A Dubai-based developer has outlined plans to build what appears to be the first golf course in Fujairah.
The 18-hole track will be the centerpiece of Ain Madhab, a planned community that its promoters say will be “fully integrated with the city of Fujairah but still private and serene.” Besides the golf course, Ain Madhab will feature more than 1,000 townhomes, villas, and apartments, a boutique hotel, office space, a shopping area, a spa, restaurants, and other attractions.
The community is being developed by Elwan Group, a family-controlled firm that’s been in business since 1922. (Its director of development, Darik Elwan, is the grandson of the company’s founder.) In recent years, the company has branched out beyond the Middle East, with residential and resort projects in Europe and North America.
Elwan has hired Peter Harradine, one of golf’s true road warriors, to design Ain Madhab’s golf course and golf academy. Harradine, who’s based in Switzerland but has an office in Dubai, currently has active or semi-active projects in the Ukraine, Serbia, Tatarstan, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Oman, Tunisia, Georgia (the country, not the U.S. state), and several other nations.
Harradine is an advocate of “affordable” courses that can be enjoyed by average golfers, an approach that seems well-suited to a nation with no golf industry to speak of. Fujairah is among the smallest and least populated (population: 130,000) of the seven principalities that comprise the United Arab Emirates, and I can’t find evidence of any golf properties within its borders.
Elwan hasn’t yet secured approvals and permits for Ain Madhab. The development process was moving along smoothly until what Harradine calls “important archaeological findings” were unearthed on the property. Via e-mail, he reports that the discovery will “cause a delay in the issuing of tender documents.”
The original version of the preceding post first appeared in the November 2012 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Sunday, February 24, 2013
The Week That Was, february 24, 2013
Ernie Vossler, who had a hand in creating one of the most enviable development portfolios in golf history, died last week, after an eight-year battle with dementia. With colleagues at Landmark Land Company and later at Landmark Golf Company -- primary among them Jerry Barton, Johnny Pott, and Joe Walser, Jr., who died last year -- Vossler helped to put the golf scene in Southern California’s Coachella Valley on the map. He and his partners developed at least a dozen golf courses at some of the best-known golf communities in the deserts surrounding Palm Springs, including PGA West, the La Quinta Resort, and Mission Hills Country Club. In addition, Vossler’s group created several other ultra-prominent U.S. golf venues, including Kiawah Island in South Carolina, Palm Beach Polo & Country Club in Florida, and Oak Tree Golf Club in Oklahoma. Landmark Land was forced to sell its properties after engaging in what became a fatal dispute with the U.S. government, but its collected works are unmatched. Vossler was 84.
An ailing, Greg Norman-designed golf course on South Australia’s Yorke Peninsula has been taken over by a local municipality. The nine-hole track (it was originally planned for 18 holes) is the featured attraction of Dunes Port Hughes, which was being promoted as the state’s premier resort community before it fell on hard times. The community, which has racked up more than $13 million in debts, was placed in receivership last summer. “It was the wrong project at the wrong time in the wrong place,” a resident said at the time. The Copper Coast Council now has three years to lay a firm financial foundation under the three-year-old course. “If the golf course cannot establish a viable business plan going forward, the future of the course will need to be reviewed,” the lenders said. “This may mean a different standard of course or potentially the closure of the course.”
Here we go again: Lee Schmidt and Brian Curley have opened yet another golf course in China, this one along the Changling Reservoir in the eastern part of Hainan Island. The 7,011-yard, Curley-designed track is the centerpiece of White Stone Hot Spring Golf Club, which is emerging on property southwest of Qionghai. In a press release, Curley describes the layout as “very user-friendly” and “sure to please players and owners alike.” The track is Schmidt-Curley’s 14th on Hainan Island, which isn’t subject to the Chinese government’s ineffective moratorium on golf construction. If you’re keeping score, the press release notes that Schmidt-Curley has been involved in the design of “nearly 40” courses in China. No other firm even comes close.
The Powers That Be in golf constantly talk about “growing the game.” But Ian Andrew, a Canadian architect who never hesitates to speak his mind, believes they’re going about it in the wrong way. “I don’t think they promote growth at all,” Andrew wrote in a recent post at his blog. His argument: I think they depend on growth to support their existing infrastructure, and now that’s come to a standstill. They’re frightened, in many cases. . . . Nobody has addressed the real problem. Everyone is focusing on trying to bring new players to the game, but the biggest issue is retention. The game has become too expensive to play regularly, takes too much time out of our busy schedules, and people leave over the economics. Andrew also addresses the role architects can play in hanging onto players. “In the last couple of decades,” he notes, 90 percent of new courses were designed to meet the demand of 10 percent of players. Only the best can play them, and only the wealthiest can afford to play. We need to reverse the pyramid so that 90 percent of the courses are fun and cheap places to play.
Club at Clear Creek Tahoe is about to be reborn. The club, part of a 1,600-acre community southwest of Carson City, Nevada, opened in 2009 and then closed last summer, a victim the Great Recession. But the club’s developers, Jim Taylor and Chip Hanly, recently took on new investor-partners and are on track to reopen sometime this spring. Their original plan was to sell lots for 384 single-family houses and to attract 495 members, but the chill in the marketplace may have lowered their expectations. Bill Coore, who co-designed the club’s 6,868-yard course with Ben Crenshaw, reports that some of the layout’s design elements -- bunkers, mostly -- have been spiffed up in preparation for the reopening. “I have every reason to believe it’s going to be successful,” Coore says.
The Royal & Ancient won the debate regarding the design changes that are being made at the Old Course at St. Andrews, but Geoff Ogilvy thinks the group got its way by being “sneaky.” In an
interview with HK Golfer, the PGA pro (and Michael Clayton’s “signature” design partner) contends that the R&A deliberately announced its intentions on the same weekend that the proposed ban on anchored putters hit the news. “They knew there would be a backlash, so they made sure they had the bulldozers out there ready before anyone could stop it,” Ogilvy contends. “That’s what it felt like, and I think that’s what annoyed everyone the most.” Ogilvy believes that Martin Hawtree will “do a nice job” with the Old Course’s re-do, but he clearly wishes that it wasn’t happening. “It’s the first place that anyone should ever study when they think about golf course architecture,” he said, “and the last place they should touch!”
In an attempt to avoid further financial losses, the city of Winnipeg hopes to lease four of its worst-performing golf properties to a private-sector group. If the city can find a taker, numbers-crunchers say, it could trim its shortfall dramatically, from $780,530 to $68,854. Prospective operators should be advised that the four courses in question -- Crescent Drive, Harbour View, Kildonan Park, and Windsor Park -- require an estimated $4.6 million in upgrades. All told, the city’s 12 courses are projected to lose $863,500 in 2012, and the agency that operates them reportedly has a deficit of $7.1 million.
People always say that golfers are among the best-behaved people on the planet, but you wouldn’t know it from mêlées that erupted this week at private clubs in India and the United States. The biggest headlines were made at Chandigarh Golf Club, where the Times of India says “a brawl” involving “enraged golfers” who “struck each other with golf clubs” left “the 16th tee blood splattered and three senior club members wounded.” The scuffle was reportedly sparked by a dispute over “slow play.” The incident here at home occurred at “a routine homeowners association meeting” at Springs Country Club in Rancho Mirage, California. After the results of a board election were announced, according to the Desert Sun, unhappy residents began “yelling and pushing” and then graduated to “chair-throwing, fist-fighting, and tackling.” A security guard reportedly pulled his gun during the fracas, and someone involved suffered a seizure. So tell me again, why is golf considered a gentleman’s game?
Is Britney Spears about to take her game up a notch? Less than a year ago, on the fairways of Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks, California, the pop singer was said to be turning “golf balls into weapons of mass destruction.” Today, according to the Celebrity Café, Spears is “considering becoming a member of the country club.” And you thought politics made strange bedfellows.
An ailing, Greg Norman-designed golf course on South Australia’s Yorke Peninsula has been taken over by a local municipality. The nine-hole track (it was originally planned for 18 holes) is the featured attraction of Dunes Port Hughes, which was being promoted as the state’s premier resort community before it fell on hard times. The community, which has racked up more than $13 million in debts, was placed in receivership last summer. “It was the wrong project at the wrong time in the wrong place,” a resident said at the time. The Copper Coast Council now has three years to lay a firm financial foundation under the three-year-old course. “If the golf course cannot establish a viable business plan going forward, the future of the course will need to be reviewed,” the lenders said. “This may mean a different standard of course or potentially the closure of the course.”
Here we go again: Lee Schmidt and Brian Curley have opened yet another golf course in China, this one along the Changling Reservoir in the eastern part of Hainan Island. The 7,011-yard, Curley-designed track is the centerpiece of White Stone Hot Spring Golf Club, which is emerging on property southwest of Qionghai. In a press release, Curley describes the layout as “very user-friendly” and “sure to please players and owners alike.” The track is Schmidt-Curley’s 14th on Hainan Island, which isn’t subject to the Chinese government’s ineffective moratorium on golf construction. If you’re keeping score, the press release notes that Schmidt-Curley has been involved in the design of “nearly 40” courses in China. No other firm even comes close.
The Powers That Be in golf constantly talk about “growing the game.” But Ian Andrew, a Canadian architect who never hesitates to speak his mind, believes they’re going about it in the wrong way. “I don’t think they promote growth at all,” Andrew wrote in a recent post at his blog. His argument: I think they depend on growth to support their existing infrastructure, and now that’s come to a standstill. They’re frightened, in many cases. . . . Nobody has addressed the real problem. Everyone is focusing on trying to bring new players to the game, but the biggest issue is retention. The game has become too expensive to play regularly, takes too much time out of our busy schedules, and people leave over the economics. Andrew also addresses the role architects can play in hanging onto players. “In the last couple of decades,” he notes, 90 percent of new courses were designed to meet the demand of 10 percent of players. Only the best can play them, and only the wealthiest can afford to play. We need to reverse the pyramid so that 90 percent of the courses are fun and cheap places to play.
Club at Clear Creek Tahoe is about to be reborn. The club, part of a 1,600-acre community southwest of Carson City, Nevada, opened in 2009 and then closed last summer, a victim the Great Recession. But the club’s developers, Jim Taylor and Chip Hanly, recently took on new investor-partners and are on track to reopen sometime this spring. Their original plan was to sell lots for 384 single-family houses and to attract 495 members, but the chill in the marketplace may have lowered their expectations. Bill Coore, who co-designed the club’s 6,868-yard course with Ben Crenshaw, reports that some of the layout’s design elements -- bunkers, mostly -- have been spiffed up in preparation for the reopening. “I have every reason to believe it’s going to be successful,” Coore says.
The Royal & Ancient won the debate regarding the design changes that are being made at the Old Course at St. Andrews, but Geoff Ogilvy thinks the group got its way by being “sneaky.” In an
interview with HK Golfer, the PGA pro (and Michael Clayton’s “signature” design partner) contends that the R&A deliberately announced its intentions on the same weekend that the proposed ban on anchored putters hit the news. “They knew there would be a backlash, so they made sure they had the bulldozers out there ready before anyone could stop it,” Ogilvy contends. “That’s what it felt like, and I think that’s what annoyed everyone the most.” Ogilvy believes that Martin Hawtree will “do a nice job” with the Old Course’s re-do, but he clearly wishes that it wasn’t happening. “It’s the first place that anyone should ever study when they think about golf course architecture,” he said, “and the last place they should touch!”
