How Can I Miss You If You Never Go Away?

     Back in September, I intimated that I might be moving. If you’ve noticed my absence over the past week or so, it’s because I was in transit. Now, with an address in Baltimore and a freshly installed internet connection, I’m ready to write again. Also, my search for a street performance by Dustin Wong begins in earnest.

     Better late than never: The legal squabbles in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil have been resolved, and construction will soon begin on the golf course for the 2016 Olympics. “I can announce happily that last weekend all the permits needed to start constructing the course [were] issued down in Rio, so that work can now proceed [apace],” Peter Dawson of the Royal & Ancient said in a comment published by Channel NewsAsia. Gil Hanse, the course’s designer and builder, has been waiting six months to hear those words. My question: Is it all downhill from here, or will there be other mountains to climb?

     Many U.S. golf courses registered a welcome boost in rounds and revenues last year, but Barney Adams doesn’t believe the good times are here to stay. In fact, the straight-talking founder of Adams Golf fears that golf participation in our nation may fall by as much as 50 percent over the next 20 years. “The product is being rejected,” he declared in a recent conversation with the Desert Sun. “The fact that 30 percent of the people who played the game avidly in 2000 have walked away from it tells me there is a product rejection.” What’s more, Adams doesn’t think the key to growing the game lies in recruiting new players. Instead, he contends, the golf industry should concentrate on turning “occasional” golfers into “avid” golfers -- that is, to persuade our 25.7 million existing customers to play more. “You don’t have to invent them,” he argues. “They are already there.” In other words, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

     “Show me a hero,” F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote, “and I will write you a tragedy.”
     These words came to mind as I meditated on the decline and fall of Donald Trump in Scotland. It’s a sad story, and I fear that it’ll have a cruel, graceless ending.
     Trump crossed the Atlantic with apparent good intentions, promising to build an impeccable golf course that would add to the treasures of his mother’s birthplace. By all accounts, he succeeded. But then, in a flash, glory turned to shame. As the people of Scotland laid plans to harvest the winds that blew across his seaside links, he ordered them to stop, contending that wind power was fool’s gold. When they ignored his mandate, he became aggrieved, then angry, then vengeful.
     You see, for Trump, wealth and fame and power are not enough. He must also be adored. This is his fatal flaw. He’s convinced himself that he’s doing more for Scotland than Scotland is doing for him, and it galls him that the nation isn’t grateful for his service. So today, like Don Quixote, he tilts at windmills. He picks fights he cannot win and creates enemies he cannot slay.
     Had Scotland not been committed to developing alternative sources of energy, this chapter of Trump’s life might have turned out differently. He might have been a hero. Instead, he’s a villain. And the tragedy is, it was his choice.

     The preceding post originally appeared in the April 2013 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.

     The captain of Europe’s 2014 Ryder Cup team has been tapped to oversee a makeover of the top-rated golf course in Ghana. I’m talking about Paul McGinley, the touring pro turned “signature” designer, and Achimota Golf Club in Accra, which was established (with a seven-hole track) by a group of Scots in 1934. The renovation, which has been in the works since 2011 (if not before), will feature “a major redesign and upgrade” of the 18-hole track, according to Peace FM Online, the intent being “to bring the course to world-class standards.” McGinley, who takes his design cues from Harry Colt and Donald Ross, believes that other commissions are sure to come because Ghana’s courses have been “left to rack and ruin over the last few years.”

     Some information in the preceding post originally appeared in the February 2013 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.

     Not surprisingly, security will be especially tight at this year’s U.S. Open championship. In the wake of the deadly bombings at the Boston Marathon, the U.S. Golf Association has checked and double-checked its safety procedures and is taking special precautions to ensure the well-being of the 200,000 spectators expected to attend the week-long event at Merion Golf Club in June. “We’re confident that the plans we have and the manpower we have are more than sufficient to cover the crowds and any issues that could arise up there,” a local chief of police told WHYY News. The USGA is working with local and state police departments plus officials from three federal agencies: Homeland Security, the FBI, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives. Better safe than sorry.

     The United States Golf Association has also addressed a potential public relations problem associated with the U.S. Open. As I reported a couple of weeks ago, carpenters’ and stagehands’ unions in the Philadelphia area had set up a picket line at Merion Golf Club because one of the USGA’s vendors was using foreign labor instead of local workers. To end the protest, the USGA has agreed to hire roughly 40 unionized workers for various construction projects. “We’re proud to have reached a good agreement with the unions and look forward to having [their] local members help ensure Merion is ready to host the very best U.S. Open,” a USGA spokesman told the Philadelphia Inquirer. And to think, it only took a little negative publicity to make it happen.