forever. Now we have a lot of people that are over 80, and they’re not going to play much golf.”
The president of the community’s homeowners’ association put things in broader perspective for the community’s residents.
“When you all moved here,” she explained, “you thought the golf courses would pay for themselves, Social Security would be self-sustaining, the car industry was strong, the banks were stronger, and your house was a good investment. Well, things change, and nothing lasts forever.”
My question: Does the trouble at Sun City Summerlin tell us more about where the golf business has been or where it’s going?
talking points The Games We Play
What’s the key to attracting more golfers and “growing the game”? Is it making golf courses easier and more fun to play?
Jim Hardy, a Texas-based course designer, recently addressed the topic for the Associated Press. Here’s what he had to say:
One of the reasons we’ve lost golfers is because we’ve lost recreational golfers.
We haven’t lost the golfer who wants to be highly challenged. He’s still playing golf. But all we’ve done is build golf courses for him.
And all the recreational golfers are saying, “It costs too much to do this anymore and it takes too much time. I’m going to find another outlet for my recreation -- for my recreational dollars, for my recreational time. I’m going to find another outlet.”
If golf continues going the way it is, we’re going to continue to lose more and more and more of those part-time, recreational golfers and we’re going to lose golf courses, and the game is in trouble.
wild card click As if so often said, you only get one chance to make a first impression.
Lassi Pekka Tilander has designed his second golf course in Estonia, the location of what is arguably his greatest professional success.
In 2006, the Espoo, Finland-based architect produced Estonia’s top-ranked golf property, the 27-hole complex at Estonian Golf & Country Club in suburban Tallinn. Golf World ranks the club’s 18-hole Sea course among Europe’s top 100.
An investment group called Golfer OÜ evidently believes that Tilander can work similar magic in Pärnu, a beach town along Estonia’s western coast. Tilander believes the property he’s been given is capable of producing Estonia’s “first true links-style golf course.”
David Nelson of Greenmakers, the Scottish firm that’s building the track, has described the site as “a great foundation to create one of the greatest golf courses ever built in Northern Europe.”
The to-be-named course will be accompanied by houses and, potentially, a hotel and a spa. It’s expected to open in 2014.
Some information in this post originally appeared in the April 2012 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
russia Putting the Cart Before the Horse
If a story in the Moscow News is to be believed, Russia’s golf industry remains bound almost completely to real estate development, a formula that looks great on paper but leaves something to be desired in real life.
This is why golf development in Russia proceeds at a turtle’s pace. Some problems can’t be solved with money alone, no matter how deep a developer’s pockets may be. A country needs golfers before it needs golf courses.
But don’t tell that to the aspirational Russian billionaires who are itching to live in oversized, overpriced estates along lush fairways. Let them learn the score 10 or 20 years from now, when they find themselves in possession of a 175-acre value-enhancer that’s slowly bleeding them dry.
The News’ story offers a glimpse into the Russian lifestyle and the current mind-set of opinion-makers in the golf business. These are its concluding paragraphs:
More and more new golf venues are springing up in Moscow and near to Moscow. Forest Hill is about to open in the north of the city, a course in the Skolkovo innovation hub is under construction, and two golf courses at the prestigious Rublevka village and one in the south of the Moscow region are also being developed.
There is a problem, however: New golf clubs open in Russia much faster than the public can keep up with. The number of golf players and fans is rising, but at a slower pace.
“Golf remains the game for the rich in Russia. There are very few simple and affordable courses with an affordable design and infrastructure, so the number of players here remain low,” said Alexey Mogila, director of the department of elite commercial real estate at Penny Lane Realty.
There is hope, nevertheless, that foreigners may help fill the void.
“In a few years, there will be approximately twice as many golf courses in the Moscow region as there are right now, which will make it a successful tourist destination for players from abroad,” Mogila said.
united states Boomers to Bust
Remember the good old days, when we all believed that waves of retiring baby boomers would sustain the golf business for decades to come?
Well, the baby boomers haven’t kept their part of the bargain. They don’t much care for golf and can’t abide the idea of living in a place that revolves around it. As a result, many of the nation’s retirement communities can’t maintain their increasingly expensive, rapidly deteriorating golf courses.
That’s what’s happening in Sun City Summerlin, a seniors-only spread outside Las Vegas, Nevada. To save money, the community’s property owners are thinking about closing one of their three 18-hole golf courses.
We’ve all heard a version of this story before. Sun City Summerlin’s golf operation spends $4 million annually on courses that are currently being sustained by fewer than 1,000 of the community’s 12,000 residents, perhaps by only 700.
“The demographics of Sun City were great in 1988, when everybody was between 55 and 65 years old,” a resident said in comments published by the Las Vegas Review Journal. “Those days are gone forever. Now we have a lot of people that are over 80, and they’re not going to play much golf.”
The president of the community’s homeowners’ association put things in broader perspective for the community’s residents.
“When you all moved here,” she explained, “you thought the golf courses would pay for themselves, Social Security would be self-sustaining, the car industry was strong, the banks were stronger, and your house was a good investment. Well, things change, and nothing lasts forever.”
My question: Does the trouble at Sun City Summerlin tell us more about where the golf business has been or where it’s going?
talking points The Games We Play
What’s the key to attracting more golfers and “growing the game”? Is it making golf courses easier and more fun to play?
Jim Hardy, a Texas-based course designer, recently addressed the topic for the Associated Press. Here’s what he had to say:
One of the reasons we’ve lost golfers is because we’ve lost recreational golfers.
We haven’t lost the golfer who wants to be highly challenged. He’s still playing golf. But all we’ve done is build golf courses for him.
And all the recreational golfers are saying, “It costs too much to do this anymore and it takes too much time. I’m going to find another outlet for my recreation -- for my recreational dollars, for my recreational time. I’m going to find another outlet.”
If golf continues going the way it is, we’re going to continue to lose more and more and more of those part-time, recreational golfers and we’re going to lose golf courses, and the game is in trouble.
wild card click As if so often said, you only get one chance to make a first impression.
Friday, July 13, 2012
Short Notice, july 13, 2012
Buried in a recent news story from Myrtle Beach were these factoids about golf in China: The nation has 370,000 “core” golfers (compared to 14.8 million in the United States), and its 543 golf courses (other sources say the number is closer to 600) attracted 9 million rounds last year. These estimates come from a company called Forward Management Group, which portrays itself as an expert in many aspects of Chinese golf. But the part of the story that caught my attention came when Forward Management’s U.S. rep said that in China, “Everywhere you go, they are building golf courses.” Could this really be true? I thought there was a moratorium on golf construction in the People’s Republic. Is it being ignored, like the last moratorium was?