In an attempt to avoid further financial losses, the city of Winnipeg hopes to lease four of its worst-performing golf properties to a private-sector group. If the city can find a taker, numbers-crunchers say, it could trim its shortfall dramatically, from $780,530 to $68,854. Prospective operators should be advised that the four courses in question -- Crescent Drive, Harbour View, Kildonan Park, and Windsor Park -- require an estimated $4.6 million in upgrades. All told, the city’s 12 courses are projected to lose $863,500 in 2012, and the agency that operates them reportedly has a deficit of $7.1 million.
People always say that golfers are among the best-behaved people on the planet, but you wouldn’t know it from mêlées that erupted this week at private clubs in India and the United States. The biggest headlines were made at Chandigarh Golf Club, where the Times of India says “a brawl” involving “enraged golfers” who “struck each other with golf clubs” left “the 16th tee blood splattered and three senior club members wounded.” The scuffle was reportedly sparked by a dispute over “slow play.” The incident here at home occurred at “a routine homeowners association meeting” at Springs Country Club in Rancho Mirage, California. After the results of a board election were announced, according to the Desert Sun, unhappy residents began “yelling and pushing” and then graduated to “chair-throwing, fist-fighting, and tackling.” A security guard reportedly pulled his gun during the fracas, and someone involved suffered a seizure. So tell me again, why is golf considered a gentleman’s game?
Is Britney Spears about to take her game up a notch? Less than a year ago, on the fairways of Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks, California, the pop singer was said to be turning “golf balls into weapons of mass destruction.” Today, according to the Celebrity Café, Spears is “considering becoming a member of the country club.” And you thought politics made strange bedfellows.
Friday, February 22, 2013
The Pipeline, february 22, 2013
Frank Casey, Sr., the owner of Rosapenna Hotel & Golf Resort in County Donegal, Ireland, is on the verge of creating what could be the second-largest links destination in Europe, after St. Andrews in Scotland. Late last year, Casey acquired Rosapenna’s next-door neighbor, St. Patrick’s Golf Links, giving him control of four 18-hole tracks, a nine-hole course, and a practice course on nearly 1,200 acres overlooking Sheephaven Bay. Although the 36 holes at St. Patrick’s have been closed for years, these days Casey is shopping for an architect to oversee their rebirth. His son John has suggested that the St. Patrick’s complex might be reduced to 27 holes, with the construction to begin in 2014. An architect hasn’t yet been hired, but some observers believe that Tom Doak, who’s done renovations at Rosapenna, will be tapped for the job. More importantly, John Casey acknowledged as much in a recent conversation with Travel Golf. “We’ve had a lot of contact from architects,” he said. “Tom is high on the list.”
Some information in this post first appeared in the December 2012 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
The entrepreneur who conceived Barnbougle Dunes has secured permission to completely make over a golf course in suburban Hobart, on Tasmania. Greg Ramsay, who’s doing more to turn the island into a golf destination than any other individual, aims to turn the 6,196-yard track at Claremont Golf Club into “one of Australia’s best public-access courses.” To do so, he’s going to redesign as many as 14 of the course’s holes and to give some sizzle to the remaining holes. A concept plan for the redesigned golf course has been produced by Neil Crafter and Paul Mogford, who operate out of an office in Adelaide. In an e-mail, Ramsay told me that he hopes “to create more drama through risk-and-reward holes that make better use of the site’s dramatic coastline.” Claremont, which opened in 1973, also plans to build a sports complex, 64 housing units for retirees, a 75-room hotel with meeting space, and other attractions.
The original version of the preceding post first appeared in the September 2012 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
A group led by Elmon Henry has secured permission to build a resort community along Lake Hartwell in Fair Play, South Carolina. The 325-acre community, called Sanctuary Pointe, will include a pair of hotels, a conference center, a lodge, cabins, restaurants, and an 18-hole golf course that will be designed by a “celebrity” or “signature” architect. The developers haven’t yet hired the architect, but Henry recently told me that he’s discussed the venture with at least four likely prospects. And though it pains me to say it, the hotel operator will have a say in who designs the course.
Some information in this post originally appeared in the December 2012 issue of the U.S. Golf Course Report.
With one golf course in the Mediterranean about to wrap up construction, Dolphin Capital Investors is now turning its attention to a second. In a recent financial filing, Dolphin reported that it’s received permission to build at least part of the planned housing at Sitia Bay Golf Resort, on the northeastern coast of Crete. “This represents a major milestone,” the company told investors, “as it is expected to lead to additional zoning approvals in other areas of the site.” Sitia Bay will spread over 750 acres, including nearly two miles’ worth of beachfront, in the village of Papadiokampos, just a 15-minute drive west of Sitia International Airport. At build-out, it’ll include villas and condos, a 177-room Waldorf-Astoria hotel, meeting space, a small marina, and a golf course created by Nicklaus Design. In the same filing, Dolphin announced that its first course at Venus Rock, on the island of Cyprus, is close to being completed.
The original version of this post first appeared in the September 2012 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
Firm in the conviction that visitors to this blog can never read too much about Subrata Roy, I’m happy to note that the Lucknow, India-based billionaire believes his forthcoming resort in Macedonia will be one of the world’s great vacation destinations. “This is not going to be an average tourist complex but a destination that will be one of the world’s top five or 10 in this industry,” Roy vowed during a recent visit. The to-be-named resort, which will take shape near Prespa Lake, will include what a government official described as “a floating hotel with a casino,” a marina, a spa, meeting space, shopping areas, and “a top-level golf course.” Back in December, I reported that construction is supposed to begin next year.
Higher learning in India may soon be redefined, as a school in Uttar Pradesh has set out to become the nation’s first university with its own golf course. The track will take shape at Aligarh Muslim University, which has a 1,170-acre campus in Aligarh, roughly 70 miles southeast of New Delhi. No details about the golf course have been revealed, but its construction will be part of a series of “green” initiatives that the university’s vice chancellor, Lt. General Zameer Uddin Shah, plans to implement. Shah’s goal, he said in comments published by TwoCircles.net, is to “move forward this university to the top in the country.” He doesn’t have far to go, as India Today ranks AMU as number five.
The original version of this post originally appeared in the October 2012 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
The members of Raffeen Creek Golf Club in County Cork, Ireland are thinking about adding nine holes to their nine-hole golf course. The club’s chairman told the Irish Examiner that an 18-hole layout would be “a massive boost for our existing members and in attracting new members.” Raffeen Creek currently features a 2,597-yard track that was designed by Eddie Hackett and opened in 1989. The new nine, which has been designed by Martin Hawtree, will take shape on property owned by Pfizer, the giant pharmaceuticals company. If the club’s 475 members agree to Pfizer’s price, they could be playing on an 18-hole track by 2015.
The original version of this post first appeared in the November 2012 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
Jack Nicklaus, Tom Fazio, Tom Jackson, and Ben Wright -– those are the architects who’ve designed the golf courses at the six Cliffs communities in the Carolinas. This fall, the Cliffs’ new owners expect to add another “signature” layout to their collection, a Gary Player-designed track at the 5,000-acre Mountain Park spread in Traveler’s Rest, South Carolina. As is fashionable these days, the course will be firm and fast. “In designing the Mountain Park golf course, we paid close attention to making the fairways firmer, not use as much water, not use as much fertilizer, and take full advantage of the natural characteristics of the land,” Scott Ferrell, the firm’s president, said in a press release. If he ever wants to squeeze in a quick round, Ferrell won’t have far to go. Player’s firm is headquartered in Mountain Park.
After being abandoned for something like three years, the first Jack Nicklaus “signature” course in metropolitan Washington, DC is scheduled to open this summer. The 7,156-yard track will be the centerpiece of Potomac Shores, a financially troubled community outside Dumfries, Virginia that’s been rescued by SunCal. The course has been designed in “a European style,” according to a spokesman for SunCal, and the community’s forthcoming clubhouse will resemble “a stately Virginia manor.” Just the way our forefathers intended, no?
Some information in this post first appeared in the December 2012 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
The entrepreneur who conceived Barnbougle Dunes has secured permission to completely make over a golf course in suburban Hobart, on Tasmania. Greg Ramsay, who’s doing more to turn the island into a golf destination than any other individual, aims to turn the 6,196-yard track at Claremont Golf Club into “one of Australia’s best public-access courses.” To do so, he’s going to redesign as many as 14 of the course’s holes and to give some sizzle to the remaining holes. A concept plan for the redesigned golf course has been produced by Neil Crafter and Paul Mogford, who operate out of an office in Adelaide. In an e-mail, Ramsay told me that he hopes “to create more drama through risk-and-reward holes that make better use of the site’s dramatic coastline.” Claremont, which opened in 1973, also plans to build a sports complex, 64 housing units for retirees, a 75-room hotel with meeting space, and other attractions.
The original version of the preceding post first appeared in the September 2012 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
A group led by Elmon Henry has secured permission to build a resort community along Lake Hartwell in Fair Play, South Carolina. The 325-acre community, called Sanctuary Pointe, will include a pair of hotels, a conference center, a lodge, cabins, restaurants, and an 18-hole golf course that will be designed by a “celebrity” or “signature” architect. The developers haven’t yet hired the architect, but Henry recently told me that he’s discussed the venture with at least four likely prospects. And though it pains me to say it, the hotel operator will have a say in who designs the course.
Some information in this post originally appeared in the December 2012 issue of the U.S. Golf Course Report.
With one golf course in the Mediterranean about to wrap up construction, Dolphin Capital Investors is now turning its attention to a second. In a recent financial filing, Dolphin reported that it’s received permission to build at least part of the planned housing at Sitia Bay Golf Resort, on the northeastern coast of Crete. “This represents a major milestone,” the company told investors, “as it is expected to lead to additional zoning approvals in other areas of the site.” Sitia Bay will spread over 750 acres, including nearly two miles’ worth of beachfront, in the village of Papadiokampos, just a 15-minute drive west of Sitia International Airport. At build-out, it’ll include villas and condos, a 177-room Waldorf-Astoria hotel, meeting space, a small marina, and a golf course created by Nicklaus Design. In the same filing, Dolphin announced that its first course at Venus Rock, on the island of Cyprus, is close to being completed.
The original version of this post first appeared in the September 2012 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
Firm in the conviction that visitors to this blog can never read too much about Subrata Roy, I’m happy to note that the Lucknow, India-based billionaire believes his forthcoming resort in Macedonia will be one of the world’s great vacation destinations. “This is not going to be an average tourist complex but a destination that will be one of the world’s top five or 10 in this industry,” Roy vowed during a recent visit. The to-be-named resort, which will take shape near Prespa Lake, will include what a government official described as “a floating hotel with a casino,” a marina, a spa, meeting space, shopping areas, and “a top-level golf course.” Back in December, I reported that construction is supposed to begin next year.
Higher learning in India may soon be redefined, as a school in Uttar Pradesh has set out to become the nation’s first university with its own golf course. The track will take shape at Aligarh Muslim University, which has a 1,170-acre campus in Aligarh, roughly 70 miles southeast of New Delhi. No details about the golf course have been revealed, but its construction will be part of a series of “green” initiatives that the university’s vice chancellor, Lt. General Zameer Uddin Shah, plans to implement. Shah’s goal, he said in comments published by TwoCircles.net, is to “move forward this university to the top in the country.” He doesn’t have far to go, as India Today ranks AMU as number five.
The original version of this post originally appeared in the October 2012 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
The members of Raffeen Creek Golf Club in County Cork, Ireland are thinking about adding nine holes to their nine-hole golf course. The club’s chairman told the Irish Examiner that an 18-hole layout would be “a massive boost for our existing members and in attracting new members.” Raffeen Creek currently features a 2,597-yard track that was designed by Eddie Hackett and opened in 1989. The new nine, which has been designed by Martin Hawtree, will take shape on property owned by Pfizer, the giant pharmaceuticals company. If the club’s 475 members agree to Pfizer’s price, they could be playing on an 18-hole track by 2015.
