The Pipeline, april 26, 2013

     Most developers believe that the market for golf-focused retirement communities has fizzled out, but DMB Associates thinks the nation’s senior citizens still have a little life left in them. The company is thinking about building an enclave for “active adults,” complete with a player-friendly golf course, at Verrado, a master-planned community it’s long been developing in suburban Phoenix, Arizona. Rumor has it that a designer for the 18-hole track has been selected, but so far his identity remains a secret. DMB has close relations with several well-known architects, as it’s developed courses by Tom Fazio, Tom Weiskopf, Rees Jones, and Tom Lehman at its many communities in Arizona, California, Utah, and Hawaii. Verrado is already home to Raven Golf Club, which features one of the state’s top-rated layouts, and the master plan for the 8,800-acre spread at one time called for as many as three 18-hole tracks.

     Mike Asmundson may soon be returning to Chile, where he has five golf courses to his credit and hopes to soon break ground on a sixth. The Port Townsend, Washington-based architect has designed a second 18-hole course for one of the swankiest private clubs in Santiago, Club de Golf Francés. The 1,200-member club, which opened in 1957, has already purchased the site for the addition, plus land for roughly 100 single-family houses. “The ball is now in their court,” says Asmundson. “They have to sell [the idea] to their members.” The sale shouldn’t been too difficult, considering that Francés’ existing 18-hole layout floods whenever the Mapocho River rises above its banks.
     The original version of the preceding post first appeared in the February 2013 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.

     One of Arnold Palmer’s most distinctive courses is about to get a makeover. I’m talking about Tralee Golf Club in Country Kerry, Ireland, Palmer’s first commission in Europe and one that checks in at #82 on Golf Digest’s list of the top 100 golf courses outside the United States. “I may have designed the first nine,” Palmer famously said of the 7,187-yard seaside track, “but surely God designed the back nine.” Divine intervention or not, Palmer’s firm has been directed to create a new practice area for the nearly 30-year-old club, an amenity that will require several holes to be redesigned. Brandon Johnson, the Palmer associate who’s overseeing the project, says the firm “may do a substantial redesign.” If major changes occur, they wouldn’t be entirely unexpected. Though the course is widely admired, some critics only give it qualified praise. An undated review by Golflink.com, for example, commends the back nine for its “riveting views of the dunes” but complains that the course’s front nine is “spectacularly undistinguished” and has “an artificial feel.”
     The original version of the preceding post first appeared in the February 2013 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.

     Sometime next year, a wealthy Hungarian -- one of the nation’s richest people, according to the Budapest Business Journal -- aims to open an 18-hole golf course in Zalacsány, to attract travelers to a boutique hotel he recently purchased. Gábor Széles is his name, and he’s said to be an “industrialist,” a description that unfortunately conveys little. Széles is building the golf course on property adjacent to the Batthyány Castle Hotel, an ancient place that features 33 rooms and offers various opportunities for pampering and what its website calls “royal indulgence.” In the future, Széles will reportedly add a spa to the property, because no vacation getaway is complete without one.

     Over the past few years, Pacific Links International has made headlines by buying golf properties. But next year, the company hopes to make a splash with a complex in Tianjin, China that seems conceived purely for marketing purposes. It’s called the 27 Club, and it’ll feature holes designed by “27 golf champions,” a group that includes Tom Watson, Greg Norman, Annika Sorenstam, Fred Couples, and Mark O’Meara. The firm’s website says the facility “is destined to become one of the world’s most sought-after golf experiences in Asia” and “a venue for significant global professional tournaments,” but I view it as nothing more than golf silliness, like the “signature” course at Legends Golf & Safari Resort in Limpopo Province, South Africa. The Legends concept has likely served as the inspiration for the 27 Club, as each of its holes was designed by a “legend” -- Colin Montgomerie, Bernhard Langer, Retief Goosen, K. J. Choi, and Vijay Singh among them. The 27 Club may indeed be “among the most ambitious golf project[s] conducted in Asia,” as PLI claims it is, but it isn’t likely to be among the most memorable.

     It appears that the first Aborigine to earn a spot on the PGA Tour wants to put his “signature” on the planned golf course at Ayers Rock Resort in Yulara, Australia. The Australian reports that Scott Gardiner, who now lives in the United States (in Farmington, Arkansas), “has joined forces with some friends who are bidding to design a golf course near Uluru.” The Gold Coast Bulletin identifies one of the friends as Michael Clayton, the Victoria-based architect who’s probably best known for co-designing (with Tom Doak) the first course at Barnbougle Dunes in Bridport, Tasmania. Ayers Rock’s owner, the government-sponsored Indigenous Land Corporation, wants to build a “desert” course that will extend the stays of vacationers to Yulara, which is located on aboriginal lands in the Northern Territory, hundreds of miles from any sizeable city. “There is not much to do there in the eye of many tourists,” an official with an ILC affiliate told the Brisbane Times. If that’s true, hiring Gardiner and Clayton to co-design the golf course may be a wise choice. Not so long ago, there wasn’t much to do in Bridport, either.
     Some information in the previous post first appeared in the December 2011 and April 2013 issues of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.

     The 5,000 members of Derrick Club in Edmonton, Alberta will be limited to playing nine holes this year, as Jeff Mingay’s renovation of their 6,606-yard course begins in earnest. Mingay, a Windsor, Ontario-based designer with minimalist bona fides, plans to create six new holes and redesign every surviving feature on the remaining holes. “When we’re done,” he said late last year, “the club is going to have a brand new course that will match all its other excellent facilities.” Mingay is a hands-on, boots-on-the-ground designer who apprenticed with Rod Whitman and was involved in the creation of two premier Canadian courses, Sagebrush Golf & Sporting Club in British Columbia and Cabot Links in Nova Scotia. He expects to wrap up Derrick’s makeover in the fall of 2014.
     Some information in the preceding post first appeared in the January 2013 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.

     Club at SpurWing, in Meridian, Idaho, recently unveiled a new driving range, and by this time next year it expects to debut a nine-hole, Damian Pascuzzo-designed “challenge” course. The new attractions are among a series of improvements initiated by Roger Anderson, the club’s new owner. “We do look at it as an opportunity to be one of the best private clubs in the valley and possibly even the entire state of Idaho,” the club’s general manager told KIVI-TV. The investments appear to be paying dividends, as SpurWing has reportedly added more than 200 members since Anderson bought it in 2011. The “challenge” course, which will consist entirely of par-3 holes, will complement the club’s 18-hole, Myron Tucker-designed layout.

     If the staffers at Gary Player’s headquarters in Travelers Rest, South Carolina are counting down the days to the opening of their next course, it’s easy to understand why. The 18-hole track, described in a press release as “a bump-and-run design,” opens this fall, and it’ll be located mere steps from Player’s office in the barren commercial district at the Cliffs at Mountain Park. The 5,000-acre community is one of a chain of seven Cliffs-branded spreads in the Carolinas, each of which feature layouts created by Jack Nicklaus, Tom Fazio, Tom Jackson, or Ben Wright. It’s possible that the chain may someday add a Tiger Woods-designed course to the collection, but the Cliffs’ new owners don’t appear likely to green-light their most ambitious golf venture until certainty returns to the local real estate market.