Paul Lawrie has found a new home for his grow-the-game foundation. The group will relocate to the Aspire Golf Centre in Aberdeen, which Lawrie, the Scottish golf pro, bought last month. Aspire, which is now being called the Paul Lawrie Golf Center, features a nine-hole course, a short-game practice area, and a covered range. Since Lawrie aspires to become a golf architect, could a redesign be in the works?
Speaking of efforts to grow the game, the government of Scotland is on a mission to introduce golf to every nine-year-old in the nation by 2014. “If we want to give Scotland the best chance of being the future of golf,” the nation’s first minister recently said, “we need to drive participation in the sport among our young people.” I heartily endorse this program and wish the U.S. golf industry had similar ambitions. But when did Scotland decide to become “the future of golf”?
India’s oldest golf club is banking on a pair of real estate ventures to fund forthcoming course renovations. Royal Calcutta Golf Club, established in Kolkata in 1829 -- it’s one of the oldest clubs outside the British Isles -- has decided to turn over five acres of its property to a residential developer and another acre to an hotelier. With the money, the club plans to make unspecified improvements to its course and clubhouse.
Shades of Hitchcock: This summer, golfers at a club in southern Sweden have been fighting off attacks by gangs of marauding crows. “They’re taking people’s lunch, but it doesn’t stop at that,” warned an employee at Rya Golf Club in Rydebäck. “Some people have lost their keys, glasses, even their telephones.” To thwart the assaults, the employee said, the club may ask its members to wear hats “with big eyes on them to frighten off the crows.” The next step: professional hunters.
Paul Lawrie has found a new home for his grow-the-game foundation. The group will relocate to the Aspire Golf Centre in Aberdeen, which Lawrie, the Scottish golf pro, bought last month. Aspire, which is now being called the Paul Lawrie Golf Center, features a nine-hole course, a short-game practice area, and a covered range. Since Lawrie aspires to become a golf architect, could a redesign be in the works?
Speaking of efforts to grow the game, the government of Scotland is on a mission to introduce golf to every nine-year-old in the nation by 2014. “If we want to give Scotland the best chance of being the future of golf,” the nation’s first minister recently said, “we need to drive participation in the sport among our young people.” I heartily endorse this program and wish the U.S. golf industry had similar ambitions. But when did Scotland decide to become “the future of golf”?
India’s oldest golf club is banking on a pair of real estate ventures to fund forthcoming course renovations. Royal Calcutta Golf Club, established in Kolkata in 1829 -- it’s one of the oldest clubs outside the British Isles -- has decided to turn over five acres of its property to a residential developer and another acre to an hotelier. With the money, the club plans to make unspecified improvements to its course and clubhouse.
Shades of Hitchcock: This summer, golfers at a club in southern Sweden have been fighting off attacks by gangs of marauding crows. “They’re taking people’s lunch, but it doesn’t stop at that,” warned an employee at Rya Golf Club in Rydebäck. “Some people have lost their keys, glasses, even their telephones.” To thwart the assaults, the employee said, the club may ask its members to wear hats “with big eyes on them to frighten off the crows.” The next step: professional hunters.
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
china From Teas To Tees
These days, people typically visit Pu’er for its teas, not its tees. But that may soon change.
Remember Huang Nubo, the Chinese tycoon who made international headlines last year when he unveiled a plan to build a huge “eco-tourism” resort in Iceland? Well, these days Huang is making headlines in his homeland. He controls 14,825 acres west of Pu’er, in Yunnan Province, where he aims to build yet another large resort community, this one with multiple golf courses.
The to-be-named community will take shape in Lancang County, not far from a regional airport that’s expected to open in 2015. The site is puny compared to the 74,130 acres that Huang wanted to develop in Iceland, but it’s still the size of a small city. It offers more than enough room for the vacation houses, resort-style hotels, meeting space, shopping areas, and golf courses that are included in its master plan.
For better or worse, Huang clearly likes to thing big. And it’s not just that he dreams of developing vast expanses of land. His personal and professional ambitions are equally grand, if not grander.
Huang’s Beijing-based Zhongkun Investment Group, Ltd. has developed several resort and tourist attractions in the People’s Republic, including a golf course in Xinjiang Province: Kashi Zhongkun International Golf Course in Kashi City. Over the next decade, it aims to build a network of what it calls “holiday villages” in Asia, Europe, and North America. Each of these villages (10 in all) is to include a golf course, and some will have wineries and organic farms. One is slated to be built in Japan, on Hokkaido Island, and another may come to the United States, on a 1,200-acre tract near Nashville, Tennessee. Others are planned in Finland and Denmark.
Given the size of Zhongkun’s ambitions, it’s important to note that Huang is one of China’s richest people. (Forbes estimates that he’s worth more than $1 billion.) But for Huang, life is about more than simply risking his fortune. He has other passions that require him to take personal risks: writing poetry and climbing mountains. He’s published several volumes of verse, under a pseudonym, and since 2005 he’s visited both the North and South poles and climbed seven of the most challenging peaks on seven continents, including Mount Everest, Mount McKinley, and Mount Kilimanjaro.
Perhaps because he has these other passions, Huang appreciates historical treasures and understands the value they can add to contemporary development ventures. He made a name for himself in China a little more than decade ago, when he restored two ancient villages in Anhui Province whose architecture dates back to the Ming and Qing dynasties. These villages, Hongcun and Xidi, are now notable for three things. One, they’re on the United Nations’ world heritage list. Two, Zhongkun built new resorts near them. And three, scenes from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon were filmed in them.
A similar act of preservation is going to happen in Lancang County. The property is dotted with a dozen villages that are home to roughly 2,000 people, and Huang intends to restore many of the villages’ existing buildings.
“We would renovate the original villages and build new villages among the old,” he told the Xinhua news service earlier this year. “We are not going to overhaul the old and bring a city.”
It’s also safe to assume that Huang isn’t going to mess with the area’s tea culture. Lancang is in southwestern China, just a short ride from the Myanmar border, and it’s long been a popular vacation destination for those who drink “post-fermented” teas. I’ve never tasted these teas, but I can tell you this: Some are sold with a vintage and a place of origin, like fine wines. They must be special. They helped to lure an estimated 5.5 million domestic visitors to metropolitan Pu’er last year.
Still, a question lingers: Has Huang again poured himself a drink that he can’t finish?
Huang’s grand ambitions earned him a letter of rejection in Iceland, and some critics have speculated that Zhongkun isn’t capable of developing a property as large as the one in Lancang. Huang has acknowledged that he’ll have to take on partners but has yet to admit something more fundamental: Size is always accompanied by a weight that can crush even the richest men.
The original version of this story appeared in the May 2012 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
Remember Huang Nubo, the Chinese tycoon who made international headlines last year when he unveiled a plan to build a huge “eco-tourism” resort in Iceland? Well, these days Huang is making headlines in his homeland. He controls 14,825 acres west of Pu’er, in Yunnan Province, where he aims to build yet another large resort community, this one with multiple golf courses.