The original version of this post first appeared in the November 2012 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
Jack Nicklaus, Tom Fazio, Tom Jackson, and Ben Wright -– those are the architects who’ve designed the golf courses at the six Cliffs communities in the Carolinas. This fall, the Cliffs’ new owners expect to add another “signature” layout to their collection, a Gary Player-designed track at the 5,000-acre Mountain Park spread in Traveler’s Rest, South Carolina. As is fashionable these days, the course will be firm and fast. “In designing the Mountain Park golf course, we paid close attention to making the fairways firmer, not use as much water, not use as much fertilizer, and take full advantage of the natural characteristics of the land,” Scott Ferrell, the firm’s president, said in a press release. If he ever wants to squeeze in a quick round, Ferrell won’t have far to go. Player’s firm is headquartered in Mountain Park.
After being abandoned for something like three years, the first Jack Nicklaus “signature” course in metropolitan Washington, DC is scheduled to open this summer. The 7,156-yard track will be the centerpiece of Potomac Shores, a financially troubled community outside Dumfries, Virginia that’s been rescued by SunCal. The course has been designed in “a European style,” according to a spokesman for SunCal, and the community’s forthcoming clubhouse will resemble “a stately Virginia manor.” Just the way our forefathers intended, no?
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
india Subrata Roy: Got Milk, Got Golf
Subrata Roy is rapidly expanding his golf horizons.
Roy has long been one of India’s best-known businessmen, not to mention one of its richest and most powerful people, and his Sahara India Pariwar is one of the nation’s biggest conglomerates. Roy even has some notoriety in the golf business, as the developer of Aamby Valley City, a 10,600-acre resort community in Pune, Maharashtra.
But in 2012, Roy began to emerge as a golf force to be reckoned
with. Last summer, he outlined plans for a casino complex in Macedonia that will include several golf courses. Now he’s followed up with plans to build an “international-standard” course in Indore, the largest city in Madhya Pradesh.
Golf isn’t Roy’s top priority in Indore. His primary focus is a dairy that he says will eventually become the world’s largest milk producer. To complement the dairy, he intends to build 44,000 “affordable” houses, presumably for some of its employees, as well as a “world-class” hotel, a sports complex, and the golf course.
Lucknow-based Sahara India Pariwar operates in many fields, among them real estate development, film and television production, newspaper and magazine publishing, retailing, financial services, life insurance, health care, and hotel operations. It even owns a professional cricket team and has a minority stake in Force India, a Formula One auto race team.
Roy expects to submit a development proposal for his venture in Indore by the spring of this year. He hasn’t identified a designer for the golf course or announced when he plans to start building it, but it’s worth noting that Aamby Valley features a David Hemstock-designed layout.
The original version of the preceding post first appeared in the December 2012 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
Roy has long been one of India’s best-known businessmen, not to mention one of its richest and most powerful people, and his Sahara India Pariwar is one of the nation’s biggest conglomerates. Roy even has some notoriety in the golf business, as the developer of Aamby Valley City, a 10,600-acre resort community in Pune, Maharashtra.
But in 2012, Roy began to emerge as a golf force to be reckoned
with. Last summer, he outlined plans for a casino complex in Macedonia that will include several golf courses. Now he’s followed up with plans to build an “international-standard” course in Indore, the largest city in Madhya Pradesh.
Golf isn’t Roy’s top priority in Indore. His primary focus is a dairy that he says will eventually become the world’s largest milk producer. To complement the dairy, he intends to build 44,000 “affordable” houses, presumably for some of its employees, as well as a “world-class” hotel, a sports complex, and the golf course.
Lucknow-based Sahara India Pariwar operates in many fields, among them real estate development, film and television production, newspaper and magazine publishing, retailing, financial services, life insurance, health care, and hotel operations. It even owns a professional cricket team and has a minority stake in Force India, a Formula One auto race team.
Roy expects to submit a development proposal for his venture in Indore by the spring of this year. He hasn’t identified a designer for the golf course or announced when he plans to start building it, but it’s worth noting that Aamby Valley features a David Hemstock-designed layout.
The original version of the preceding post first appeared in the December 2012 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
Sunday, February 17, 2013
The Week That Was, february 17, 2013
Alcorcón has hit the jackpot. The town in suburban Madrid, Spain has been selected as the future home of EuroVegas, the casino-centric city envisioned by Las Vegas Sands Corporation. The 1,875-acre complex has been master-planned to include as many as six gambling halls, a dozen hotels, nine entertainment venues, a convention center, shopping areas, bars and restaurants, and three golf courses. Alcorcón’s mayor told the Independent that it would be “an unprecedented nexus of employment just at the moment that it is most needed,” but maybe he shouldn’t count his chickens before they hatch. Sands’ 79-year-old CEO, Sheldon Adelson, has reportedly committed to funding just 35 percent of the venture, and the newspaper notes that “the source for the remaining 65 percent is unclear.” That being said, Sands believes construction could begin by the end of the year.
It only took 119 years, but the USGA has finally realized that slow play is bad for golf. “Industry research clearly shows that slow play and the amount of time it takes to play a round of golf detract from the overall experience and threaten to drive players away from the game,” the group has concluded. The solution? The USGA plans to “develop a broad set of initiatives” to address the problem. Beginning this year, it’ll establish “partnerships with various golf industry leaders,” create “the first-ever dynamic model of pace of play based on quantifiable data,” and develop “new programs to help golf course managers assess and improve pace of play.” Talk about slow play: Have you fallen asleep yet?
Donald Trump has formally submitted plans for the second golf course at his golf resort in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. “We are more committed than ever to creating the greatest golf destination in the world,” one of the resort’s officials told the Scotsman. Trump says he gave the green light to the 7,500-yard MacLeod course because his resort has already taken 11,000 tee times for 2013, more than double what it had at this time a year ago. However, he continues to insist that he won’t build the resort’s planned hotel if the Scottish government follows through on its plan to build a wind farm in the waters near his property. My question: How can he build “the greatest golf destination in the world” without a hotel?
Gil Hanse may already be on-site in Rio de Janeiro, but he hasn’t yet broken ground on the golf course that will host the competition for the 2016 Olympics. And that worries the executive director of the International Golf Federation. “We are very concerned,” Antony Scanlon told Around the Rings. Peter Dawson, the IGF’s president, has also begun to complain publicly. “I didn't expect to appoint the architect a year ago and next to nothing to have happened in the meantime, that’s for sure,” he said in an interview with the Herald. “Progress has been disappointing.” Brazil’s Olympic organizers, who had intended to begin construction last fall, now say that the earthmoving will begin in April. But that doesn’t comfort Scanlon. The trouble, he says, is that “there is now very little time available to construct and condition a championship-standard golf course.”
The Old Course at St. Andrews isn’t the only historic Scottish course that’s being updated for modern times. East Lothian Council plans to remove 11 bunkers from Musselburgh Links, a nine-hole track that’s reportedly been hosting games of golf since 1672, if not before. The council’s action has teed off preservation-minded golfers, one of whom told the Scotsman that “it’s a little saddening if penny-pinching has led to the decision.” A spokesperson for the council says that the design changes at Musselburgh have been endorsed by the Royal & Ancient, the same people who approved the controversial design changes at the Old Course.
Six years after Gary Player said he knew “for a fact” that golfers were getting chemically enhanced -- he estimated in 2007 that “there’s 10 guys taking something” but that the number “might be a hell of a lot more” -- stars on the PGA Tour continue to insist that they and their colleagues aren’t doping. Sergio Garcia stepped up as a denier this week, telling China Daily that golf is “not the kind of sport that needs so much when it comes to enhancing drugs.” Maybe someone should introduce Garcia to Vijay Singh, who recently confessed to using a banned substance derived from deer antlers, or to Bob Charles, the World Golf Hall of Famer who’s admitted to taking “one or two deer-velvet capsules daily” for “virtually 20 years or more.” Lest we forget, Singh’s use of Ultimate Spray, as it’s called, should net him a one-year suspension. Nonetheless, he continues to play in Tour-sanctioned events. What explains the sport’s failure to act on his illegal drug use? Maybe it’s because, as Karen Crouse of the New York Times points out, the groups make the rules in golf -- the Royal & Ancient, the United States Golf Association, and the PGA Tour -- administer them “as if operating in a smoke-filled back room.” If that’s the case, it’s high time that we cleared the air. Ignorance is not bliss.
The Canadian Women’s Open needs a new sponsor. After eight years, the Canadian National Railway has decided to take its name off the Open and invest its marketing dollars elsewhere. And for now, at least, it doesn’t appear that the event’s sponsor, Golf Canada, is anywhere close to finding a replacement. “We’ve been quietly talking with a number of Canadian corporations and will continue to do so now,” the group’s executive director told Yahoo! Sports, “but I’m not at liberty to say who those people are.”
Just a month after it was put up for sale, a 107-year-old golf course in Denbighshire, Wales has been taken off the market, and its members are said to be “looking forward to a bright future.” The Rhyl Journal reports that the members of Prestatyn Golf Club have had second thoughts and concluded that they really don’t want to sell their club. “The course going up for sale is the best thing that has ever happened to the club,” a member explained, “because the reality of what we could lose has brought everyone together.” The members are said to be developing a business plan that will ensure the club’s future. The plan will include upgrades to the property’s clubhouse and 18-hole golf course.
On with the show: The 10th anniversary edition of KPMG’s Golf Business Forum will be held in St. Andrews, Scotland, on June 3-5, 2013. KPMG’s show is a good place to bend elbows with some of the most influential people in the golf business, particularly those from Europe. Though this year’s celebrity guests haven’t yet been identified, in the past KPMG has presented lifetime achievement awards to luminaries including David Chu, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus, and Dana Garmany. The venue will be the Fairmont St. Andrews, a resort with a pair of 18-hole golf courses. And though it hardly needs to be mentioned, there are a few other good courses nearby.
It only took 119 years, but the USGA has finally realized that slow play is bad for golf. “Industry research clearly shows that slow play and the amount of time it takes to play a round of golf detract from the overall experience and threaten to drive players away from the game,” the group has concluded. The solution? The USGA plans to “develop a broad set of initiatives” to address the problem. Beginning this year, it’ll establish “partnerships with various golf industry leaders,” create “the first-ever dynamic model of pace of play based on quantifiable data,” and develop “new programs to help golf course managers assess and improve pace of play.” Talk about slow play: Have you fallen asleep yet?
Donald Trump has formally submitted plans for the second golf course at his golf resort in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. “We are more committed than ever to creating the greatest golf destination in the world,” one of the resort’s officials told the Scotsman. Trump says he gave the green light to the 7,500-yard MacLeod course because his resort has already taken 11,000 tee times for 2013, more than double what it had at this time a year ago. However, he continues to insist that he won’t build the resort’s planned hotel if the Scottish government follows through on its plan to build a wind farm in the waters near his property. My question: How can he build “the greatest golf destination in the world” without a hotel?
Gil Hanse may already be on-site in Rio de Janeiro, but he hasn’t yet broken ground on the golf course that will host the competition for the 2016 Olympics. And that worries the executive director of the International Golf Federation. “We are very concerned,” Antony Scanlon told Around the Rings. Peter Dawson, the IGF’s president, has also begun to complain publicly. “I didn't expect to appoint the architect a year ago and next to nothing to have happened in the meantime, that’s for sure,” he said in an interview with the Herald. “Progress has been disappointing.” Brazil’s Olympic organizers, who had intended to begin construction last fall, now say that the earthmoving will begin in April. But that doesn’t comfort Scanlon. The trouble, he says, is that “there is now very little time available to construct and condition a championship-standard golf course.”
