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.