More of the Week That Was, june 14, 2013

     It’s high time we finally stopped discussing golf development in Russia in terms of its potential, as if one of the planet’s largest, richest, most powerful nations were on par with, say, Bulgaria or Belarus. The benefit of the doubt should no longer be in play, because Russia has had ample time to realize its potential and unfortunately come up short. If we shine the harsh light of reality on Russia’s golf business, here’s what we get: Over the past 25 years, according to a report by KPMG’s Golf Advisory Practice, the nation has managed to open a mere 16 golf properties -- among them, just seven 18-hole courses -- and to develop only 4,500 registered golfers, for a participation rate so ridiculously low that it isn’t worth calculating. Does such a performance hint of “a tremendous opportunity” for development, as KPMG suggests, or is it evidence of a lost cause?

     The original version of the preceding post first appeared in the May 2013 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.

     Robert Trent Jones, Jr. opens his ninth golf course in China this year -- “They call me Chairman Bob over there,” he happily chirps -- but these days the 74-year-old architect is celebrating a more unique achievement. Jones’ 1994 book, Golf by Design, has been translated into Mandarin and is now for sale in the many places where Chinese people work and play. “There are 1.3 billion people in China, but what a lot of people don’t realize is that there are many, many other millions living outside China,” Jones explains. “There are a lot more Chinese than we think, and they love golf.” Golf by Design’s publisher is a company controlled by a friend, Wang Jun, the princeling and former arms merchant who’s been called “the godfather of golf in China.” But even if the book finds a second life in the People’s Republic, Jones doesn’t intend to write another one. “It’s the first and last book I’ll ever do,” he promises. “Writing it was the hardest thing I ever did.”

     Now that Cuba has approved Carbonera Club and effectively opened the door to golf development, how many other possible golf properties are waiting in the wings? Property Wire reports that a Chinese-funded venture “is expected to be approved by the end of this year,” while groups based in Spain, Russia, and Vietnam are also trying to hammer out development agreements. Not all of them will make the cut, of course, but it’s evident that Cuba is finally willing to determine if golf and socialist principles can coexist peacefully. Who’s bourgeois now?

     Clothes make the man, and the man occasionally makes a golf course. At least that’s how it went on Namhae Island in South Gyeongsang Province, where a South Korean clothier has fashioned his first golf course. His name is Jung Jae Bong, and his South Cape Golf Links is the centerpiece of a small waterfront community. South Cape’s 7,312-yard, daily-fee track has been designed by Kyle Phillips, who reports that Jung gave him “a dramatic site” along “a rocky, craggy coastline” that offers “fantastic views” of the mainland and other nearby islands. “Water is present on every hole,” Phillips notes. “Every hole has a view of the sea.” Jung (his name is sometimes written as “Chung”) is the CEO of various entities, Handsome P&D Company and Fashion Exchange Corporation among them, that manufacture and sell men’s and women’s apparel under at least a dozen brands. I don’t know why he chose to build a course on Namhae, but I do know this: The island was the home of the South Korean character in “Lost.”

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

     Get ’em while they’re hot: Forbes Life reports that Greg Norman has cut his design fee by roughly 30 percent, to $900,000 from $1.25 million.