In an effort to land one (or more) premier golf championships -- the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship, the Ryder Cup -- the Broadmoor resort is trying to secure permission to redesign two of its golf courses. The issue, as it is so often these days, is length. To play a really high-profile event in high-altitude Colorado Springs, Colorado, the Powers That Be in golf think the Broadmoor needs an 8,100-yard venue, a venue the resort believes it can create by combining the best holes from its 7,355-yard East and 7,016-yard West courses, along with some additional lengthening here and there. But this project, as complicated as it may be, is just part of what needs to be done. To do the combining, the resort also needs to relocate a road that runs through its 3,000-acre property. I don’t know about you, but I hear a lot of cash registers ringing. What’s your guess about what it’ll cost to undertake such a venture? Because there’s an easier, cheaper solution: A less lively ball.
Greg Norman can breathe easier: The referendum intended to block his golf complex in Croatia has failed. As a result, Norman and his Israeli development partners -- a group led by arms dealer Aaron Frankel and his wife, Maja, one of Croatia’s former economic ministers -- can proceed with Golf Park Dubrovnik, which will include houses, hotels, an equestrian center, and other attractions. Curiously, the outcome of the referendum was decided not by the actual votes cast but by turnout. Fewer than one-third of the city’s eligible voters bothered to participate, and Croatian law decrees that a referendum isn’t valid without a 50 percent turnout. Fewer than 2,000 voters endorsed the project, according to News Limited Network, while more than 10,000 were against it.
Ever notice how closely Annika Sorenstam’s career mirrors Greg Norman’s? As professional golfers, both were grand champions and veritable living legends. Then, like Norman,
Sorenstam began a second career that includes not only course design but charitable foundations, grow-the-game initiatives, and the marketing of branded merchandise: clothing, perfume, wine, and whatever comes next. And now we get news of another parallel: Pacific Links International, which employs Norman as one of its “international ambassadors,” has inked Sorenstam to a term in the same role. “Her global brand and universal appeal to golfers of all ages, genders, and abilities makes her an ideal spokesperson for our burgeoning business,” the company’s CEO said in a press release.
Sometime this month, TaylorMade Golf Company is expected to break ground on a new manufacturing center in Liberty, South Carolina. The plant, which will produce PGA Tour-quality golf balls, will replace an existing leased facility in nearby Westminster. To win TaylorMade’s business, Pickens County provided the company with tax breaks and other incentives, including free land. “They were looking at moving to Georgia,” a local economic-development official told the Anderson Independent Mail. “We worked hard to keep them in South Carolina.” TaylorMade produces 8 million dozen golf balls annually, and it expects to make at least 2.5 million dozen of them in Liberty. The production lines are scheduled to start rolling early next year.
The Seattle Times has taken the pulse of the golf business in the Puget Sound region, and it’s concluded that “some public courses and private clubs remain in trouble even as the economy improves and rounds increase.” A dozen courses have closed in the area over the past four years, the newspaper reports, and “much of the shakeout is coming at low-key, affordable courses where players new to golf felt comfortable.” This is, regrettably, a story we’ve heard many times previously. “Unfortunately, it is the smaller golf courses that are suffering,” the executive director of the Pacific Northwest Golf Association told the Times. “That’s interesting to me because they are the most cost-effective way of playing.” But all the news isn’t gloomy. Many of the area’s course owners and operators are said to be optimistic about the future, primarily because the number of rounds being played is up. “Essentially, we’ve recovered to close to where we were in 2007, before the economy was turned off and the rains were turned on,” notes the president of a local management company. The bottom line: The business is improving, but it’s still not out of the woods.
On the nation’s other coast, there are also signs of life. “Massachusetts golf courses are optimistic that business is on the upswing as the 2013 season gets underway,” the Boston Globe reports. The amount of play at Boston’s municipal courses is said to be up by 10 percent over the results posted in 2012, and the number of players participating in local tournaments is also on the upswing. “And the weather hasn’t even been as good as it was last year,” said the general manager of the city’s courses. “That’s why those numbers are surprising. It gives us hope that things are starting to turn around.” One problem: The golf properties hurt worst in the area during the Great Recession, according to the Globe, were recently established private clubs. Until business at those clubs bounces back, a full recovery isn’t likely to arrive.
Not so long ago -- in 2000, or thereabouts -- the United States had the highest share of employed 25- to 34-year-olds among the world’s large, wealthy nations. Today, it has the lowest. In addition, according to statistics provided by the U.S. Labor Department, workers between the ages of 25 and 34 are the only group earning less today than they did in 2000. As vital signs go, this is another unfortunate one for the golf industry. Young adults simply don’t have enough disposable income, let alone the inclination, to play golf.
Notice to golf-industry workers in the People’s Republic: You can’t breathe the air, you can’t drink the water, and, for now at least, you can’t eat the meat. This week the New York Times reported that traders in eastern China have been packaging rat meat as lamb or mutton, and unsuspecting diners have been eating it. Since January, the newspaper reports, Chinese authorities have arrested more than 900 people suspected of selling “fake, diseased, toxic, or adulterated meat.” Seriously, is China really the future of golf development? When do we finally decide that enough is enough?
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