The Old Course at St. Andrews isn’t the only historic Scottish course that’s being updated for modern times. East Lothian Council plans to remove 11 bunkers from Musselburgh Links, a nine-hole track that’s reportedly been hosting games of golf since 1672, if not before. The council’s action has teed off preservation-minded golfers, one of whom told the Scotsman that “it’s a little saddening if penny-pinching has led to the decision.” A spokesperson for the council says that the design changes at Musselburgh have been endorsed by the Royal & Ancient, the same people who approved the controversial design changes at the Old Course.
Six years after Gary Player said he knew “for a fact” that golfers were getting chemically enhanced -- he estimated in 2007 that “there’s 10 guys taking something” but that the number “might be a hell of a lot more” -- stars on the PGA Tour continue to insist that they and their colleagues aren’t doping. Sergio Garcia stepped up as a denier this week, telling China Daily that golf is “not the kind of sport that needs so much when it comes to enhancing drugs.” Maybe someone should introduce Garcia to Vijay Singh, who recently confessed to using a banned substance derived from deer antlers, or to Bob Charles, the World Golf Hall of Famer who’s admitted to taking “one or two deer-velvet capsules daily” for “virtually 20 years or more.” Lest we forget, Singh’s use of Ultimate Spray, as it’s called, should net him a one-year suspension. Nonetheless, he continues to play in Tour-sanctioned events. What explains the sport’s failure to act on his illegal drug use? Maybe it’s because, as Karen Crouse of the New York Times points out, the groups make the rules in golf -- the Royal & Ancient, the United States Golf Association, and the PGA Tour -- administer them “as if operating in a smoke-filled back room.” If that’s the case, it’s high time that we cleared the air. Ignorance is not bliss.
The Canadian Women’s Open needs a new sponsor. After eight years, the Canadian National Railway has decided to take its name off the Open and invest its marketing dollars elsewhere. And for now, at least, it doesn’t appear that the event’s sponsor, Golf Canada, is anywhere close to finding a replacement. “We’ve been quietly talking with a number of Canadian corporations and will continue to do so now,” the group’s executive director told Yahoo! Sports, “but I’m not at liberty to say who those people are.”
Just a month after it was put up for sale, a 107-year-old golf course in Denbighshire, Wales has been taken off the market, and its members are said to be “looking forward to a bright future.” The Rhyl Journal reports that the members of Prestatyn Golf Club have had second thoughts and concluded that they really don’t want to sell their club. “The course going up for sale is the best thing that has ever happened to the club,” a member explained, “because the reality of what we could lose has brought everyone together.” The members are said to be developing a business plan that will ensure the club’s future. The plan will include upgrades to the property’s clubhouse and 18-hole golf course.
On with the show: The 10th anniversary edition of KPMG’s Golf Business Forum will be held in St. Andrews, Scotland, on June 3-5, 2013. KPMG’s show is a good place to bend elbows with some of the most influential people in the golf business, particularly those from Europe. Though this year’s celebrity guests haven’t yet been identified, in the past KPMG has presented lifetime achievement awards to luminaries including David Chu, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus, and Dana Garmany. The venue will be the Fairmont St. Andrews, a resort with a pair of 18-hole golf courses. And though it hardly needs to be mentioned, there are a few other good courses nearby.
Friday, February 15, 2013
The Cold, Hard Facts february 15, 2013
Last year, the golf industry contributed €15.1 billion ($20.2 billion) to Europe’s economy, according to a study conducted by Sports Marketing Surveys, Inc. This may sound like a lot, but it’s actually a slight decline from the estimated €15.4 billion ($20.6 billion) that our industry was worth to the Old Country in 2006. SMS attributes the deterioration to “the more difficult economic times, which have seen far less new golf course and property developments and more competitive pricing.”
Is the annual Golf Industry Show a leading economic indicator? If it is, what do you make of the fact that attendance was down significantly this year? The GIS in 2012 attracted 6,018 qualified buyers and 13,192 total attendees, while the 2011 show attracted 7,068 qualified buyers and 14,706 total attendees. Of course, it’s possible that the drop in attendance can be explained, at least in part, by the venues involved. This year’s GIS was held in San Diego, California, while last year’s was held in Las Vegas, Nevada. And if you’re wondering, next year’s will be held in Orlando, Florida.
As expected, 2012 was a very good year for U.S. golf-course owners and operators. The final tally: The number of rounds played was up by 6.4 percent from 2011. According to PGA PerformanceTrak, the boost in play represents “the largest single-year percentage increase in rounds played since 2000.” Even better, revenues from green fees increased by 6.6 percent. Like other observers, PGA PerformanceTrak primarily credits unusually warm weather for these gains, noting that the average U.S. golf venue recorded more days of play.
I’ve collected some facts and figures about the amount of play recorded in several U.S. golf markets during 2012. Here are a few snapshots:
-- The golf business in the mid Atlantic states is “enjoying boom times,” says the Washington Business Journal. Citing figures provided by PGA PerformanceTrak, the Journal reports that the number of rounds played in Washington, DC and Baltimore, Maryland rose by 8.6 percent last year, with rounds in the state of Virginia increasing by 6.7 percent. In addition, the newspaper notes, golf revenues in the region “ticked up between 5 and 10 percent.”
-- Thanks to a recently implemented business plan, in 2012 the five municipal courses in Lexington, Kentucky recorded a 10 percent increase in rounds played and cut their expenses dramatically. The result: The city’s annual subsidy to the courses, which amounted to $1 million in 2011, was nearly cut in half in 2012. “It has been a great year,” a city official told the Lexington Herald-Leader. “We have reduced expenses [and] increased revenue without cheapening the golf experience people expect on our courses.” As a result of the improving financial picture, Lexington no longer desires to close Meadowbrook Golf Course, an 18-hole, par-3 track that’s been on the endangered list in recent years.
-- The number of rounds played at the two municipal courses in Columbus, Nebraska was up by 22.5 percent in 2012, and total revenues were up by 12.3 percent. “It was the best year we’ve had since I’ve been here,” said a golf pro who arrived in 2006. The Columbus Telegram reports that the $453,582 collected by the courses last year represented “their highest level in 10 years.”
-- Three golf properties in northwestern New Mexico brightened their financial prospects. The number of rounds played increased by 5.9 percent at Pinon Hills Golf Course in Farmington, by 14.8 percent at Riverview Golf Course in Kirtland, and by 11.5 percent at Hidden Valley Golf Club in Aztec. In addition, the Farmington Daily-Times reports, the courses “saw similar increases in revenue.”
-- Not so lucky was the Grand Strand in South Carolina, where the number of “paid” rounds played in 2012 “held steady for the third consecutive year,” according to the Myrtle Beach Sun News. To be precise, the number of rounds played fell by 0.73 percent, based on figures provided by a local travel group. To compound the problem, green fees in the Myrtle Beach area are lower than they were in 2008 and 2009, “so golf course profits on average have diminished over the past few years.”
Rounds are also up in London, Ontario, a city that was not long ago thinking about closing one of its three municipal courses. “A situation that appeared dire in 2009,” explains a local newspaper, “now sees city courses running at a surplus and contributing to a revitalization of the sport.” The Canadian city’s courses were expected to ring up 128,000 rounds in 2012 (up from 111,000 in 2011) and to bank profits of nearly $300,000. “Our hopes and dreams turned into reality in 2012,” a city official told the London Community News.
Club golfers in Australia played nearly 12.4 million rounds last year, according to the Australian Golf Industry Council, an increase of 2.4 percent over the number posted in 2011. “Australian golfers are playing more rounds of golf and spending more time at their favorite courses, which is a big positive for everyone in the industry,” the AGIC’s chairman said in a press release. The AGIC’s data indicates that 45 percent of last year’s rounds were played in metropolitan areas and that men and boys accounted for more than 81 percent of the rounds played.
The resident pro at Caesarea Golf Club -- the only 18-hole golf course in Israel -- guesstimates that his nation has between 20,000 and 30,000 true golfers, which he defines as people who play at least twice a year. Speaking to the Baltimore Jewish Times, Andy Santos also issued a challenge to course owners in the United States. “If every golf course in the states would do what we do to develop golf,” he said, “there would not be a decline in the golfing market. We are building golfers every year. Anywhere from 20 to 50 sovereign Israelis become golfers every year.”
What’s the hottest brand in golf equipment today? Hands down, it’s TaylorMade, which controls 47 percent of the market for woods and 25 percent of the market for irons, according to figures provided by Golf Datatech. Callaway is number two in sales of clubs, but the trajectory of the companies’ recent sales figures reveal a chasm that won’t soon be bridged. Since 2007, the Wall Street Journal reports, TaylorMade’s sales have increased by 21 percent while Callaway’s have decreased by 26 percent.
Is the annual Golf Industry Show a leading economic indicator? If it is, what do you make of the fact that attendance was down significantly this year? The GIS in 2012 attracted 6,018 qualified buyers and 13,192 total attendees, while the 2011 show attracted 7,068 qualified buyers and 14,706 total attendees. Of course, it’s possible that the drop in attendance can be explained, at least in part, by the venues involved. This year’s GIS was held in San Diego, California, while last year’s was held in Las Vegas, Nevada. And if you’re wondering, next year’s will be held in Orlando, Florida.
As expected, 2012 was a very good year for U.S. golf-course owners and operators. The final tally: The number of rounds played was up by 6.4 percent from 2011. According to PGA PerformanceTrak, the boost in play represents “the largest single-year percentage increase in rounds played since 2000.” Even better, revenues from green fees increased by 6.6 percent. Like other observers, PGA PerformanceTrak primarily credits unusually warm weather for these gains, noting that the average U.S. golf venue recorded more days of play.
I’ve collected some facts and figures about the amount of play recorded in several U.S. golf markets during 2012. Here are a few snapshots:
-- The golf business in the mid Atlantic states is “enjoying boom times,” says the Washington Business Journal. Citing figures provided by PGA PerformanceTrak, the Journal reports that the number of rounds played in Washington, DC and Baltimore, Maryland rose by 8.6 percent last year, with rounds in the state of Virginia increasing by 6.7 percent. In addition, the newspaper notes, golf revenues in the region “ticked up between 5 and 10 percent.”
-- Thanks to a recently implemented business plan, in 2012 the five municipal courses in Lexington, Kentucky recorded a 10 percent increase in rounds played and cut their expenses dramatically. The result: The city’s annual subsidy to the courses, which amounted to $1 million in 2011, was nearly cut in half in 2012. “It has been a great year,” a city official told the Lexington Herald-Leader. “We have reduced expenses [and] increased revenue without cheapening the golf experience people expect on our courses.” As a result of the improving financial picture, Lexington no longer desires to close Meadowbrook Golf Course, an 18-hole, par-3 track that’s been on the endangered list in recent years.
-- The number of rounds played at the two municipal courses in Columbus, Nebraska was up by 22.5 percent in 2012, and total revenues were up by 12.3 percent. “It was the best year we’ve had since I’ve been here,” said a golf pro who arrived in 2006. The Columbus Telegram reports that the $453,582 collected by the courses last year represented “their highest level in 10 years.”
-- Three golf properties in northwestern New Mexico brightened their financial prospects. The number of rounds played increased by 5.9 percent at Pinon Hills Golf Course in Farmington, by 14.8 percent at Riverview Golf Course in Kirtland, and by 11.5 percent at Hidden Valley Golf Club in Aztec. In addition, the Farmington Daily-Times reports, the courses “saw similar increases in revenue.”