The to-be-named community will take shape in Lancang County, not far from a regional airport that’s expected to open in 2015. The site is puny compared to the 74,130 acres that Huang wanted to develop in Iceland, but it’s still the size of a small city. It offers more than enough room for the vacation houses, resort-style hotels, meeting space, shopping areas, and golf courses that are included in its master plan.
For better or worse, Huang clearly likes to thing big. And it’s not just that he dreams of developing vast expanses of land. His personal and professional ambitions are equally grand, if not grander.
Huang’s Beijing-based Zhongkun Investment Group, Ltd. has developed several resort and tourist attractions in the People’s Republic, including a golf course in Xinjiang Province: Kashi Zhongkun International Golf Course in Kashi City. Over the next decade, it aims to build a network of what it calls “holiday villages” in Asia, Europe, and North America. Each of these villages (10 in all) is to include a golf course, and some will have wineries and organic farms. One is slated to be built in Japan, on Hokkaido Island, and another may come to the United States, on a 1,200-acre tract near Nashville, Tennessee. Others are planned in Finland and Denmark.
Given the size of Zhongkun’s ambitions, it’s important to note that Huang is one of China’s richest people. (Forbes estimates that he’s worth more than $1 billion.) But for Huang, life is about more than simply risking his fortune. He has other passions that require him to take personal risks: writing poetry and climbing mountains. He’s published several volumes of verse, under a pseudonym, and since 2005 he’s visited both the North and South poles and climbed seven of the most challenging peaks on seven continents, including Mount Everest, Mount McKinley, and Mount Kilimanjaro.
Perhaps because he has these other passions, Huang appreciates historical treasures and understands the value they can add to contemporary development ventures. He made a name for himself in China a little more than decade ago, when he restored two ancient villages in Anhui Province whose architecture dates back to the Ming and Qing dynasties. These villages, Hongcun and Xidi, are now notable for three things. One, they’re on the United Nations’ world heritage list. Two, Zhongkun built new resorts near them. And three, scenes from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon were filmed in them.
A similar act of preservation is going to happen in Lancang County. The property is dotted with a dozen villages that are home to roughly 2,000 people, and Huang intends to restore many of the villages’ existing buildings.
“We would renovate the original villages and build new villages among the old,” he told the Xinhua news service earlier this year. “We are not going to overhaul the old and bring a city.”
It’s also safe to assume that Huang isn’t going to mess with the area’s tea culture. Lancang is in southwestern China, just a short ride from the Myanmar border, and it’s long been a popular vacation destination for those who drink “post-fermented” teas. I’ve never tasted these teas, but I can tell you this: Some are sold with a vintage and a place of origin, like fine wines. They must be special. They helped to lure an estimated 5.5 million domestic visitors to metropolitan Pu’er last year.
Still, a question lingers: Has Huang again poured himself a drink that he can’t finish?
Huang’s grand ambitions earned him a letter of rejection in Iceland, and some critics have speculated that Zhongkun isn’t capable of developing a property as large as the one in Lancang. Huang has acknowledged that he’ll have to take on partners but has yet to admit something more fundamental: Size is always accompanied by a weight that can crush even the richest men.
The original version of this story appeared in the May 2012 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
Sunday, July 8, 2012
The Week That Was, july 8, 2012
china Rees Jones’ New Patients
This summer, the “Open Doctor” is tending to a patient in the People’s Republic.
Rees Jones, who made a name for himself by preparing worthy venues for world-class tournaments, is overseeing a renovation of Daxing Capital Golf Club in suburban Beijing. The club’s 7,372-yard layout was designed by Tom Pearson, one of Jack Nicklaus’ former associates, and opened in 2000. Jones appears to have prescribed major surgery, as the track is being rerouted and redesigned. It’ll be hospitalized until the summer of 2013.
“We have a reputation for redesigning courses for tournament
play,” says Greg Muirhead, one of Jones’ associates, “and that may be part of the club’s future.”
Daxing Capital is owned by an affiliate of CITIC Group Holdings, one of the early adopters of golf in China. The company -- the acronym stands for China International Trust & Investment Corporation -- currently owns a handful of golf properties, including two in Guangdong Province, Shantou Golf Club in Shantou and Chang Ping Golf Club in Dongguan.
CITIC’s former chairman, Wang Jun, made a fortune as an arms dealer, diversified into banking and international finance, and became one of China’s most politically well-connected businessmen. Today he’s the vice chairman of the China Golf Association.
While the work at Daxing Capital proceeds, Jones is patiently waiting to open his first new course in China, at Yunling Golf & Spa Resort outside Kunming, in Yunnan Province. The 7,400-yard track will be the centerpiece of a private community with single-family houses and villas, a boutique hotel, a spa, and a retail/commercial area.
The construction at Yunling wrapped up months ago, but Muirhead reports that the course may not open for a year or more. He wasn’t particularly forthcoming about the reason for the delay, but I suspect that it has something to do with the moratorium on golf construction in the People’s Republic.
Muirhead is also mum about his boss’ next Chinese project, another a new course. He wouldn’t even tell me what province it’s in.
“I can’t talk about it,” he says. “It’s at a sensitive stage for the landowner.”
spain EuroVegas Feels a Chill
A brutally hot summer is upon us, and Sheldon Adelson is going to make Spain sweat.
Adelson said earlier this year that his Las Vegas Sands Corporation would settle on a site for its massive EuroVegas mega-casino sometime in April or May. But now the company says a decision won’t be made until September, and it’s even suggesting that financing issues may derail the venture forever.
“If the world gets worse in the next six or seven months,” the president of Las Vegas Sands said in comments published by Agence France Presse, “then of course we would not be able to do the project.”
City officials in Madrid and Barcelona, the cities at the top of Adelson’s wish list, are salivating for the jobs EuroVegas would bring. Las Vegas Sands has promised to put up to 250,000 people on various payrolls, a number that’s like manna from heaven in a nation whose unemployment rate has nearly reached 25 percent.
Assuming it’s built, EuroVegas would consist of four casino complexes featuring a dozen hotels (36,000 total rooms), nine entertainment venues, a parade of restaurants and eateries, and three golf courses.
When EuroVegas was originally proposed, some critics said it was too good to be true. As it turns out, they may have been right.
worth reading The Next Big Thing?
These days most everyone in our business views China, India, and South America as golf development’s promised lands. But is Africa also potentially a land of opportunity?
I’ve been arguing for years that Africa offers possibilities galore to groups that can see beyond the headline-news version what’s happening in the world’s second-largest continent. South Africa has long been a popular golf destination, but several other nations -- Kenya and Nigeria in particular -- have emerging middle classes with money to spend on all kinds of leisure pursuits, not to mention houses overlooking golf courses.
