The Week That Was, april 28, 2013

     Believe it or don’t, but Donald Trump is warming up to the joys of naturalism. (Or minimalism. Or neo-classicism. Whatever.) First, he hired Martin Hawtree to design his celebrated oceanfront links in Scotland. Then, he persuaded Gil Hanse to oversee the first wave of renovations at Doral. After that, he tapped Hawtree for the second course in Aberdeenshire. And now he’s put the icing on his evolutionary cake: Trump has inked Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, naturalists par excellence, to produce an 18-hole golf course in Charlottesville, Virginia. The Austin, Texas-based design duo has already roughed out a routing for the track, which will take shape on land formerly owned by the late John Kluge, who was once believed to be the richest person in the nation. “I’ve never seen a piece of land as good as this,” one of Trump’s sons told Golf magazine. “My father’s in love with the place.” Kluge had built a personal, Arnold Palmer-designed course on his property (it was abandoned years ago), but Golf says that Coore & Crenshaw don’t plan to incorporate any of it into their design.

     Rumor has it that Bandon Dunes, the world-famous golf destination, is planning another course. Details are sketchy, but it’ll apparently be another par-3 track, similar to Coore & Crenshaw’s 13-hole Preserve course. If the whispers check out, the course will be the resort’s sixth, not counting the one that nobody admits exists.

     Baby, it’s still cold out there. And for that reason, many U.S. golf courses are feeling a financial chill. By this time last year, courses all over Minnesota, the Dakotas, Wisconsin, Michigan, and other Midwestern states had already been open for weeks, maybe a month or more. But this year is a very different story. In 2012, the Minnesota Golf Association recorded 54,288 rounds played during the first two weeks of April. This year: 424. “This is [the] worst I’ve seen in my 30 years in this business,” the general manager of a Twin Cities course told the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Also in Minnesota, the Winona Daily News reports that some local courses haven’t yet opened and can’t predict when they will. “Everything is just way too wet,” said the director of golf at Cedar Valley Golf Course. “Believe it or not, we still have some snow in areas.” In Wisconsin, according to the director of golf at Wisconsin Country Club, “Last year was bordering on record early. This year, we’re bordering on record late.” And how do such conditions affect the bottom line? In March of this year, Lost Nation Golf Course in Willoughby, Ohio rang up just 1,000 rounds, off by more than 2,000 from the number it had in 2012. If it’s any consolation, the weather will warm up. But not soon enough, I fear, for a repeat performance of 2012.

     Greg Norman was scheduled to visit the site of a forthcoming resort-style golf course this weekend, but the natives on Australia’s Great Keppel Island weren’t expected to roll out the proverbial red carpet for him. In fact, here’s the welcome Norman received: One of the island’s indigenous Woppaburra people told the Rockhampton Morning Bulletin that a golf course intended “for rich man’s pleasure” would be built “over our dead bodies.” It’s surely an idle threat, since the resort’s developer, Tower Holdings, can afford to buy all the influence it needs. “We are hopeful of working closely with Woppaburra in the years ahead, and I like to think we could build a good relationship,” the firm’s project manager told the newspaper. “They will be one of the significant beneficiaries of the new resort, with employment, business, and tourism opportunities.” Such statements usually make for good press, but Tower’s resort has been percolating since 2008, if not before. Why hasn’t the company already built “a good relationship” with the Woppaburra?

     Late last year, Ron Whitten of Golf Digest opined that Tom Doak’s course at Dismal River Club in Mullen, Nebraska would be “the architectural story of 2013.” Today, the course’s creators have begun to stoke what will surely be a media frenzy, like the one that accompanied December’s opening of the Streamsong courses in Florida. Doak, who’s long wanted to create a course in the state’s Sand Hills, told the Omaha World-Herald, “I’ve been waiting for the right time and the right piece of ground, and this is it.” Dismal River’s majority owner, Chris Johnston, told the newspaper that the track will be “unlike anything else in the Sand Hills” and, perhaps going just a bit overboard, compared Doak to Michelangelo. If the comparison is apt, will the course be Doak’s David? His Pietà, maybe? Or will it be the Sistine Chapel? I suppose we’ll find out in July, when the course is expected to open.

     Tiger Woods has boosted television ratings, served as an effective salesman for many corporations, and made golf attractive to legions of young people. Despite all that, and much more, Mark King, the CEO of TaylorMade-Adidas Golf, thinks that Woods hasn’t had “any effect on the economics of golf.” King’s take, as delivered to CNBC: Golf has been on a 16-year continual decline since Tiger came into golf. Now, has he had an impact on people watching TV, because he’s maybe the greatest athlete of our generation? Absolutely. But are those people running out, taking golf vacations, buying a home on a golf course, buying a new driver? No, they’re not. Well, maybe since 2009 they’re not. But before that, from the time Woods arrived on the golf scene in the mid 1990s, didn’t they do all those things repeatedly? Maybe King is simply unhappy that Woods delivered the goods for Nike.

     Speaking of things that have little or no effect, was Adam Scott’s victory at the Masters good for golf? Or will it only be good for Adam Scott? The unfortunate truth is, Scott is a veritable nobody. In a recent poll of 1,100 people, Scott’s name was known to just 44. Or consider his Q rating, the measurement of his familiarity and appeal. According to the people who calculate such matters, the “average sports personality” checks in with a Q rating of 16. Tiger Woods tips the scale at 26. And Scott? The month before he won the Masters, he had a rating of 12 among sports fans in general, and he registered only slightly higher among golf fans. Scott will do for golf what Bubba Watson, the previous Masters winner, did for golf: Not much. He may attract a few vacationers to Australia, but his ability to sell the sport to the masses is severely limited.

     Next week, a Dublin, Ohio-based design team expects to open its first two golf courses in China. Dana Fry and Jason Straka, former members of Mike Hurdzan’s architectural group, will unveil 18-hole tracks at Qizhong Garden Golf Club in Shanghai and Phoenix Hill Golf Club in Anji County (in Zhejiang Province), and they want you to know the courses will rank among the nation’s finest. “I am confident Qizhong Garden Golf Club is likely to take its place as the best course in the Shanghai area,” Fry declared in a press release. Fry, who operates out of an office in Hong Kong, thinks Phoenix Hill may have an even higher ceiling. “This golf course, in my opinion, will be one of China's top-rated courses,” he said. What’s more, Fry and Straka’s to-do list includes a links-like layout for Batu Bay Golf Club in Inner Mongolia, and it may very well be even better. “Batu Bay has the chance to become one of the world’s great courses,” Fry said late last year. I can’t vouch for the quality of the golf courses in question, but I can say confidently that Fry and Straka are adept at raising expectations.

     In a decision brimming with symbolism, a church in Detroit, Michigan has decided to pull the curtains on its golf course and sell it to a developer of cemeteries. Greater Grace Temple plans to close Rogell Golf Course, which features an 18-hole, Donald Ross-designed golf course, at the end of next month. According to WDIV-TV, the graveyard will be the first to open in the city since the course made its debut in 1914, as the centerpiece of the private Phoenix Country Club.