-- Not so lucky was the Grand Strand in South Carolina, where the number of “paid” rounds played in 2012 “held steady for the third consecutive year,” according to the Myrtle Beach Sun News. To be precise, the number of rounds played fell by 0.73 percent, based on figures provided by a local travel group. To compound the problem, green fees in the Myrtle Beach area are lower than they were in 2008 and 2009, “so golf course profits on average have diminished over the past few years.”
Rounds are also up in London, Ontario, a city that was not long ago thinking about closing one of its three municipal courses. “A situation that appeared dire in 2009,” explains a local newspaper, “now sees city courses running at a surplus and contributing to a revitalization of the sport.” The Canadian city’s courses were expected to ring up 128,000 rounds in 2012 (up from 111,000 in 2011) and to bank profits of nearly $300,000. “Our hopes and dreams turned into reality in 2012,” a city official told the London Community News.
Club golfers in Australia played nearly 12.4 million rounds last year, according to the Australian Golf Industry Council, an increase of 2.4 percent over the number posted in 2011. “Australian golfers are playing more rounds of golf and spending more time at their favorite courses, which is a big positive for everyone in the industry,” the AGIC’s chairman said in a press release. The AGIC’s data indicates that 45 percent of last year’s rounds were played in metropolitan areas and that men and boys accounted for more than 81 percent of the rounds played.
The resident pro at Caesarea Golf Club -- the only 18-hole golf course in Israel -- guesstimates that his nation has between 20,000 and 30,000 true golfers, which he defines as people who play at least twice a year. Speaking to the Baltimore Jewish Times, Andy Santos also issued a challenge to course owners in the United States. “If every golf course in the states would do what we do to develop golf,” he said, “there would not be a decline in the golfing market. We are building golfers every year. Anywhere from 20 to 50 sovereign Israelis become golfers every year.”
What’s the hottest brand in golf equipment today? Hands down, it’s TaylorMade, which controls 47 percent of the market for woods and 25 percent of the market for irons, according to figures provided by Golf Datatech. Callaway is number two in sales of clubs, but the trajectory of the companies’ recent sales figures reveal a chasm that won’t soon be bridged. Since 2007, the Wall Street Journal reports, TaylorMade’s sales have increased by 21 percent while Callaway’s have decreased by 26 percent.
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
canada Rod Whitman’s Next Project?
One of Canada’s hottest architects is negotiating to design a sustainable, family-friendly golf course on a stretch of farmland in Alberta.
The commission for the 18-hole track is being discussed with Rod Whitman, the minimalist who created Cabot Links in Inverness, Nova Scotia. Cabot Links, which took its inspiration from classic British links, is the odds-on favorite to be named as the best course to open in Canada in 2012.
Whitman’s new track will anchor Chinook Ridge Lodge, a small, downscale resort outside the village of Madden, roughly a half-hour’s drive northwest of Calgary.
“Some details need to be worked out,” Whitman said via e-mail late last year. “It’s a bit too early to discuss specific design concepts at this time, but the intention is to make this one of the most eco-friendly golf courses built in recent times.”
Chinook Ridge is being developed by Chloe Cartwright, who operates a nearby bed-and-breakfast that she says is too often booked solid. She aims to build a modest golf course suited to the needs of her guests and local residents. “Golf doesn’t have to be a rich man’s sport,” she said at a public forum in 2011.
The course will be only partially irrigated, and it may be operated by students in the hospitality management program at a local college. The rest of the resort is expected to consist of a 21-room country inn, 15 cabins, 15 spaces for RVs, and a banquet center.
Cabot Links isn’t Whitman’s only claim to fame. He co-designed (with Richard Zokol and Armen Suny) Sagebrush Golf Club in Quilchena, British Columbia, a track that SCOREGolf named as Canada’s best new course for 2009. He also has two Alberta courses on SCOREGolf’s top 100, Blackhawk Golf Club in Edmonton and the Old course at Wolf Creek Golf Resort in Ponoka.
Rocky View County’s council approved a rezoning of Cartwright’s property in late 2012. Whitman reports that golf construction could start in the spring of 2013.
The original version of the preceding post first appeared in the December 2012 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
The commission for the 18-hole track is being discussed with Rod Whitman, the minimalist who created Cabot Links in Inverness, Nova Scotia. Cabot Links, which took its inspiration from classic British links, is the odds-on favorite to be named as the best course to open in Canada in 2012.
Whitman’s new track will anchor Chinook Ridge Lodge, a small, downscale resort outside the village of Madden, roughly a half-hour’s drive northwest of Calgary.
“Some details need to be worked out,” Whitman said via e-mail late last year. “It’s a bit too early to discuss specific design concepts at this time, but the intention is to make this one of the most eco-friendly golf courses built in recent times.”
Chinook Ridge is being developed by Chloe Cartwright, who operates a nearby bed-and-breakfast that she says is too often booked solid. She aims to build a modest golf course suited to the needs of her guests and local residents. “Golf doesn’t have to be a rich man’s sport,” she said at a public forum in 2011.
The course will be only partially irrigated, and it may be operated by students in the hospitality management program at a local college. The rest of the resort is expected to consist of a 21-room country inn, 15 cabins, 15 spaces for RVs, and a banquet center.
Cabot Links isn’t Whitman’s only claim to fame. He co-designed (with Richard Zokol and Armen Suny) Sagebrush Golf Club in Quilchena, British Columbia, a track that SCOREGolf named as Canada’s best new course for 2009. He also has two Alberta courses on SCOREGolf’s top 100, Blackhawk Golf Club in Edmonton and the Old course at Wolf Creek Golf Resort in Ponoka.
Rocky View County’s council approved a rezoning of Cartwright’s property in late 2012. Whitman reports that golf construction could start in the spring of 2013.
The original version of the preceding post first appeared in the December 2012 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
Sunday, February 10, 2013
The Week That Was, february 10, 2013
Before too long, it’s going to cost more to play golf in land-scarce Singapore. A to-be-determined number of the city-state’s 18 golf properties will close over the next few years, to make land available for housing. Singapore’s population, now estimated to be about 5.2 million, is projected to swell to 6.9 million by 2030. “I think we’re all pragmatic and realistic,” the head of the Singapore Golf Association told Channel NewsAsia, “and at the end of the day, if it’s between housing and golf, I think housing obviously takes priority.” Many of the 30,000 club members in Singapore aren’t being quite so agreeable, for they know the relation between supply and demand. Singapore’s government plans to identify the properties on the chopping block in the coming months. The properties will likely be phased out one or two at a time, as their land leases expire.
My, how times are changing in the golf business! A mostly completed Nicklaus Design layout in Sherrard, Illinois, left for dead during the Great Recession, is being revived. I’m talking about Fyre Lake Golf Course, which has sadly languished since 2007, if not before. Todd Raufeisen, who leads the LLC that purchased Fyre Lake last fall, describes the property as “a beautiful, tremendous asset that has just been a waste” and “a fully matured golf course that hasn’t been played.” While acknowledging that local golfers may not believe him, Raufeisen told the Quad City Business Journal that the course will open “as soon as the weather breaks.”
A golf course in England is also coming back from the dead. Ingol Golf Club in Preston, which has been closed since 2010, has been leased by two local pros who aim to reopen it in April. The Lancashire Evening Post reports that the course, which was designed by Henry Cotton and opened in 1981, “is being completely re-designed and upgraded.” The club’s owner, Northern Trust Group, had planned to build houses on the property.
Two years ago, Frank Pont told me that his forthcoming Golfbaan De Swinkelsche in Eindhoven would be “one of the Netherlands’ best new courses built in the last 30 years.” Now the world’s critics can put his promise to the test, because the club’s 18-hole track has made its official debut. (Its nine-hole, par-3 course opened last summer, and the 18-hole layout got some play late last year.) De Swinkelsche took its inspiration from a nearby Harry Colt-designed track at Eindhovensche Golf Course. It was built on sandy soil, but Pont had to provide architectural character to much of the property, as it had been flattened for farming. “The key will be to create a credible wild and natural landscape from scratch,” he told Golf Course Architecture in 2011, when construction began. While he waits for the reviews of De Swinkelsche to be published, Pont will turn his attention to his next project, a renovation of Broadstone Golf Club in Dorset, England. The club features a Colt-redesigned course that Pont believes should be ranked among the U.K.’s top 50, and his challenge, he notes on his website, is “to help it achieve its full potential.”
The preceding post originally appeared in the February 2013 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
Golfers in Liverpool, England fear that forthcoming budget cuts will spell the end of the city’s most affordable golf venues. The city, under pressure to save £32 million (more $50 million), is thinking about closing its 27-hole Allerton and 18-hole North Liverpool courses. By doing so, the city could pocket about £300,000 ($474,000) a year, according to the Liverpool Echo. This is a ridiculously small amount, don’t you think? Maybe that’s why a political opponent suggests that “the desire of the council in closing the golf courses is not to save money but to be able to sell a valuable asset.”
In the midst of contentious contract negotiations, a private club in British Columbia, Canada has locked its unionized employees. The action affects 19 maintenance workers at Quilchena Golf & Country Club in Richmond. The club, which is said to be “facing financial pressures,” reportedly wants its employees to accept a four-year wage freeze and to make other concessions as well. The club hasn’t yet been willing to comment publicly on the matter, but a union representative told the Vancouver Sun that Quilchena is “trying to break the union and break the spirit of the workers.”
Last week, three of the nation’s best-known golf management firms added to their portfolios. KemperSports Mangement, which absurdly insists that it’s “the most trusted name in golf,” finalized a 10-year agreement to manage Harborside International Golf Center in Chicago, Illinois. Chicago Business reports that Harborside, which features a pair of 18-hole, Dick Nugent-designed courses, has lost “upward of $800,000 annually in recent years.” Sequoia Golf Management, the group that operates the Canongate Golf chain in Georgia, has been tapped to manage Fort Collins Country Club in Fort Collins, Colorado. The club features an 18-hole course was designed by Henry Hughes and opened in 1960. And finally, Canton Township, Michigan has hired Billy Casper Golf to manage Fellows Creek Golf Course. The contract has been debated for months, as the course had been operated by a local family for 34 years, and many of its long-time customers fear change. Casper received a five-year deal.
A round of applause, please, for John Deere, which has promised to donate $1 million to the First Tee over the next five years. I wish other companies that have profited so handsomely from golf would be so generous. Do you know that the First Tee, in only 15 years, has introduced more than 7.6 million kids to golf?
If he could only play one course for the rest of his life, Matt Ginella of the Golf Channel says it would be the Black Course at Bethpage State Park in New York. But one course does not a list make, so he named 39 more of his favorites. The top 10 includes the Pacific Dunes track at Bandon Dunes in Oregon (“the best links golf experience in America”), Forest Dunes Golf Club in Michigan (“You will not be disappointed”), Pasatiempo Golf Club in California (“I’d be more than happy hanging out at the place MacKenzie called home when he died”), and the Straits course at Whistling Straits in Wisconsin (“When the wind isn’t whipping off Lake Michigan,” it “can actually be considered . . . fun!”).
My, how times are changing in the golf business! A mostly completed Nicklaus Design layout in Sherrard, Illinois, left for dead during the Great Recession, is being revived. I’m talking about Fyre Lake Golf Course, which has sadly languished since 2007, if not before. Todd Raufeisen, who leads the LLC that purchased Fyre Lake last fall, describes the property as “a beautiful, tremendous asset that has just been a waste” and “a fully matured golf course that hasn’t been played.” While acknowledging that local golfers may not believe him, Raufeisen told the Quad City Business Journal that the course will open “as soon as the weather breaks.”