“Africa is becoming more democratic, more technocratic, and more market-friendly,” Nicholas Kristof writes in a recent column for the New York Times. “Yet Americans are largely oblivious to the idea of Africa as a success story.”
Kristof believes Africa is already “an economic dynamo.” Here’s a little more from his column:
Is it time to prepare for the African tiger economy? Six of the world’s 10 fastest-growing economies between 2001 and 2010 were in Africa, according to the Economist. The International Monetary Fund says that between 2011 and 2015, African countries will account for seven of the top 10 spots.
Africa isn’t just a place for safaris or humanitarian aid. It’s also a place to make money. Global companies are expanding in Africa; vast deposits of oil, gas, and minerals are being discovered; and Goldman Sachs recently issued a report, “Africa’s Turn,” comparing business opportunities in Africa with those in China in the early 1990s.
No, Kristof doesn’t mention golf even once. But in order to cash in on an opportunity, you sometimes have to read between the lines.
united arab emirates Cracking 50,000
For the first time in history, the golf clubs in the United Arab Emirates have recorded more than 50,000 rounds in a single month.
Arabian Business, citing data provided by BDO Chartered Accountants & Advisors, reports that in March 2012 the UAE’s clubs rung up 54,365 rounds. What’s notable about this achievement is that only 14 percent of the rounds were played by overseas visitors. The vast majority of them were played either by club members (44 percent) and local golfers (42 percent).
The newspaper doesn’t specify the number of clubs whose rounds were counted. However, it notes that the largest number, more than 3,300, were played on the Karl Litten-designed Majlis track at Emirates Golf Club in Dubai, one of Golf World’s top 100 layouts in 2010 and 2011.
wild card click Care to guess who celebrated his 72nd birthday yesterday?
This summer, the “Open Doctor” is tending to a patient in the People’s Republic.
Rees Jones, who made a name for himself by preparing worthy venues for world-class tournaments, is overseeing a renovation of Daxing Capital Golf Club in suburban Beijing. The club’s 7,372-yard layout was designed by Tom Pearson, one of Jack Nicklaus’ former associates, and opened in 2000. Jones appears to have prescribed major surgery, as the track is being rerouted and redesigned. It’ll be hospitalized until the summer of 2013.
“We have a reputation for redesigning courses for tournament
play,” says Greg Muirhead, one of Jones’ associates, “and that may be part of the club’s future.”
Daxing Capital is owned by an affiliate of CITIC Group Holdings, one of the early adopters of golf in China. The company -- the acronym stands for China International Trust & Investment Corporation -- currently owns a handful of golf properties, including two in Guangdong Province, Shantou Golf Club in Shantou and Chang Ping Golf Club in Dongguan.
CITIC’s former chairman, Wang Jun, made a fortune as an arms dealer, diversified into banking and international finance, and became one of China’s most politically well-connected businessmen. Today he’s the vice chairman of the China Golf Association.
While the work at Daxing Capital proceeds, Jones is patiently waiting to open his first new course in China, at Yunling Golf & Spa Resort outside Kunming, in Yunnan Province. The 7,400-yard track will be the centerpiece of a private community with single-family houses and villas, a boutique hotel, a spa, and a retail/commercial area.
The construction at Yunling wrapped up months ago, but Muirhead reports that the course may not open for a year or more. He wasn’t particularly forthcoming about the reason for the delay, but I suspect that it has something to do with the moratorium on golf construction in the People’s Republic.
Muirhead is also mum about his boss’ next Chinese project, another a new course. He wouldn’t even tell me what province it’s in.
“I can’t talk about it,” he says. “It’s at a sensitive stage for the landowner.”
It’s not the first time a door has been closed in my face. But never before has it been done in the name of doctor-patient privilege.
Some information in this post originally appeared in the April 2009 and October 2011 issues of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
spain EuroVegas Feels a Chill
A brutally hot summer is upon us, and Sheldon Adelson is going to make Spain sweat.
Adelson said earlier this year that his Las Vegas Sands Corporation would settle on a site for its massive EuroVegas mega-casino sometime in April or May. But now the company says a decision won’t be made until September, and it’s even suggesting that financing issues may derail the venture forever.
“If the world gets worse in the next six or seven months,” the president of Las Vegas Sands said in comments published by Agence France Presse, “then of course we would not be able to do the project.”
City officials in Madrid and Barcelona, the cities at the top of Adelson’s wish list, are salivating for the jobs EuroVegas would bring. Las Vegas Sands has promised to put up to 250,000 people on various payrolls, a number that’s like manna from heaven in a nation whose unemployment rate has nearly reached 25 percent.
Assuming it’s built, EuroVegas would consist of four casino complexes featuring a dozen hotels (36,000 total rooms), nine entertainment venues, a parade of restaurants and eateries, and three golf courses.
When EuroVegas was originally proposed, some critics said it was too good to be true. As it turns out, they may have been right.
worth reading The Next Big Thing?
These days most everyone in our business views China, India, and South America as golf development’s promised lands. But is Africa also potentially a land of opportunity?
I’ve been arguing for years that Africa offers possibilities galore to groups that can see beyond the headline-news version what’s happening in the world’s second-largest continent. South Africa has long been a popular golf destination, but several other nations -- Kenya and Nigeria in particular -- have emerging middle classes with money to spend on all kinds of leisure pursuits, not to mention houses overlooking golf courses.
“Africa is becoming more democratic, more technocratic, and more market-friendly,” Nicholas Kristof writes in a recent column for the New York Times. “Yet Americans are largely oblivious to the idea of Africa as a success story.”
Kristof believes Africa is already “an economic dynamo.” Here’s a little more from his column:
Is it time to prepare for the African tiger economy? Six of the world’s 10 fastest-growing economies between 2001 and 2010 were in Africa, according to the Economist. The International Monetary Fund says that between 2011 and 2015, African countries will account for seven of the top 10 spots.
Africa isn’t just a place for safaris or humanitarian aid. It’s also a place to make money. Global companies are expanding in Africa; vast deposits of oil, gas, and minerals are being discovered; and Goldman Sachs recently issued a report, “Africa’s Turn,” comparing business opportunities in Africa with those in China in the early 1990s.
No, Kristof doesn’t mention golf even once. But in order to cash in on an opportunity, you sometimes have to read between the lines.
united arab emirates Cracking 50,000
For the first time in history, the golf clubs in the United Arab Emirates have recorded more than 50,000 rounds in a single month.
Arabian Business, citing data provided by BDO Chartered Accountants & Advisors, reports that in March 2012 the UAE’s clubs rung up 54,365 rounds. What’s notable about this achievement is that only 14 percent of the rounds were played by overseas visitors. The vast majority of them were played either by club members (44 percent) and local golfers (42 percent).
