The Week That Was, march 17, 2013

     For the moment, at least, Greg Coffey has pulled the plug on his seaside links in Scotland’s Inner Hebrides. Coffey, the owner of the massive Ardfin Estate on Jura Island, hasn’t explained why, and a report by the Herald doesn’t shed much light on the subject, either. The Bob Harrison-designed track was slated to take shape on sandy, windswept property that some people believe is made to order for world-class golf. An islander told the newspaper that many of his neighbors were “fairly neutral” regarding the course, although “a few” felt that it would compromise the property’s “wilderness element.” A spokesman for Scottish Natural Heritage said that his group “didn’t see any problem” with Coffey’s proposal and has “offered to meet the estate again to discuss the proposals and any issues they may have.” Coffey’s decision must be a major disappointment to Harrison, a Sydney, Australia-based architect who’d been enlisted to design a course that might have given him an international reputation. He once called Jura “my favorite place on earth” and said the Ardfin site was “the most beautiful I have ever seen.”
     Some information in the preceding post first appeared in the August and September 2012 issues of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.

     Regarding the construction of the golf course for the 2016 Olympics: Not to worry. That’s the message delivered last week by the president of Rio de Janeiro’s organizing committee. Carlos Nuzman told Inside the Games that the primary impediment to the groundbreaking -- the legal quarrel over ownership of the land upon which the course will be built -- has been settled. “We have signed the contract with the owner of the land, so we are in control of the project,” he said. He added: “It is definitely all sorted, and we will certainly have the golf course ready on time.” So why don’t I feel completely at ease?

      Speaking of the 2016 Olympics, last week Brad Klein of GolfWeek published a biographical profile of the architect who’s designed and -- fingers crossed -- may soon start building the Games’ golf course. It’s a portrait of Gil Hanse as a hands-on

architect who’s “never overcome the thrill of pushing dirt around” and continues to work on site, often from the driver’s seat of a bulldozer. Drawings, Hanse believes, are “helpful in communicating ideas to clients and memberships but can’t replace what takes place in the field.” As Klein sees it, Hanse produces walkable, natural-looking, fun-to-play, easy-to-maintain courses that exemplify today’s design zeitgeist. “In an era that has catered to good players who want to see everything in front of them,” Klein writes, “Hanse has shown the value of a different, almost dissident style focused on variety, intrigue, and uncertainty.” And while he awaits a green light to begin construction for the Olympics’ course, Klein reports, Hanse is working on upgrades to one of Rio’s existing courses, a 92-year-old track at Gavea Golf & Country Club.

     Golfers in Florida who think they can resign from their clubs and recover the promised refund on their equity memberships may have another think coming. These so-called refundable memberships, the Naples Daily News says, were merely “a lure marketed by developers” who were intent on creating “luxury-related golf communities designed by top golf architects.” After the economy crumbled, many private clubs in the state had to slash or eliminate initiation fees to attract new members, meaning that they may no longer have the cash on hand to make payments to members who quit. “The problem, in some cases, is that the membership scheme was a pyramid based on a false assumption of perpetually rising values,” a local lawyer notes. As a result, the News reports, an increasing number of current and former club members are filing lawsuits, contending that their clubs don’t always make a sincere effort to make refunds. As Steve Graves of Creative Golf Marketing put it, “It’s like the line in the song Hotel California: ‘You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.’”

     Golf clubs in Australia, like those in Great Britain and the United States, aren’t nearly as crowded as they used to be. According to Golf Australia’s 2011 census, the number of club members in the nation has fallen from roughly 490,000 in 2000 to roughly 412,000 in 2011, a decline of about 16 percent. As a result, the Australian Financial Review reports, “waiting lists at all but the most exclusive clubs around the country barely exist,” initiation fees have “largely been abolished or halved,” and properties from coast to coast are advertising aggressively to attract new members. Some have begun to offer enticements, such as sets of woods and irons, to those who sign on the bottom line. “These are clear signs of the steady and accelerating decline in golf,” the Review concludes, “particularly among those in the 25 to 40 age group.” Of course, once properly incentivized new members are signed, clubs face another, even more challenging problem: How to keep them.

     Ted Siedle, a Florida-based writer for Forbes, poses a delicate question: Is it possible to be too honest for country club membership? Siedle says the area of the state where he lives is crawling with “hedge-fund managers gone bad, Ponzi schemers, and disbarred lawyers,” many of whom belong to country clubs filled with wealthy and socially prominent members who may be easy marks for crooks. His fear is that clubs controlled by unsavory members may bar people like him -- he investigates financial wrongdoing -- because they might expose illegal activities. What’s more, he believes, given the open arms with which Florida greets hedge-fund managers, more Bernie Madoff-type trouble is on the way. “More hedge funds moving into the state means more country club marketing and, inevitably (given the lack of regulation of these funds), more scamming,” he contends. So ask the members of your club this question: Do they want to rub shoulders with a guy like Siedle on a regular basis?

     Greg Norman’s links-style golf course in Vung Tau Province, Vietnam is currently being grassed, but the casino-focused community it anchors appears to be stuck in development limbo. Ho Tram Strip, which will feature Vietnam’s first “Las Vegas-style” casino hotel, won’t open as scheduled this spring, in part because its casino operator, MGM Resorts, has exercised a clause in its contract and taken a hike. Calvin Ayre, a gambling-industry blogger, says that Ho Tram has been “fraught with delays and cost overruns” and that its Canadian developer, Asian Coast Development, Ltd., has defaulted on an agreement with the provincial government due to a “failure to meet certain construction deadlines.” The default led a consortium of bankers to withdraw $175 million in financing, emptying ACDL’s pockets. Ho Tram’s first phase, including the casino and a hotel, is said to be complete, but ACDL can’t open for business until it finds a replacement for MGM.
      Some information in the preceding post first appeared in the November 2008 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.

     He felt the earth move, and the next thing he knew, he was being swallowed up by it. I’m referring, of course, to the mortgage banker who recorded his personal version of a hole in one when he got sucked into a sinkhole on the 14th fairway at Annbriar Golf Course in Waterloo, Illinois. “It didn’t look unstable,” Mark Mihal said of the depression he stepped upon. “And then I was gone.” A lot of jokes have been made about the incident, but it illustrates yet another legal hazard that many U.S. courses need to negotiate. Southwestern Illinois alone is said to be riddled with as many as 15,000 similar sinkholes.

     You’ve heard of “goat tracks”? Well, for a brief time recently, the Jim McLean Signature course at the Doral resort was a cow pasture.