A golf course in England is also coming back from the dead. Ingol Golf Club in Preston, which has been closed since 2010, has been leased by two local pros who aim to reopen it in April. The Lancashire Evening Post reports that the course, which was designed by Henry Cotton and opened in 1981, “is being completely re-designed and upgraded.” The club’s owner, Northern Trust Group, had planned to build houses on the property.
Two years ago, Frank Pont told me that his forthcoming Golfbaan De Swinkelsche in Eindhoven would be “one of the Netherlands’ best new courses built in the last 30 years.” Now the world’s critics can put his promise to the test, because the club’s 18-hole track has made its official debut. (Its nine-hole, par-3 course opened last summer, and the 18-hole layout got some play late last year.) De Swinkelsche took its inspiration from a nearby Harry Colt-designed track at Eindhovensche Golf Course. It was built on sandy soil, but Pont had to provide architectural character to much of the property, as it had been flattened for farming. “The key will be to create a credible wild and natural landscape from scratch,” he told Golf Course Architecture in 2011, when construction began. While he waits for the reviews of De Swinkelsche to be published, Pont will turn his attention to his next project, a renovation of Broadstone Golf Club in Dorset, England. The club features a Colt-redesigned course that Pont believes should be ranked among the U.K.’s top 50, and his challenge, he notes on his website, is “to help it achieve its full potential.”
The preceding post originally appeared in the February 2013 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
Golfers in Liverpool, England fear that forthcoming budget cuts will spell the end of the city’s most affordable golf venues. The city, under pressure to save £32 million (more $50 million), is thinking about closing its 27-hole Allerton and 18-hole North Liverpool courses. By doing so, the city could pocket about £300,000 ($474,000) a year, according to the Liverpool Echo. This is a ridiculously small amount, don’t you think? Maybe that’s why a political opponent suggests that “the desire of the council in closing the golf courses is not to save money but to be able to sell a valuable asset.”
In the midst of contentious contract negotiations, a private club in British Columbia, Canada has locked its unionized employees. The action affects 19 maintenance workers at Quilchena Golf & Country Club in Richmond. The club, which is said to be “facing financial pressures,” reportedly wants its employees to accept a four-year wage freeze and to make other concessions as well. The club hasn’t yet been willing to comment publicly on the matter, but a union representative told the Vancouver Sun that Quilchena is “trying to break the union and break the spirit of the workers.”
Last week, three of the nation’s best-known golf management firms added to their portfolios. KemperSports Mangement, which absurdly insists that it’s “the most trusted name in golf,” finalized a 10-year agreement to manage Harborside International Golf Center in Chicago, Illinois. Chicago Business reports that Harborside, which features a pair of 18-hole, Dick Nugent-designed courses, has lost “upward of $800,000 annually in recent years.” Sequoia Golf Management, the group that operates the Canongate Golf chain in Georgia, has been tapped to manage Fort Collins Country Club in Fort Collins, Colorado. The club features an 18-hole course was designed by Henry Hughes and opened in 1960. And finally, Canton Township, Michigan has hired Billy Casper Golf to manage Fellows Creek Golf Course. The contract has been debated for months, as the course had been operated by a local family for 34 years, and many of its long-time customers fear change. Casper received a five-year deal.
A round of applause, please, for John Deere, which has promised to donate $1 million to the First Tee over the next five years. I wish other companies that have profited so handsomely from golf would be so generous. Do you know that the First Tee, in only 15 years, has introduced more than 7.6 million kids to golf?
If he could only play one course for the rest of his life, Matt Ginella of the Golf Channel says it would be the Black Course at Bethpage State Park in New York. But one course does not a list make, so he named 39 more of his favorites. The top 10 includes the Pacific Dunes track at Bandon Dunes in Oregon (“the best links golf experience in America”), Forest Dunes Golf Club in Michigan (“You will not be disappointed”), Pasatiempo Golf Club in California (“I’d be more than happy hanging out at the place MacKenzie called home when he died”), and the Straits course at Whistling Straits in Wisconsin (“When the wind isn’t whipping off Lake Michigan,” it “can actually be considered . . . fun!”).
Friday, February 8, 2013
Transactions, february 8, 2013
A group of Chinese investors has purchased DarkHorse Golf Club in Auburn, California. The transaction, which was completed earlier this month, includes the club’s Keith Foster-designed golf course and 75 unsold residential lots. The new owner is Asia Pacific Group, an entity based in Irvine, California. The identities of the investors haven’t been revealed, but an official at DarkHorse told me that APG has also recently purchased Sunridge Golf Course in Carson City, Nevada. DarkHorse was launched in 2002 by Ed and Chad Fralick, who went broke and lost it in 2007. The club’s 7,096-yard course is “challenging but playable,” according to the Grass Valley Union, and “affordable for most recreationists.” Next on AGP’s agenda: A clubhouse and possibly a golf academy for DarkHorse, which is being managed by Empire Golf.
A group led by Sey D. Jung has acquired Vellano Country Club, which is part of a 600-acre community in Chino Hills, California. Vellano features a 47,000-square-foot clubhouse and an 18-hole, Greg Norman-designed course that opened in 2006. The track is now owned by Vellano 2020, Inc., according to the Chino Hills Champion. It had been owned by Oaktree Capital Management. The newspaper doesn’t provide any information about Jung, but a person identified as Sey Jung is said to be the president of Glen Ivy Golf Management. Southland Golf has described Vellano’s golf course as “eclectic” and “one of the most majestic tracks in Southern California.”
Club at Viniterra in New Kent, Virginia has been sold to an LLC led by one of the best-known developers in the Carolinas. Barton Tuck, the principal of Greenville, South Carolina-based Wingfield Properties, bought Viniterra from Kitty Hawk Land Company. The property features an 18-hole, 7,725-yard, Rees Jones-designed golf course that opened in 2009. At one time or another, Tuck has owned at least 10 golf properties, among them Forest Creek Golf Club in Pinehurst, North Carolina and Bright’s Creek Golf Club in Mill Spring, North Carolina. According to a press release, his company currently manages other golf properties in North Carolina, Virginia, and Mississippi. Kitty Hawk, a subsidiary of Boddie-Noell Enterprises, still owns one other golf property with a Jones-designed course, Currituck Club on North Carolina’s Outer Banks.
Late last year, in what’s been described as “a discreet transaction,” Peter Nanula’s company purchased an ailing 90-year-old golf club in suburban Washington, DC. Nanula’s Concert Golf Partners bought Country Club at Woodmore in Mitchellville, Maryland, which was founded in 1923 as Beaver Dam Golf & Country Club. Beaver Dam had a Donald Ross-designed golf course. The club relocated and reopened in 1981, with a 7,059-yard golf course that was designed by Arnold Palmer. Concert Golf also owns two golf properties in Florida, Heathrow Country Club in suburban Orlando and Golf Club of Amelia Island in suburban Jacksonville.
After more than 32 years as the owner of Lake Wales Country Club, Ben Hill Griffin III has sold his property to an LLC led by Richard “Dick” Klaas. The club’s 6,504-yard golf course was designed by Donald Ross and opened in the mid 1920s. A spokesman for GolfVisions Management, which has been hired to operate the club, told the Lakeland Ledger that he “looks forward to finding ways to improve and enhance the golf course and clubhouse.” Griffin didn’t disclose the selling price, but the newspaper says that he paid $80,000 for the property in 1980.
If my math is correct, the 18-year-old golf community in Blythewood, South Carolina that’s now known as Cobblestone Park has found its sixth owner. D. R. Horton, a big home builder, has purchased the community’s 27-hole, P. B. Dye-designed golf complex and 300 unsold residential lots. To sell the real estate, the State says Horton “will offer lower starting home prices than previous developers” and “turn the golf course’s half-built clubhouse into a premier event venue.” According to the State’s accounting, Cobblestone Park and its P. B. Dye-designed golf course opened in 1995, as University Club. Two years later it was sold to Fripp Company, and in 2004 Fripp sold it to a group led by Bobby Ginn. After a financial flame-out, Ginn’s group sold the community to an affiliate of Linger Longer Development, the company that built Reynolds Plantation in Greensboro, Georgia. Horton bought the community from an entity named LRA-UC Cobblestone LLC. Despite best efforts by all the previous owners, the newspaper says that Cobblestone Park “hasn’t seen much activity since an initial build-out of less than 100 homes.”
Hales Mills Country Club, which was built upon a dairy farm in Johnstown, New York, is in the process of being sold. Appropriately enough, I suppose, the parties involved in the transaction are dairy farmers. Ray and Roy Dykeman have agreed to buy the club from Larry Hollenbeck, who built the 5,995-yard track in the mid 1990s. The Gloversville Leader-Herald reports that the Dykeman brothers “see a parallel between the dairy and golf industries, with both hurt by changing consumer needs and the economy’s general instability.” The prospective owners plan to make improvements to the course, and Ray Dykeman has promised that “when we get done with it, it’ll be one of the nicest courses in the area.”
Winchester Country Club has ascended to its second life. The former private club and its accompanying 1,170-acre community in Meadow Vista, California have been sold out of receivership to Real Capital Solutions of Louisville, Colorado, which has vowed to “restore the vision of Winchester as one of the greatest golf communities in Northern California.” The club features a 13-year-old golf course that was co-designed by Robert Trent Jones and Robert Trent Jones, Jr. Real Capital plans to spiff up the property’s clubhouse, in order to improve its chances of selling the community’s 136 unsold lots. The Auburn Journal says that Real Capital is “very bullish” on California’s real estate market and believes that Winchester, which was initiated by C. C. Myers, is “positioned for a comeback.” The new owners may also take the club private again.
Bob Richards, a pole-vaulter who won gold medals at the Olympic Games of 1952 and 1956, has purchased Lake Waco Golf Club in Waco, Texas. Richards paid $1.4 million for the club, which features an 18-hole, 6,640-yard, anonymously designed golf course. The Waco Tribune reports that the property “fell into disrepair for several years before being foreclosed upon more than a year ago.” Richards, who’s 86, has turned over the club’s operation to two of his sons. One of them told the newspaper that the family believes the course “has tremendous potential” and “will invest whatever is necessary to make it competitive with the other courses in town.” Incidentally, Bob Richards was the first athlete to appear on the front of a Wheaties box.
A group led by Sey D. Jung has acquired Vellano Country Club, which is part of a 600-acre community in Chino Hills, California. Vellano features a 47,000-square-foot clubhouse and an 18-hole, Greg Norman-designed course that opened in 2006. The track is now owned by Vellano 2020, Inc., according to the Chino Hills Champion. It had been owned by Oaktree Capital Management. The newspaper doesn’t provide any information about Jung, but a person identified as Sey Jung is said to be the president of Glen Ivy Golf Management. Southland Golf has described Vellano’s golf course as “eclectic” and “one of the most majestic tracks in Southern California.”
Club at Viniterra in New Kent, Virginia has been sold to an LLC led by one of the best-known developers in the Carolinas. Barton Tuck, the principal of Greenville, South Carolina-based Wingfield Properties, bought Viniterra from Kitty Hawk Land Company. The property features an 18-hole, 7,725-yard, Rees Jones-designed golf course that opened in 2009. At one time or another, Tuck has owned at least 10 golf properties, among them Forest Creek Golf Club in Pinehurst, North Carolina and Bright’s Creek Golf Club in Mill Spring, North Carolina. According to a press release, his company currently manages other golf properties in North Carolina, Virginia, and Mississippi. Kitty Hawk, a subsidiary of Boddie-Noell Enterprises, still owns one other golf property with a Jones-designed course, Currituck Club on North Carolina’s Outer Banks.