The newspaper doesn’t specify the number of clubs whose rounds were counted. However, it notes that the largest number, more than 3,300, were played on the Karl Litten-designed Majlis track at Emirates Golf Club in Dubai, one of Golf World’s top 100 layouts in 2010 and 2011.
wild card click Care to guess who celebrated his 72nd birthday yesterday?
Friday, July 6, 2012
worth reading The Great Australian Capitalist
Golf design must seem like really small potatoes to Greg Norman these days.
His more lucrative career as an international conglomerate -- as a “living brand,” as he calls it -- has been well-documented, including his corporate diversification into sales of wine, meat, clothing, sunglasses, and other consumables.
But what you may not know is that Norman nowadays spends a lot of time with investment bankers, getting Wall Street-certified advice on how he might further diversify into bigger and better things, such as casino operations and even lending.
Norman recently made an appearance on Fox News’ “Kilmeade & Friends,” where he discussed a variety of topics that concern him, from his relationship with Bain Capital to the problems of excess wealth to the death of American entrepreneurialism to the change he wants to see in the White House. It’s a fascinating glimpse into his mind.
Here’s an edited version of Norman’s conversation with Brian Kilmeade. If you have the time, you should read the whole thing.
Brian Kilmeade: Hi, everybody. I’m Brian Kilmeade. This is “Kilmeade & Friends.” . . . Greg Norman is to my immediate left. . . . What brings you to New York? . . .
Greg Norman: I just came from Greg Norman Collection, looking at our spring line for 2013, just going over our licensing. . . . I met with, up in Boston, the Bain Capital people, same deal.
Kilmeade: Bain Capital?
Norman: Bain Capital people, yeah. And every time I look at it [and] I see what’s going on with them, I just, I feel for them because all the good they do is getting overlooked by the minority instead of the majority of good they do, being, you know, they’re scrutinized, or not scrutinized enough, by the majority of people. . . .
Kilmeade: Why weren’t you just set to being an outstanding golfer, the best you can be, go on the Senior Tour? You could have made a nice living that way. Why wasn’t that enough for you?
Norman: Well, I could have made a nice living, but I would never build value in my own brand.
I was very, very fortunate early on, Brian, to get a really good glimpse of marketing and branding from a guy called Paul Fireman, who owned Reebok. Reebok really kicked off the Greg Norman Collection line. He gave me the right to own my logo, and I licensed it back, and he trusted me, and I got such a fast learning curve on what branding is all about. So I learned very quickly that there was value beyond the golf course, and how do you build that equity in your own brand.
And that’s what I loved. That’s what I studied. And being in a leading brand is not an easy thing, to tell you the truth. You’ve got to have great people around you to be able to get into that catch-basin of everything, to be able to allow you to get forward and be that living brand.
But you know, where it’s taking me is a dream that I could never even have dreamt of. . . .
Kilmeade: You’re building golf courses. You’re also building casinos, correct?
Norman: Well, we have the rights.
What happens -- it’s interesting, Brian. My design business is an economic indicator in a lot of ways. We actually get to know what’s going to happen with the economy, i.e., in 2007, 2008 we knew that our accounts receivables were starting to spike up a little bit and we knew people weren’t going to pay because the crunch was coming. We didn’t know to the magnitude of what it was, and now the same thing on a global front.
We are an economic indicator because the first call people get, the top three designers in the world -- golf course designers -- we normally get the call. Hey, we’re interested in doing a residential community or a resort or a casino, whether it might be in Mexico or the Bahamas or some other place in the world, so you get to know what's happening. So the more information you learn, the more you can apply your vertical integrated companies into that business. . . .
I graduated from high school, never went to college. I believed in golf, and golf was my segue to this wealth of information that I have today.
And you know, just going out to dinners like we had last night, and you’re sitting down with guys from JP Morgan and SAP, and you talk to them about, you know, what they think, what their companies could do, where they’re going on a global front, what they think about the climate and what’s happening from a corporate level. . . .
Kilmeade: But you do mention hurdles once you come to this country. Number one, the corporate tax rate. Number two, the regulations. And there’s an anti-business -- am I putting words in your mouth? -- anti-business atmosphere that you find disturbing that wasn’t present in the 90s.
Norman: Absolutely. The free entrepreneurial, free-market enterprise of the United States is dead right now. It really is. And there’s so much cash sitting on the sidelines.
I’ll give you an example. I’ve invested in a couple of small businesses, and we’ve got very, very good returns on these because these businesses can’t get debt -- operating capital, right? . . .
And because of the success rate we’ve had with these investments, we’ve actually decided to go out and do an asset-based debt fund. Never in my life [until] 90 days ago, 120 days ago would I have ever thought about doing it, but the resonating voice that gets coming back my way is these people need money and they can’t get money to operate their small businesses. And the heartbeat of America is small business. . . .
Kilmeade: So you’re acting like it’s a bank?
Norman: Yeah.
Kilmeade: You’re acting like a bank.
Norman: We’re giving them access to debt.
Kilmeade: So a lot of people are saying, I’m afraid to go into debt because I’m not sure about the future, but [with] banks there are regulations, and I guess their criteria for lending money has gone up so high because they feel as though they’re being looked at, number one. Number two is they did do some crazy things with their money. They weren’t doing their homework with a lot of would-be, you know, for a lot of people, would-be borrowers, correct?
Norman: Correct. And absolutely --
Kilmeade: We’ve over-corrected.
Norman: We’ve over-regulated them. . . .
One of my dearest friends owns a bank in Florida. And he said, Greg, smart move. He said because we are [a] bank, we want to do that, but our regulations won’t allow us to do that for small businesses.
And when you sit back and you hear somebody like that, who’s in the business, you go, this is crazy.
What other reason do you want to stifle America and suffocate them? But you know, one door closes and another door opens, so it gives me an opportunity to go in there.
And I’m a sponge for information now, learning about this whole process, but I’ve got a great general partner with me. He’s very experienced in it, and again, you’re off and running.
But it’s the reputation that I’ve had in the past [that] has allowed me to develop the future in this business. . . .
Kilmeade: I know you had a lot of optimism when President Obama first got into office. Do you think we’d be better off with somebody else?
Norman: I do, quite honestly. Looking at it from a pure business perspective, I really do.
And the other thing, Brian, that I see a lot because I travel so much, when I go to countries people will say to me, What the heck is wrong with the United States? What do you think is going to happen in the United States? You know, I’ll speak to people in Europe. And Europe is not a --
Kilmeade: They’re a mess.
Norman: They’re a mess. Absolutely. Total screw-up. They’re not learning by their mistakes, either.
