Short Notice, august 24, 2012

Greg Norman’s golf course in Vung Tau Province, Vietnam is finally under construction, more than four years after missing its original start date. The 18-hole track will be part of Ho Tram Strip, which is taking shape on a 430-acre beachfront site in the town of Xuyen Moc, a two-hour drive east of Ho Chi Minh City. Asian Coast Development, Ltd., the project’s Canadian developer, has tapped IMG Golf Course Services to oversee the construction. IMG is suggesting that the course will be worth the wait. Mark Adams, who works out of the company’s office in Singapore, calls the property “the best natural site we have seen not only in Vietnam but throughout all of Asia” and views the venture as “a great opportunity to create an iconic golf course.”

Some information in the preceding post originally appeared in the November 2008 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
 
Golf courses in the United State continue to close, with such frequency that it’s impossible for me to mention them all. But here are two that recently caught my eye: Graystone Golf Links, a nine-hole track in Tinley Park, Illinois, will offer its final rounds this fall and be leased to farmers. The course opened in the mid 1990s and, like so many of the nation’s nine-hole tracks, caters mostly to retirees. Already closed is Horsham Valley Golf Course in Ambler, Pennsyvlania, which features a short 18-hole layout (5,115 yards) that opened in the mid 1960s. An obituary by PGA pro Bob Sheppard says the course “played an important role in our local golf scene by providing a fun and friendly place for all golfers to play.” I mention these courses because they typify the most vulnerable species on golf’s endangered list. As they die off, one by one, our business becomes less affordable, less convivial, and more at risk.

Gil Hanse’s golf course in Rio de Janeiro is grabbing all the headlines, but there are some other golf courses in Brazil being produced by U.S. architects. One is being done by Dave Edsall, a Maryland-based architect who made his reputation as a designer of “replica” courses such as the Tour 18 facilities in Texas and Renditions Golf Club in Davidsonville, Maryland. Edsall has designed a nine-hole “replica” course that’s currently being built in Ponta Grossa, a city of 315,000 in the state of Paraná. “Golf is in the infant stages in Brazil,” Edsall told the Annapolis Capital Gazette. “We have more courses in the states than they have golfers in Brazil.” Edsall expects the construction to wrap up sometime this fall.

As a journalist, I’m contractually obligated to comment on Augusta National Golf Club’s long overdue decision to add

Condoleezza Rice and Darla Moore as members. So here’s my small tribute to the former all-boys club: Welcome to the 20th century! And here’s a question that’s been on my mind all week: Rice is the first woman to serve as provost of Stanford University, the first black woman to serve as a national security advisor, and the first black woman to serve as secretary of state, and now she’s part of the first class of women admitted to Augusta National. Of all those achievements, which do you think she’ll be longest remembered for?