Late last year, in what’s been described as “a discreet transaction,” Peter Nanula’s company purchased an ailing 90-year-old golf club in suburban Washington, DC. Nanula’s Concert Golf Partners bought Country Club at Woodmore in Mitchellville, Maryland, which was founded in 1923 as Beaver Dam Golf & Country Club. Beaver Dam had a Donald Ross-designed golf course. The club relocated and reopened in 1981, with a 7,059-yard golf course that was designed by Arnold Palmer. Concert Golf also owns two golf properties in Florida, Heathrow Country Club in suburban Orlando and Golf Club of Amelia Island in suburban Jacksonville.
After more than 32 years as the owner of Lake Wales Country Club, Ben Hill Griffin III has sold his property to an LLC led by Richard “Dick” Klaas. The club’s 6,504-yard golf course was designed by Donald Ross and opened in the mid 1920s. A spokesman for GolfVisions Management, which has been hired to operate the club, told the Lakeland Ledger that he “looks forward to finding ways to improve and enhance the golf course and clubhouse.” Griffin didn’t disclose the selling price, but the newspaper says that he paid $80,000 for the property in 1980.
If my math is correct, the 18-year-old golf community in Blythewood, South Carolina that’s now known as Cobblestone Park has found its sixth owner. D. R. Horton, a big home builder, has purchased the community’s 27-hole, P. B. Dye-designed golf complex and 300 unsold residential lots. To sell the real estate, the State says Horton “will offer lower starting home prices than previous developers” and “turn the golf course’s half-built clubhouse into a premier event venue.” According to the State’s accounting, Cobblestone Park and its P. B. Dye-designed golf course opened in 1995, as University Club. Two years later it was sold to Fripp Company, and in 2004 Fripp sold it to a group led by Bobby Ginn. After a financial flame-out, Ginn’s group sold the community to an affiliate of Linger Longer Development, the company that built Reynolds Plantation in Greensboro, Georgia. Horton bought the community from an entity named LRA-UC Cobblestone LLC. Despite best efforts by all the previous owners, the newspaper says that Cobblestone Park “hasn’t seen much activity since an initial build-out of less than 100 homes.”
Hales Mills Country Club, which was built upon a dairy farm in Johnstown, New York, is in the process of being sold. Appropriately enough, I suppose, the parties involved in the transaction are dairy farmers. Ray and Roy Dykeman have agreed to buy the club from Larry Hollenbeck, who built the 5,995-yard track in the mid 1990s. The Gloversville Leader-Herald reports that the Dykeman brothers “see a parallel between the dairy and golf industries, with both hurt by changing consumer needs and the economy’s general instability.” The prospective owners plan to make improvements to the course, and Ray Dykeman has promised that “when we get done with it, it’ll be one of the nicest courses in the area.”
Winchester Country Club has ascended to its second life. The former private club and its accompanying 1,170-acre community in Meadow Vista, California have been sold out of receivership to Real Capital Solutions of Louisville, Colorado, which has vowed to “restore the vision of Winchester as one of the greatest golf communities in Northern California.” The club features a 13-year-old golf course that was co-designed by Robert Trent Jones and Robert Trent Jones, Jr. Real Capital plans to spiff up the property’s clubhouse, in order to improve its chances of selling the community’s 136 unsold lots. The Auburn Journal says that Real Capital is “very bullish” on California’s real estate market and believes that Winchester, which was initiated by C. C. Myers, is “positioned for a comeback.” The new owners may also take the club private again.
Bob Richards, a pole-vaulter who won gold medals at the Olympic Games of 1952 and 1956, has purchased Lake Waco Golf Club in Waco, Texas. Richards paid $1.4 million for the club, which features an 18-hole, 6,640-yard, anonymously designed golf course. The Waco Tribune reports that the property “fell into disrepair for several years before being foreclosed upon more than a year ago.” Richards, who’s 86, has turned over the club’s operation to two of his sons. One of them told the newspaper that the family believes the course “has tremendous potential” and “will invest whatever is necessary to make it competitive with the other courses in town.” Incidentally, Bob Richards was the first athlete to appear on the front of a Wheaties box.
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
india Welcome to Our Mega-World
An 18-hole golf course will be among the attractions at a long-awaited amusement park in the state of Rajasthan’s capital city.
Jaipur Mega-Tourism City will spread over 300 acres in Jaipur, a city of 3.1 million that’s sometimes called “the Paris of India.” Jaipur serves as the arrival and departure point for most of the 18 million tourists who visit Rajasthan every year, and Noida-based International Amusement Limited expects a large number of those travelers to pay at least a two-day visit to the mega-tourism city.
The amusement park in Jaipur will be the largest of the five “appu ghar” currently operating in India. It’ll include a water park, a family entertainment center, a shopping area, pubs and restaurants, and other distractions. It’ll be flanked by 773 villas and six hotels with 1,700 total rooms, and its golf course will be designed by Phil Ryan of Victoria, Australia-based Pacific Coast Design.
IAL has been building amusement parks in India since 1984, and it’s been hoping to build the mega-tourism city in Jaipur since 2006, when it secured a lease on the site from the Jaipur Development Authority. Recently resolved legal issues had clouded the venture’s future, but IAL now believes it can begin construction this year.
The golf course in Jaipur will be built by New Delhi-based New Millennium Company. Ryan and New Millennium have worked together before, on an 18-hole track at Oxford Golf & Country Club in Pune, and they’re currently collaborating on a 27-hole complex for the Delhi Development Authority in Dwarka.
On his own, Ryan has designed at least three other golf courses in India: Eagleton Golf Village in suburban Bangalore, Poona Golf Club in Pune, and JW Golf Club in Mysore. Today he’s also designing a new golf course for Chirnside Park Country Club in suburban Melbourne, Australia.
IAL’s directors, Robin and Monny Vijeshwar, hope to open the mega-tourism city’s golf course in 2014.
The original version of the preceding post first appeared in the November 2012 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
Jaipur Mega-Tourism City will spread over 300 acres in Jaipur, a city of 3.1 million that’s sometimes called “the Paris of India.” Jaipur serves as the arrival and departure point for most of the 18 million tourists who visit Rajasthan every year, and Noida-based International Amusement Limited expects a large number of those travelers to pay at least a two-day visit to the mega-tourism city.
The amusement park in Jaipur will be the largest of the five “appu ghar” currently operating in India. It’ll include a water park, a family entertainment center, a shopping area, pubs and restaurants, and other distractions. It’ll be flanked by 773 villas and six hotels with 1,700 total rooms, and its golf course will be designed by Phil Ryan of Victoria, Australia-based Pacific Coast Design.
IAL has been building amusement parks in India since 1984, and it’s been hoping to build the mega-tourism city in Jaipur since 2006, when it secured a lease on the site from the Jaipur Development Authority. Recently resolved legal issues had clouded the venture’s future, but IAL now believes it can begin construction this year.
The golf course in Jaipur will be built by New Delhi-based New Millennium Company. Ryan and New Millennium have worked together before, on an 18-hole track at Oxford Golf & Country Club in Pune, and they’re currently collaborating on a 27-hole complex for the Delhi Development Authority in Dwarka.
On his own, Ryan has designed at least three other golf courses in India: Eagleton Golf Village in suburban Bangalore, Poona Golf Club in Pune, and JW Golf Club in Mysore. Today he’s also designing a new golf course for Chirnside Park Country Club in suburban Melbourne, Australia.
IAL’s directors, Robin and Monny Vijeshwar, hope to open the mega-tourism city’s golf course in 2014.
The original version of the preceding post first appeared in the November 2012 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
Sunday, February 3, 2013
The Week That Was, february 3, 2013
Mum’s the word: Donald Trump plans to name course #2 at his golf resort in Aberdeenshire after his late mother, Mary Anne MacLeod. “She was a proud Scot,” Trump said in a telephone interview with Scottish reporters. Trump intends to submit his development plans to local officials “within the next few weeks,” according to the Scotsman. Like the first course at Trump International Golf Links Scotland, the MacLeod track will be designed by Martin Hawtree, the third-generation British architect who’s currently overseeing design changes at the Old Course at St. Andrews. The Scotsman says that Trump aims to make his new course “as good as the championship course,” although he concedes that it’s going to be “very, very hard to compete with what we did.”
Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw have already sketched out a routing for the golf course they were recently hired to design atop a landfill in Dallas, Texas. “It isn’t the most dramatic site in the golfing world,” Coore conceded to the Dallas Morning News. “But I was surprised, quite frankly, at the natural rolling terrain. We believe the site could have an extremely good golf course, one that looks very interesting and one that we felt very excited about.” The final product, the newspaper says, “will have a links feel,” like Coore & Crenshaw’s work in coastal Oregon and the Sand Hills of Nebraska, with “wispy native grasses and scraggly bunkers.” And here’s a surprise: According to the News, Coore “likes the natural contours [of the landfill] so much that if remediation changes the structure, he will revert to the original form.” For my money, Coore is taking the naturalist aesthetic to an entirely new level.
Here’s a scary thought: A pair of neurologists believe there may be a link between living in a golf community and Parkinson’s disease. A story in the Huffington Post suggests that pesticides, weed killers, and other toxic substances used to keep courses looking their emerald best also destroy neurons in our brains that enable us to communicate. The story concedes that the science on this subject isn’t strong, but it may very well lead some people to think twice before they move into a house along a fairway. “If you are thinking of retiring near the links,” the story advises, “you might want to pick a plot upwind.”
How clueless are professional golfers? Less than two weeks after three of them -- Thomas Bjorn, Henrik Stenson, and Richard Green -- insisted that there was no illegal doping in their sport, Vijay Singh confessed to using a banned substance. Singh told Sports Illustrated that he uses Deer Antler Spray “every couple of hours, every day.” It’s the same stuff that Mark Calcavecchia lent his name to several years ago. Bob Charles, a former British Open champion, said last week that he’s been using a similar product for 20 years. This is vindication for Gary Player, who took some heat when he claimed that illegalities were taking place on the professional tours. The question now is, What is the sport going to do about it?
As part of a grow-the-game initiative, a golf practice center in West Lancashire, England hopes to build an 18-hole golf course. The 5,700-yard, easy-to-play track will take shape on property adjacent to the Southport Golf Academy, according to the Ormskirk Advertiser. “We play an important role in developing young players,” the academy’s director told the newspaper, “but after a while they are keen to play on a full-size course.” If the proposal is approved, construction could begin later this year.
In a recent post, I noted that budget-cutters in West Yorkshire, England were hoping to close the golf courses owned by the city of Leeds. Last week, the Middleton Park and Gotts Park courses got a temporary reprieve. The local numbers-crunchers still believe that the courses are “unsustainable,” but they’ve agreed to give them another year to get their financial houses in order. “We are in no doubt that we have a tough year ahead to try and keep our course open,” an official at Middleton Park told the Yorkshire Evening Post, “and we look forward to working in partnership with the city council to look at new ways of working that hopefully will secure the future of our golf course.”
Medalist Golf Club in Hobe Sound, Florida likes to brag about the number of PGA pros -- Tiger Woods and Rickie Fowler among them -- it counts among its members. The Palm Beach Post reports that the club waives its $50,000 initiation fee for those pros, presumably to buff its image and maintain its waiting list. I suppose that such accommodations are part of the reason why so many pros have relocated to Florida in recent years. Membership does indeed have its privileges. I wonder if Medalist also waived Michael Jordan’s initiation fee.