But at the same time, there’s so much wealth sitting on the sideline over there, saying where do we go? We can’t go to America, right?
I truly believe that U.S. currency will be the currency to go to in the future -- maybe the Canadian currency -- because, you know, where else are they going to go, quite honestly? And I think the future of America, depending on what happens in November, the long-term future is always going to be great. [The] short-term future might be a little bit different if the present-day administration stays in there.
And I’m only saying this from a pure small business perspective. . . .
Kilmeade: You deal with Bain Capital all the time. How are they reacting to being in the news like this, and their very existence being questioned?
Norman: Well, you’d think it’d be an asset for them with the publicity and everything, but really, it’s not. If I’m in Bain’s position, I think they’re getting looked at in the wrong light, and you know, I feel for them, actually, because all the good they do gets overlooked.
Kilmeade: What do you mean, good they do? I thought they just look at companies, see if they could turn a profit, bring in their management team, and try to turn companies around.
Norman: Well, that’s exactly right, and that’s what they do. And, you know, [Mitt] Romney was very successful at doing that, and you know, obviously there’s not going to be great successes in everything they do. If there were, none of us would be sitting here. We’d be out sitting somewhere on the Mediterranean or something. So you’ve got to look at the big picture, not just take little bits and pieces out of that.
And look, I’ve been a great Bain Capital supporter for a long period of time, because I’ve been involved with them for a long period of time. And you know, they’re not the only ones, either. I also talk to other people in that type of world, and it’s just that they’re under the microscope now, unfortunately. . . .
Kilmeade: Now, are you an America citizen?
Norman: No. Green card holder.
His more lucrative career as an international conglomerate -- as a “living brand,” as he calls it -- has been well-documented, including his corporate diversification into sales of wine, meat, clothing, sunglasses, and other consumables.
But what you may not know is that Norman nowadays spends a lot of time with investment bankers, getting Wall Street-certified advice on how he might further diversify into bigger and better things, such as casino operations and even lending.
Norman recently made an appearance on Fox News’ “Kilmeade & Friends,” where he discussed a variety of topics that concern him, from his relationship with Bain Capital to the problems of excess wealth to the death of American entrepreneurialism to the change he wants to see in the White House. It’s a fascinating glimpse into his mind.
Here’s an edited version of Norman’s conversation with Brian Kilmeade. If you have the time, you should read the whole thing.
Brian Kilmeade: Hi, everybody. I’m Brian Kilmeade. This is “Kilmeade & Friends.” . . . Greg Norman is to my immediate left. . . . What brings you to New York? . . .
Greg Norman: I just came from Greg Norman Collection, looking at our spring line for 2013, just going over our licensing. . . . I met with, up in Boston, the Bain Capital people, same deal.
Kilmeade: Bain Capital?
Norman: Bain Capital people, yeah. And every time I look at it [and] I see what’s going on with them, I just, I feel for them because all the good they do is getting overlooked by the minority instead of the majority of good they do, being, you know, they’re scrutinized, or not scrutinized enough, by the majority of people. . . .
Kilmeade: Why weren’t you just set to being an outstanding golfer, the best you can be, go on the Senior Tour? You could have made a nice living that way. Why wasn’t that enough for you?
Norman: Well, I could have made a nice living, but I would never build value in my own brand.
I was very, very fortunate early on, Brian, to get a really good glimpse of marketing and branding from a guy called Paul Fireman, who owned Reebok. Reebok really kicked off the Greg Norman Collection line. He gave me the right to own my logo, and I licensed it back, and he trusted me, and I got such a fast learning curve on what branding is all about. So I learned very quickly that there was value beyond the golf course, and how do you build that equity in your own brand.
And that’s what I loved. That’s what I studied. And being in a leading brand is not an easy thing, to tell you the truth. You’ve got to have great people around you to be able to get into that catch-basin of everything, to be able to allow you to get forward and be that living brand.
But you know, where it’s taking me is a dream that I could never even have dreamt of. . . .
Kilmeade: You’re building golf courses. You’re also building casinos, correct?
Norman: Well, we have the rights.
What happens -- it’s interesting, Brian. My design business is an economic indicator in a lot of ways. We actually get to know what’s going to happen with the economy, i.e., in 2007, 2008 we knew that our accounts receivables were starting to spike up a little bit and we knew people weren’t going to pay because the crunch was coming. We didn’t know to the magnitude of what it was, and now the same thing on a global front.
We are an economic indicator because the first call people get, the top three designers in the world -- golf course designers -- we normally get the call. Hey, we’re interested in doing a residential community or a resort or a casino, whether it might be in Mexico or the Bahamas or some other place in the world, so you get to know what's happening. So the more information you learn, the more you can apply your vertical integrated companies into that business. . . .
I graduated from high school, never went to college. I believed in golf, and golf was my segue to this wealth of information that I have today.
And you know, just going out to dinners like we had last night, and you’re sitting down with guys from JP Morgan and SAP, and you talk to them about, you know, what they think, what their companies could do, where they’re going on a global front, what they think about the climate and what’s happening from a corporate level. . . .
Kilmeade: But you do mention hurdles once you come to this country. Number one, the corporate tax rate. Number two, the regulations. And there’s an anti-business -- am I putting words in your mouth? -- anti-business atmosphere that you find disturbing that wasn’t present in the 90s.
Norman: Absolutely. The free entrepreneurial, free-market enterprise of the United States is dead right now. It really is. And there’s so much cash sitting on the sidelines.
I’ll give you an example. I’ve invested in a couple of small businesses, and we’ve got very, very good returns on these because these businesses can’t get debt -- operating capital, right? . . .
And because of the success rate we’ve had with these investments, we’ve actually decided to go out and do an asset-based debt fund. Never in my life [until] 90 days ago, 120 days ago would I have ever thought about doing it, but the resonating voice that gets coming back my way is these people need money and they can’t get money to operate their small businesses. And the heartbeat of America is small business. . . .
Kilmeade: So you’re acting like it’s a bank?
Norman: Yeah.
Kilmeade: You’re acting like a bank.
Norman: We’re giving them access to debt.
Kilmeade: So a lot of people are saying, I’m afraid to go into debt because I’m not sure about the future, but [with] banks there are regulations, and I guess their criteria for lending money has gone up so high because they feel as though they’re being looked at, number one. Number two is they did do some crazy things with their money. They weren’t doing their homework with a lot of would-be, you know, for a lot of people, would-be borrowers, correct?
Norman: Correct. And absolutely --
Kilmeade: We’ve over-corrected.
Norman: We’ve over-regulated them. . . .
One of my dearest friends owns a bank in Florida. And he said, Greg, smart move. He said because we are [a] bank, we want to do that, but our regulations won’t allow us to do that for small businesses.
And when you sit back and you hear somebody like that, who’s in the business, you go, this is crazy.
