The Week That Was, april 7, 2013

     Talk about hitting rock bottom: The Arizona Daily Star has decided that Tucson, “the golf mecca of Southern Arizona,” has “likely seen its last new course.” The newspaper bases its conclusion on analyses by “real estate experts,” who, let’s be honest, tend to have better hindsight than foresight. That being said, one of the experts the newspaper spoke with is David Mehl, the developer of the tony Dove Mountain golf community in suburban Tucson, who delivered an epitaph of sorts. Mehl says he’s through with golf development, and he thinks his colleagues in Tucson’s home-building industry have likewise turned the page on golf. For golf development to be viable again, Mehl believes, “not only would you need an economic recovery, you would need something dramatically different in golf economics.” Some of you may reckon that such comments are dispiriting, but not me. I say, good riddance to David Mehl. He and luxury home builders like him laid the foundation that made them wealthy and all but destroyed our business. I’m glad to see them go.

     Like Greg Norman, Gary Player believes the organizers of the 2016 Olympics chose the wrong architect for Rio de Janeiro’s golf course. Not that anything can be done about it, of course. It’s too late now. Player just wants it on the record that the commission rightfully should have been his. “The thing that upset me for not getting it was the fact that I’ve been to Brazil so many times,” he said during a recent visit to Brazil. “I’ve played in tournaments here, met so many people, and I thought that would count. But it didn’t.” The problem isn’t the golf course. Hanse can design a perfectly acceptable golf course, Player will readily acknowledge. The problem is that Hanse isn’t famous enough to sell the sport. “I just felt I could’ve done more for golf in Brazil in the future than will be done,” Player said in comments distributed by the Associated Press. So Player remains befuddled. The way he sees it, the Olympics could have had a golf course designed by one of the all-time greats, a hall of famer, someone who does a thousand sit-ups every day. But instead, the Games chose Hanse, “a man who’s ... well, I don’t want to say anything.” No, he most certainly doesn’t. Because if he did, people might think he was a sore loser.

     More bad news from Brazil: Even though site-clearing for Gil Hanse’s golf course has commenced, permits for construction have not yet been granted, and the PGA Tour and other involved parties are now publicly expressing fears that it won’t be completed on time. What’s more, Jay Flemma is reporting that some powers that be in golf are, for the first time, “calling for Rio 2016 and PGA Tour officials to explore other venues for the tournament.” This would be a good time to remind ourselves that it’s always darkest just before the dawn.

     This year’s U.S. Open is, as expected, sold out. The event is expected to generate $100 million or more for metropolitan Philadelphia’s economy, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. Unfortunately, the crowd coming to Merion Golf Club in June may have to cross picket lines to catch the action. The area’s carpenters’ and stagehands’ unions contend that Classic Tents, the company erecting the event’s corporate hospitality tents, is using cheap foreign labor instead of local workers. “It’s an affront to every unemployed worker in this area,” a union representative told the Inquirer. The imports are said to be getting just $8 a hour, without overtime or benefits. A spokesman for Classic Tents’ parent company disputed the unions’ allegation, telling the newspaper that his firm did “not engage temporary or seasonal workers from other countries,” and the United States Golf Association, which oversees U.S. Open, issued a statement saying it was “disappointed by how the union is mischaracterizing the USGA’s preparations.” But the unions, complaining of the USGA’s “elitist mentality,” haven’t backed off. They vow that their protests “will escalate” if the issue isn’t addressed.

     Huang Nubo has become an impatient suitor. The chairman of Beijing-based Zhongkun Investment Group has grown weary of waiting for Iceland’s government to rule on his planned golf resort, and he’s threatening to set out for greener pastures if he doesn’t secure an approval pretty darned quickly. “If I get nothing clear and final from Iceland’s government by the end of May,” he told China Daily, “I won’t be interested in pursuing the project. I’ll let it go.” Such a comment may be a negotiating ploy, to be sure, but it may also accurately reflect the state of Huang’s mind. He unveiled his plan nearly two years ago, and he’s been viewed with suspicion in Iceland ever since. Instead of being the subject of potentially damaging international news stories, he could be writing poems and climbing mountains.

     Don’t put all your golf eggs in the Indian basket. One of the nation’s largest states, Maharashtra, is “reeling under one of its worst droughts in decades,” according to Open magazine, and “the situation is likely to worsen in the summer.” Such news doesn’t bode well for golf’s future in the world’s second most populous nation. “Crops have been badly hit, cattle are without fodder, and the government is struggling to provide drinking water,” the magazine reports. I’m sure it won’t surprise you to learn that golf developers, especially those creating gated communities for the wealthy, are among those who are being blamed for India’s water shortages. “For the rich,” a recent story in the Hindu concluded, “there is never a scarcity. For so many of the rest, their hopes evaporate by the day.” Unless rains come soon, India’s thirst for golf may soon be evaporating as well.

     Some western U.S. states are also getting desperate for rain, and their ever-drier golf courses are feeling the consequences. Last week, an area near a tee at Spring Ranch Golf Club in Colorado Springs, Colorado burst into flames, probably because an oblivious player flicked a smoldering cigarette or cigar butt into dry native grasses. A similar blaze, captured on video, occurred at Green Valley Ranch Golf Course near Denver several weeks ago. But fires are only the most dramatic price of a drought. Earlier this year, the city of Comanche, Oklahoma lost the operator of its municipal golf course because he couldn’t afford to pay for the volume of water required to keep the layout green. And in Wichita, Kansas, where it’s feared that a vital reservoir will dry up in 2015, golf courses will likely have to start paying a lot more for water than they currently do. What’s happening in these places is, I fear, simply a preview of things to come elsewhere in the United States and around the world. Punishing droughts, like the fierce storms and mammoth snowfalls we’ve seen of late, may soon become the norm. The golf business needs to learn to live with them, and it’s not going to be easy.

     Here we are on the eve of the Masters, and the PGA Tour still hasn’t decided whether to discipline Vijay Singh for his use of a performance-enhancing drug. “The process is still ongoing,” a spokesman for the PGA Tour spokesman told Golfweek last week. What’s the delay? Sports Illustrated’s story about Singh’s use of deer-antler spray broke in February, and it’s been more than a month since the tour said that a decision would be made “relatively soon.” Of course, it’s possible that the tour is going to let the matter slide. Remember what Tim Finchem told reporters in early March: “If action is taken, it’ll be reported. If no action is taken, it won’t be reported, and that’ll be the end of that.” In other words, no news is good news for Vijay Singh.



     Fifty years after the Beatles released their first album, what new nugget of information do we learn about their lives? As unlikely as it may sound, three of the Fab Four -- John, Paul, and George -- were caddies at Bootle Golf Course in suburban Liverpool.