planet. The partners made their reputation by fashioning “naturalist” layouts -- Sand Hills Golf Club in Nebraska, the Lost Farm track at Barnbougle Dunes in Tasmania, the Trails course at Bandon Dunes -- but they’re going in a distinctly different direction this time, as the property they’ll be working with in Dallas is a landfill. That being said, Coore thinks the site has “great character,” is “inherently appealing for classic golf,” and has “the potential to yield an outstanding golf course.” I don’t know about you, but I’m wondering about the fee that Coore and Crenshaw have negotiated. As I reported just three weeks ago, an official from AT&T, one of the venture’s sponsors, has said that the course’s architect will be paid only enough to “cover their time and costs and nothing else.”
Borrowing ideas from St. Andrews in Scotland and the Pinehurst resort in North Carolina, Mike Keiser has conceived the next attraction for Bandon Dunes: A putting course that will occupy nearly 2.5 acres at the famed oceanfront golf venue in Oregon. “It will be the eighth wonder of golf,” Keiser told a local newspaper. The layout will be designed by Tom Doak, who’s already produced two of Bandon Dunes’ courses, and Keiser expects construction to begin sometime this year or next.
The hottest development controversy in golf these days has ignited passions in County Antrim, in Northern Ireland. Government officials have endorsed a plan to build Bushmills Dunes, a 356-acre resort that will include a David McLay Kidd-designed golf course, but the National Trust, one of the U.K.’s biggest and best-funded historic preservation groups, has lodged a legal challenge that it hopes will thwart the development. Alistair Hanna, the New York City-based developer of Bushmills Dunes, contends that the golf course -- Kidd has guaranteed that it’ll rank among the world’s top 50 -- will make Northern Ireland the “gold standard” in links golf and create hundreds of jobs in a place that could desperately use them. The trust fears that the resort will have an unfavorable impact on Giant’s Causeway, a popular tourist destination and Northern Ireland’s only Unesco world heritage site. The Guardian says that the battle “could become a defining event for Northern Ireland” that “will have consequences not just for the causeway but, potentially, for the U.K.’s other 27 Unesco-listed sites.” A year or so ago, Mike Keiser was thinking about investing in Bushmills Dunes, but he likely won’t make any commitments until the heat dies down.
Some information in the preceding post originally appeared in the October 2011 and June 2012 issues of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
Speaking of David McLay Kidd, his forthcoming golf course in Leatherhead, England is also going through a tough slog these days. Longshot, Ltd., the developer, has secured local approvals for the 370-acre Cherkley Court project and has withstood a subsequent appeal, but a group of environmentalists has persuaded higher officials to review the previous decisions. “It is in the public interest to mount a legal challenge,” a protester told the Epsom Guardian. Ollie Vigors, one of Longshot’s principals, has characterized the protesters as “a small minority of people who will stop at nothing to get our planning permission quashed with no grounds for doing so.” A year or so ago, Kidd told me that the golf course will be “very natural” and “ragged at the edges.” Longshot was hoping to break ground on it this month, but my guess is that the construction will be delayed.
Some information in the preceding post originally appeared in the December 2011 and September 2012 issues of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
Donald Trump has revealed his strategy for blocking the construction of an off-shore wind farm within view of his golf resort in Scotland: He’s going to “lawyer” his opponents into submission. Trump wants a public hearing on a green-energy proposal to build a group of wind turbines off the coast of Aberdeenshire, and he’s threatened to tie up the proceedings in court for a decade if government officials don’t agree to his demands. Citing his company’s “experience in legal matters,” last week one of Trump’s lieutenants warned that “we have the resources to hold this up for a very long time.” You’ve got to hand it to Trump: He really knows how to win friends and influence people.
In an attempt to attract younger members, Rancho Santa Fe Golf Club may allow prospects under the age of 48 to pay their $50,000 initiation fee in installments. “This is a market we’d like to go after,” the club’s general manager explained to the Rancho Santa Fe Review. The proposal has generated some debate, but newspaper says that the club, in suburban San Diego, California, is “losing members faster than they are gaining them.” One problem in particular: These days the club attracts only 17 percent of the families who move into the community, down from 30 percent in days gone by.
Rees Jones, the “Open Doctor,” has won this year’s Donald Ross Award, for his contributions to our business. “Rees’ influence in the golf industry is profound,” said Bob Cupp, the president of the American Society of Golf Course Architects. The ASGCA has been making the award since 1976, but only six architects have previously been winners. The group consists of Pete Dye, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Geoffrey Cornish, Mike Hurdzan, and Jones’ father, Robert Trent Jones.
Jay Blasi, an 11-year veteran at Robert Trent Jones, Jr.’s design firm, has hung out his own shingle. His new firm, according to a press release, will dedicate itself to “restoring, renovating, and creating timeless courses through a hands-on approach.” While working for Jones, Blasi made a name for himself by transforming a gravel pit in suburban Tacoma, Washington into Chambers Bay Golf Club. Links magazine called his work “one of the greatest debuts in golf history” and marveled over the layout’s bumpy terrain, saying that it was “meticulously crafted as to look as if swept by the wind.” While he awaits his first solo design commission, Blasi will be working on renovations of two courses not far from his office in Los Gatos.
David Gould of Fox News has tallied his eight favorite waterfront golf venues, presumably to entice people like you and me to play them. Don’t expect any real surprises. The group includes the Pacific Dunes track at Bandon Dunes in Oregon (“the ‘it’ golf course for people who know what’s up and are looking to avoid the status-conscious excess of other American courses”), the Plantation course at the Kapaula resort in Hawaii (“breeze-washed terrain that opens up to soul-stirring middle- and long-distance views of the endless Pacific”), the Ocean course on Kiawah Island in South Carolina (“stunning, daring, boldly featured, and nearly impossible to play”), and, of course, Pebble Beach Golf Links in California (“you can play golf the world over, but seldom will the sea treat you to as dramatic a performance”).
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