What other reason do you want to stifle America and suffocate them? But you know, one door closes and another door opens, so it gives me an opportunity to go in there.
And I’m a sponge for information now, learning about this whole process, but I’ve got a great general partner with me. He’s very experienced in it, and again, you’re off and running.
But it’s the reputation that I’ve had in the past [that] has allowed me to develop the future in this business. . . .
Kilmeade: I know you had a lot of optimism when President Obama first got into office. Do you think we’d be better off with somebody else?
Norman: I do, quite honestly. Looking at it from a pure business perspective, I really do.
And the other thing, Brian, that I see a lot because I travel so much, when I go to countries people will say to me, What the heck is wrong with the United States? What do you think is going to happen in the United States? You know, I’ll speak to people in Europe. And Europe is not a --
Kilmeade: They’re a mess.
Norman: They’re a mess. Absolutely. Total screw-up. They’re not learning by their mistakes, either.
But at the same time, there’s so much wealth sitting on the sideline over there, saying where do we go? We can’t go to America, right?
I truly believe that U.S. currency will be the currency to go to in the future -- maybe the Canadian currency -- because, you know, where else are they going to go, quite honestly? And I think the future of America, depending on what happens in November, the long-term future is always going to be great. [The] short-term future might be a little bit different if the present-day administration stays in there.
And I’m only saying this from a pure small business perspective. . . .
Kilmeade: You deal with Bain Capital all the time. How are they reacting to being in the news like this, and their very existence being questioned?
Norman: Well, you’d think it’d be an asset for them with the publicity and everything, but really, it’s not. If I’m in Bain’s position, I think they’re getting looked at in the wrong light, and you know, I feel for them, actually, because all the good they do gets overlooked.
Kilmeade: What do you mean, good they do? I thought they just look at companies, see if they could turn a profit, bring in their management team, and try to turn companies around.
Norman: Well, that’s exactly right, and that’s what they do. And, you know, [Mitt] Romney was very successful at doing that, and you know, obviously there’s not going to be great successes in everything they do. If there were, none of us would be sitting here. We’d be out sitting somewhere on the Mediterranean or something. So you’ve got to look at the big picture, not just take little bits and pieces out of that.
And look, I’ve been a great Bain Capital supporter for a long period of time, because I’ve been involved with them for a long period of time. And you know, they’re not the only ones, either. I also talk to other people in that type of world, and it’s just that they’re under the microscope now, unfortunately. . . .
Kilmeade: Now, are you an America citizen?
Norman: No. Green card holder.
Sunday, July 1, 2012
The Week That Was, july 1, 2012
china The Eyes Have It
In recent years Mark Hollinger has cultivated a few opinions about China, and he isn’t shy about expressing them.
For starters, the Belmont, California-based architect, one of the principals of JMP Golf Design Group, believes that developers in the People’s Republic typically come down on the wrong side of the debate between art and artifice.
“Chinese developers are extremely keen on achieving some spectacular holes in their courses,” Hollinger told Flying Blue Club China, which appears to be an in-flight magazine, earlier this year. “I sometimes need to put in some extra eye candy, like a spectacular -- and sometimes artificial -- rock feature, a flashy bunker, or a really awesome lake or stream. I need to do this to make a course more memorable.”
It’s not the first time we’ve heard complaints about the Disneyland-style aesthetic that reigns in China. Still to be determined is whether soon-to-open courses by Tom Doak and Coore & Crenshaw will change the prevailing mind-set in favor of the more natural look that now prevails in the rest of the world.
On that score, don’t hold your breath. These days, golf development in China remains pretty much where U.S. golf development was a decade or more ago.
“Right now, golf courses are creating value for other surrounding land uses, like residential and commercial property,” Hollinger notes. “Most of the owners of the new houses do not even play golf. They just like to live next to a golf course.”
Hollinger knows how Chinese golf development is trending as well as any other U.S. architect. He’s designed more than a half-dozen courses in the People’s Republic (among them Jian Lake Blue Bay Golf Club on Hainan Island and the Links Course at Dongzhuang Beach in suburban Shanghai), and he has two others that are scheduled to open this year.
But he sees trouble on the horizon. He doesn’t think that China is going to serve as the golf industry’s sugar daddy for much longer.
“The demand for new courses has slowed down,” he told the magazine. “It has become harder to find financing for big developments. The central government is stricter, hoping to avoid bad investments and to prevent land speculation.”
So, as we wait for the central government to issue new regulations on golf development and end its construction moratorium, I’m left with a question: How long before we put China in our rear-view mirror?
Some information in this post originally appeared in the May 2012 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
worth reading Czechs & Balances
The Czech Republic: It’s not just for beer anymore.
That’s the subtext of a recent story in the Prague Post, which has identified its homeland as “Central and Eastern Europe’s most promising golf market.” There’s precious little in the story to support such a claim -- in fact, at one point the Post acknowledges that “the golf boom is also slowing in the Czech Republic” -- but in journalism it’s often the thought that counts.
Still, the story is worth reading, as it offers some insights into the state of the golf industry in a nation that we used to describe as being “behind the Iron Curtain.” Here’s a brief excerpt:
As consumers pull back on their spending, memberships dwindle. The U.S. golf business has been hit especially hard, with numerous courses going bankrupt during the sub-prime mortgage crisis.
According to golf consultancy firm Pellucid, private clubs in the United States lost between 5 percent and 15 percent of their members shortly after the sub-prime crisis, costing clubs on average $187,000 in annual fees. Golf courses in Eastern Europe appeared similarly fragile, with only 25 percent recording an operating profit in 2010, according to KPMG figures.
In this type of economic climate, local golf course developers must focus on increasing service quality to keep the market dynamic, says golf course designer Jakub Červenka. . . .
“It’s about selling new property developments and helping to push real estate,” he said. “There is a lack of real high-quality services here, so this offers buyers something special. You give them a beautiful view from their home onto a nicely maintained green landscape. That has a certain value.” . . .
According to Červenka, the Czech Republic owes its current prominence on the regional golf market to golf course owners’ ability to emphasize the sport itself, thereby drawing more returning consumers.
“Czech owners now understand that investing money in the redesign of their courses instead of the clubhouse is the way to go,” he said. “This creates much more interest and brings in extra income because people want to see the changes. Golf is played on the course, not in the clubhouse.” . . .
Červenka also shrugged off suggestions that golf is still considered by many to be an elitist sport, claiming it was no more expensive than tennis or skiing.
But there is no denying golf is hugely popular with CEOs and other business leaders. CIJ Editor Robert McLean, whose regional trade journal will host a tournament in Prague in September, said the sport can be used to develop business partnerships in a relaxed setting.