Late last year, I reported that Yule Golf Course in Alexandria, Indiana had been sold at auction and that its new owner, a farmer, planned to plant crops on it. Last week, however, the Anderson Herald Bulletin revealed that the new owner, Dale Rinker, hasn’t secured permission to farm the 158-acre property and that time has run out for him to do so. As a result, the newspaper says, the future of the former golf course is “murky.” Nobody has suggested that the course may reopen, but residents of the adjoining community sure hope it does. “It’s an ongoing saga,” says the city’s mayor.
Before too long, Barnbougle Dunes may not exclusively be a golf destination. Richard Sattler, a farmer who’s learned to love golf, wants to add a world-class public polo field to his seaside property in Bridport, Tasmania. “We think it goes hand-in-glove with what already exists at Barnbougle,” Sattler’s partner, a competitive polo player, told the Launceston Examiner. If the partners stick to their construction schedule, the first matches will be played this fall, right about the time when the golf season kicks off Down Under.
A writer for Golf Digest is trying to encourage President Obama to play more golf. “As a lover of the game,” Jamie Diaz explains, “the big reason I would like to see the president play more is not because of what it can do for him but what it can do for golf. A president who avidly plays is validation for the game as a worthwhile pastime.” I couldn’t agree more. Play on, Mr. President, and in front of as many cameras as you can find.
Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw have already sketched out a routing for the golf course they were recently hired to design atop a landfill in Dallas, Texas. “It isn’t the most dramatic site in the golfing world,” Coore conceded to the Dallas Morning News. “But I was surprised, quite frankly, at the natural rolling terrain. We believe the site could have an extremely good golf course, one that looks very interesting and one that we felt very excited about.” The final product, the newspaper says, “will have a links feel,” like Coore & Crenshaw’s work in coastal Oregon and the Sand Hills of Nebraska, with “wispy native grasses and scraggly bunkers.” And here’s a surprise: According to the News, Coore “likes the natural contours [of the landfill] so much that if remediation changes the structure, he will revert to the original form.” For my money, Coore is taking the naturalist aesthetic to an entirely new level.
Here’s a scary thought: A pair of neurologists believe there may be a link between living in a golf community and Parkinson’s disease. A story in the Huffington Post suggests that pesticides, weed killers, and other toxic substances used to keep courses looking their emerald best also destroy neurons in our brains that enable us to communicate. The story concedes that the science on this subject isn’t strong, but it may very well lead some people to think twice before they move into a house along a fairway. “If you are thinking of retiring near the links,” the story advises, “you might want to pick a plot upwind.”
How clueless are professional golfers? Less than two weeks after three of them -- Thomas Bjorn, Henrik Stenson, and Richard Green -- insisted that there was no illegal doping in their sport, Vijay Singh confessed to using a banned substance. Singh told Sports Illustrated that he uses Deer Antler Spray “every couple of hours, every day.” It’s the same stuff that Mark Calcavecchia lent his name to several years ago. Bob Charles, a former British Open champion, said last week that he’s been using a similar product for 20 years. This is vindication for Gary Player, who took some heat when he claimed that illegalities were taking place on the professional tours. The question now is, What is the sport going to do about it?
As part of a grow-the-game initiative, a golf practice center in West Lancashire, England hopes to build an 18-hole golf course. The 5,700-yard, easy-to-play track will take shape on property adjacent to the Southport Golf Academy, according to the Ormskirk Advertiser. “We play an important role in developing young players,” the academy’s director told the newspaper, “but after a while they are keen to play on a full-size course.” If the proposal is approved, construction could begin later this year.
In a recent post, I noted that budget-cutters in West Yorkshire, England were hoping to close the golf courses owned by the city of Leeds. Last week, the Middleton Park and Gotts Park courses got a temporary reprieve. The local numbers-crunchers still believe that the courses are “unsustainable,” but they’ve agreed to give them another year to get their financial houses in order. “We are in no doubt that we have a tough year ahead to try and keep our course open,” an official at Middleton Park told the Yorkshire Evening Post, “and we look forward to working in partnership with the city council to look at new ways of working that hopefully will secure the future of our golf course.”
Medalist Golf Club in Hobe Sound, Florida likes to brag about the number of PGA pros -- Tiger Woods and Rickie Fowler among them -- it counts among its members. The Palm Beach Post reports that the club waives its $50,000 initiation fee for those pros, presumably to buff its image and maintain its waiting list. I suppose that such accommodations are part of the reason why so many pros have relocated to Florida in recent years. Membership does indeed have its privileges. I wonder if Medalist also waived Michael Jordan’s initiation fee.
Late last year, I reported that Yule Golf Course in Alexandria, Indiana had been sold at auction and that its new owner, a farmer, planned to plant crops on it. Last week, however, the Anderson Herald Bulletin revealed that the new owner, Dale Rinker, hasn’t secured permission to farm the 158-acre property and that time has run out for him to do so. As a result, the newspaper says, the future of the former golf course is “murky.” Nobody has suggested that the course may reopen, but residents of the adjoining community sure hope it does. “It’s an ongoing saga,” says the city’s mayor.
Before too long, Barnbougle Dunes may not exclusively be a golf destination. Richard Sattler, a farmer who’s learned to love golf, wants to add a world-class public polo field to his seaside property in Bridport, Tasmania. “We think it goes hand-in-glove with what already exists at Barnbougle,” Sattler’s partner, a competitive polo player, told the Launceston Examiner. If the partners stick to their construction schedule, the first matches will be played this fall, right about the time when the golf season kicks off Down Under.
A writer for Golf Digest is trying to encourage President Obama to play more golf. “As a lover of the game,” Jamie Diaz explains, “the big reason I would like to see the president play more is not because of what it can do for him but what it can do for golf. A president who avidly plays is validation for the game as a worthwhile pastime.” I couldn’t agree more. Play on, Mr. President, and in front of as many cameras as you can find.
Friday, February 1, 2013
Memento Mori, february 1, 2013
Sayonara, Ballinger Lake Golf Course. The nine-hole course opened in 1959 and has been owned by the city of Mountlake Terrace, Washington since 1970. Because it was the most affordable course in the area -- $18 for 18 holes -- it was played mostly by beginners, kids, and seniors. Unfortunately, such players rarely bring big profits, and late last year the course’s private-sector operators backed out of their lease, citing financial difficulties they blamed on rainy weather, economic hard times, and a decline in golf’s popularity. “We were honest, hard-working business owners who were in the wrong place at the wrong time,” they told their local newspaper. The city plans to convert the course’s property into what’s been described as “a waterfront paradise” with hiking trails and picnic tables. “It’s going to be a great destination for the community,” vows a city official.
First, the good news: A wealthy benefactor has donated Battle Ground Golf Club, a track redesigned by Tim Liddy a decade or so ago, to a non-profit group affiliated with the city of Lafayette, Indiana. The bad news? With Battle Ground available to local golfers, the city has decided to close its 18-hole, 40-year-old municipal course. City officials have expressed few regrets about the decision, as the muni loses money and has long been plagued by flooding from the Wabash River. “Maintaining the course,” the Indianapolis Star wrote recently, “has been an uphill battle.” The muni is scheduled to close officially in March (it’s no longer being maintained), but its driving range will remain open a few months longer.
Not long ago, the operators of a pitch-’n’-putt golf course in Australia’s capital city told local golfers that they had to “use it or lose it.” The warning wasn’t heeded, so Southern Cross Golf Course has closed. The course, in suburban Canberra, opened sometime around the turn of the 21st century. According to its owner, the Canberra Southern Cross Club, it lost $350,000 during the last two years of its existence. The club hasn’t announced what it plans to do with the course’s property, but its chief executive has said that “there will be a considerable size of green space left under any options that we will be looking at.” In the past, the property was eyed for a hotel and a gymnasium.
A half-century ago, the property in Hastings, Michigan currently occupied by River Bend Golf Course was farm land. And later this year, the 27-hole complex will be farm land again. River Bend’s new owner, Larry Haywood, plans to grow hay and corn on the 180-acre parcel. “We feel that we must take advantage of the opportunity presented,” the sellers say in a notice posted on the complex’s website. As best I can determine, Haywood’s uncle designed and built River Bend’s original nine in 1964.
On New Year’s Eve, golfers in Bremen, Georgia bid adieu to Lion Golf Club. The 7,086-yard course, designed by Arthur L. Davis, was just 11 years old. In the wake of the closing, Bremen’s city manager called the Lion a “very valuable asset to the city of Bremen,” perhaps because it used to host an annual tournament whose proceeds helped to fund the construction of the city’s soccer complex. The course had been operated by Jodi Newbern, who evidently couldn’t extend her lease on the golf course property. Newbern is the daughter of the Lion’s late owners.
Also on New Year’s Eve, golfers in Gadsden, Alabama played the final rounds at River Trace Golf Course. “It couldn’t have been any worse than a funeral,” the president of the club that operated the course told the Gadsden Times. The course, designed by Red Lawrence, was originally the centerpiece of Goodyear Golf Club, which got its start in 1938. The club filed for bankruptcy protection in 2009, and part of its property was subsequently purchased by a local development group that intends to build a collection of stores and restaurants. The construction begins this spring.
First, the good news: A wealthy benefactor has donated Battle Ground Golf Club, a track redesigned by Tim Liddy a decade or so ago, to a non-profit group affiliated with the city of Lafayette, Indiana. The bad news? With Battle Ground available to local golfers, the city has decided to close its 18-hole, 40-year-old municipal course. City officials have expressed few regrets about the decision, as the muni loses money and has long been plagued by flooding from the Wabash River. “Maintaining the course,” the Indianapolis Star wrote recently, “has been an uphill battle.” The muni is scheduled to close officially in March (it’s no longer being maintained), but its driving range will remain open a few months longer.
Not long ago, the operators of a pitch-’n’-putt golf course in Australia’s capital city told local golfers that they had to “use it or lose it.” The warning wasn’t heeded, so Southern Cross Golf Course has closed. The course, in suburban Canberra, opened sometime around the turn of the 21st century. According to its owner, the Canberra Southern Cross Club, it lost $350,000 during the last two years of its existence. The club hasn’t announced what it plans to do with the course’s property, but its chief executive has said that “there will be a considerable size of green space left under any options that we will be looking at.” In the past, the property was eyed for a hotel and a gymnasium.
A half-century ago, the property in Hastings, Michigan currently occupied by River Bend Golf Course was farm land. And later this year, the 27-hole complex will be farm land again. River Bend’s new owner, Larry Haywood, plans to grow hay and corn on the 180-acre parcel. “We feel that we must take advantage of the opportunity presented,” the sellers say in a notice posted on the complex’s website. As best I can determine, Haywood’s uncle designed and built River Bend’s original nine in 1964.
On New Year’s Eve, golfers in Bremen, Georgia bid adieu to Lion Golf Club. The 7,086-yard course, designed by Arthur L. Davis, was just 11 years old. In the wake of the closing, Bremen’s city manager called the Lion a “very valuable asset to the city of Bremen,” perhaps because it used to host an annual tournament whose proceeds helped to fund the construction of the city’s soccer complex. The course had been operated by Jodi Newbern, who evidently couldn’t extend her lease on the golf course property. Newbern is the daughter of the Lion’s late owners.
Also on New Year’s Eve, golfers in Gadsden, Alabama played the final rounds at River Trace Golf Course. “It couldn’t have been any worse than a funeral,” the president of the club that operated the course told the Gadsden Times. The course, designed by Red Lawrence, was originally the centerpiece of Goodyear Golf Club, which got its start in 1938. The club filed for bankruptcy protection in 2009, and part of its property was subsequently purchased by a local development group that intends to build a collection of stores and restaurants. The construction begins this spring.
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