The Week That Was, august 5, 2012

england The Belfry Goes American

One of the planet’s most celebrated golf resorts has officially become part of the ClubCorp family.

KSL Capital Partners has closed on its purchase of the Belfry, a transaction that’s been in process for several months. The 550-acre property in North Warwickshire, England features a luxurious hotel, three Dave Thomas-designed golf courses (two of them created in collaboration with Peter Alliss), and a spectacular heritage, as it’s hosted Ryder Cup matches four times.

“The Belfry is the perfect opportunity for our first resort investment in Europe,” one of KSL’s principals said in a press statement.

KSL has hired an affiliate of De Vere Group to manage the resort. This is a back-to-the-future moment for De Vere, which owned the Belfry until 2005, when it sold the property to a group led by Sean Quinn, a wealthy Irish investor who went broke during the Great Recession. Quinn’s pain was KSL’s gain.

KSL’s golf portfolio includes ClubCorp and some highly regarded U.S. golf properties, including the Homestead in Hot Springs, Virginia; Barton Creek Country Club in Austin, Texas; and La Costa Resort & Spa in Carlsbad, California.

united states The Kids Are All Right

I can understand if the powers that be in golf don’t much care for my idea about hiring Britney Spears to promote our game. But what about the most decorated Olympian of all time? Is he squeaky-clean enough to deliver our message?

Yes, I just learned that 27-year-old Michael Phelps loves to golf. And now that he’s done as a swimmer, he literally wants to play all of the world’s greatest golf courses. He has a list, and he plans to check them off one by one.

“Even in high school, I’d tell my mom I was sick of swimming and wanted to try to play golf,” Phelps told Rick Reilly of Sports Illustrated earlier this year. “She wasn’t too happy. She’d say, ‘Think about this.’ And I’d always end up getting back in the pool.”

Slowly but surely, I’m compiling an impressive inventory of young people who can help us grow the game. In addition to Spears, my group includes Justin Timberlake, Kristen Stewart, Justin Bieber, Emily Blunt, and Adam Levine.

Can’t any of these people star in television advertising for us?

poland No More Jokes, Please

Another golf course has opened in Poland. No joke.

It’s the second nine at Sobienie Królewskie Golf & Country Club in suburban Warsaw. The club’s first nine has been entertaining the capital city’s golfers since the fall of 2010.

The 6,589-yard course was designed by Jeremy Ford, an English architect who has offices in Austria and the Czech Republic. The Warsaw Voice describes it as a “links-type” layout and calls it “the largest and most modern” course in Poland.

I’m not sure how Gary Player would react to that statement, seeing as how his three-year-old, 7,272-yard course at Modry Las Golf Club in Choszczno is also large and modern. Golf World, which ranks Modry Las as one of Europe’s top-100 courses, hasn’t yet had anything to say about Sobienie Królewskie.

Golf isn’t a novelty in Poland, as the nation has roughly two dozen golf properties. And one of these days, Ford may design another one. A year or so ago, he was trying to lock up a design agreement with some developers in suburban Wroclaw.

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

talking points Eyes on the Ball

Gary Player has never been shy about expressing his opinions, and these days one of his favorite topics is the ball. Like a lot of us in golf, he thinks it flies too far.

Here’s part of what Player recently told the Scotsman about the ball’s impact on golf course design:

Another change they are going to have to make is to cut the ball back. I know they are reluctant to do that, but I will take a massive bet that they will cut the ball back at some stage. . . .

There’s a man in Canada, Jamie Sadlowski, who is only 5’ 10” and only weighs 170 pounds. I was watching him hit it more than 400 yards. So he could stand on the first tee at St. Andrews and carry the green.

I played at St. Andrews the other day and worked out that in 30 years, [professionals] will drive nine of the holes. That is very bad, as you’ve got a wonderful golf course that is going to be obsolete. . . . 

I’ve traveled more than any human being in the last 60 years, and at every town I go to they are changing their golf courses. They’ve changed it at St. Andrews, they’re changing them at a country course in Timbuktu. They should be leaving the golf courses as they are and just cut the ball back for professionals by 50 yards. Instead, we are spending hundreds of millions of pounds making these changes to courses all around the world. It’s all unnecessary.

The R&A say the game is the same for everyone, but it is two separate games -- one for the pros and one for the amateurs. They should leave the technology for the amateurs. Let them hit the ball 50 yards further. But in professional golf, we have to do something to stop this trend.

wild card click This is what happens when you do research on golf in Cuba while listening to Radiohead.