“I think golf is one of the few socially acceptable addictions,” he said. “For just a few hours, everyone is literally playing by the same rules on the same playing field. It’s a great leveler, and it's very humbling.”
united states Jacks of All Trades
What do the following people have in common?
Amber Dempsey, Joe Edley, and Randy Snow.
This is a difficult quiz, because those aren’t household names. If it helps, Dempsey is a beauty-pageant contestant on “The Simpsons,” Edley is a professional Scrabble player, and Snow is the first wheelchair athlete to be inducted into the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame.
Maybe you can figure out the connection if I add a few more names to the list: Kathy Whitworth, the LPGA star; John Updike, the famous novelist; Bob Baffert, the horse-racing mogul; and Phil Hellmuth, the champion poker player.
Give up?
Here’s the answer: At one time or another, each person I’ve named has been described as “the Jack Nicklaus” of his or her profession.
And the list can go on. You can put Ken Climo, a disc golfer, on it. Philip Corby, a trial lawyer. Larry Chapman, the founder of a health-care company. Chip Reese, another poker player. Tom Callahan, a golf writer.
You can find comparisons to Nicklaus forever, or at least until your search engine machine runs out of steam.
In the United States, it’s clear, being “the Jack Nicklaus” of most anything is high praise indeed. In fact, it may well be the ultimate compliment.
wild card click I'm in love with illusions, so saw me in half.
In recent years Mark Hollinger has cultivated a few opinions about China, and he isn’t shy about expressing them.
For starters, the Belmont, California-based architect, one of the principals of JMP Golf Design Group, believes that developers in the People’s Republic typically come down on the wrong side of the debate between art and artifice.
“Chinese developers are extremely keen on achieving some spectacular holes in their courses,” Hollinger told Flying Blue Club China, which appears to be an in-flight magazine, earlier this year. “I sometimes need to put in some extra eye candy, like a spectacular -- and sometimes artificial -- rock feature, a flashy bunker, or a really awesome lake or stream. I need to do this to make a course more memorable.”
It’s not the first time we’ve heard complaints about the Disneyland-style aesthetic that reigns in China. Still to be determined is whether soon-to-open courses by Tom Doak and Coore & Crenshaw will change the prevailing mind-set in favor of the more natural look that now prevails in the rest of the world.
On that score, don’t hold your breath. These days, golf development in China remains pretty much where U.S. golf development was a decade or more ago.
“Right now, golf courses are creating value for other surrounding land uses, like residential and commercial property,” Hollinger notes. “Most of the owners of the new houses do not even play golf. They just like to live next to a golf course.”
Hollinger knows how Chinese golf development is trending as well as any other U.S. architect. He’s designed more than a half-dozen courses in the People’s Republic (among them Jian Lake Blue Bay Golf Club on Hainan Island and the Links Course at Dongzhuang Beach in suburban Shanghai), and he has two others that are scheduled to open this year.
But he sees trouble on the horizon. He doesn’t think that China is going to serve as the golf industry’s sugar daddy for much longer.
“The demand for new courses has slowed down,” he told the magazine. “It has become harder to find financing for big developments. The central government is stricter, hoping to avoid bad investments and to prevent land speculation.”
So, as we wait for the central government to issue new regulations on golf development and end its construction moratorium, I’m left with a question: How long before we put China in our rear-view mirror?
Some information in this post originally appeared in the May 2012 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
worth reading Czechs & Balances
The Czech Republic: It’s not just for beer anymore.
That’s the subtext of a recent story in the Prague Post, which has identified its homeland as “Central and Eastern Europe’s most promising golf market.” There’s precious little in the story to support such a claim -- in fact, at one point the Post acknowledges that “the golf boom is also slowing in the Czech Republic” -- but in journalism it’s often the thought that counts.
Still, the story is worth reading, as it offers some insights into the state of the golf industry in a nation that we used to describe as being “behind the Iron Curtain.” Here’s a brief excerpt:
As consumers pull back on their spending, memberships dwindle. The U.S. golf business has been hit especially hard, with numerous courses going bankrupt during the sub-prime mortgage crisis.
According to golf consultancy firm Pellucid, private clubs in the United States lost between 5 percent and 15 percent of their members shortly after the sub-prime crisis, costing clubs on average $187,000 in annual fees. Golf courses in Eastern Europe appeared similarly fragile, with only 25 percent recording an operating profit in 2010, according to KPMG figures.
In this type of economic climate, local golf course developers must focus on increasing service quality to keep the market dynamic, says golf course designer Jakub Červenka. . . .
“It’s about selling new property developments and helping to push real estate,” he said. “There is a lack of real high-quality services here, so this offers buyers something special. You give them a beautiful view from their home onto a nicely maintained green landscape. That has a certain value.” . . .
According to Červenka, the Czech Republic owes its current prominence on the regional golf market to golf course owners’ ability to emphasize the sport itself, thereby drawing more returning consumers.
“Czech owners now understand that investing money in the redesign of their courses instead of the clubhouse is the way to go,” he said. “This creates much more interest and brings in extra income because people want to see the changes. Golf is played on the course, not in the clubhouse.” . . .
Červenka also shrugged off suggestions that golf is still considered by many to be an elitist sport, claiming it was no more expensive than tennis or skiing.
But there is no denying golf is hugely popular with CEOs and other business leaders. CIJ Editor Robert McLean, whose regional trade journal will host a tournament in Prague in September, said the sport can be used to develop business partnerships in a relaxed setting.
“I think golf is one of the few socially acceptable addictions,” he said. “For just a few hours, everyone is literally playing by the same rules on the same playing field. It’s a great leveler, and it's very humbling.”
united states Jacks of All Trades
What do the following people have in common?
Amber Dempsey, Joe Edley, and Randy Snow.
This is a difficult quiz, because those aren’t household names. If it helps, Dempsey is a beauty-pageant contestant on “The Simpsons,” Edley is a professional Scrabble player, and Snow is the first wheelchair athlete to be inducted into the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame.
Maybe you can figure out the connection if I add a few more names to the list: Kathy Whitworth, the LPGA star; John Updike, the famous novelist; Bob Baffert, the horse-racing mogul; and Phil Hellmuth, the champion poker player.
Give up?
Here’s the answer: At one time or another, each person I’ve named has been described as “the Jack Nicklaus” of his or her profession.
And the list can go on. You can put Ken Climo, a disc golfer, on it. Philip Corby, a trial lawyer. Larry Chapman, the founder of a health-care company. Chip Reese, another poker player. Tom Callahan, a golf writer.
You can find comparisons to Nicklaus forever, or at least until your search engine machine runs out of steam.
In the United States, it’s clear, being “the Jack Nicklaus” of most anything is high praise indeed. In fact, it may well be the ultimate compliment.
wild card click I'm in love with illusions, so saw me in half.