The Week That Was, june 30, 2013

     Can you guess where developers are planning to build a mega-resort with a Jack Nicklaus “signature” course, a Bill Coore-designed “natural” course, and, last but most certainly not least, “a perfect mirror image” of the Old Course at St. Andrews? Dubai, maybe? Tianjin? Sochi? The correct answer: Las Vegas. Eurasia Resorts International, a Bahamian group with pronounced Russian overtones, wants to build the golf courses and much, much more on 3,000 acres of publicly owned desert outside Sin City, “not too far,” it says, from the Strip. The spread has been master-planned to include 39 casinos, 45 hotels, indoor and outdoor theme parks, a convention center, the world’s largest shopping mall, the world’s largest Ferris wheel, sports arenas, a private airport, and lots of places to eat, drink, and be deliriously merry. Eurasia Resorts hopes to break ground on the property’s initial phases next year, but its construction schedule ultimately depends on the willingness of partners to roll the dice on such a pie-in-the-sky venture.

     A former Wall Street investment analyst believes that sales of metal drivers may soon plummet, perhaps by as much as 40 percent. It all has to do with replacement cycles, says Andrew Glaser, the CEO of ClubCrown by Vive. Glaser contends that equipment manufacturers have squeezed all the performance they can out of their products, given the limits imposed by golf’s ruling bodies, and, as a result, consumers no longer have a compelling reason to upgrade. If consumers simply wait to replace their clubs after five years instead of after three, he says, sales will fall by 40 percent. “The implications will be dire, especially for those manufacturers and retailers who prefer to keep their heads in the sand,” he writes in his blog. Of course, the manufacturers have long understood that this day would inevitably come and have a solution: They’re going to boost sales of related products, particularly fairway woods.

     Donald Zucker, a Manhattan-based real estate mogul, has agreed to buy his second distressed golf property on Long Island, New York. Zucker, acting as Golf Riverhead LLC, has offered $6 million for the bankrupt Long Island National Golf Club, which features a Robert Trent Jones, Jr.-designed course that opened in 1999. Bill Gatz, the club’s developer, once called Jones “a genius,” but he may have changed his mind after he realized that Long Island National generated less income than the potato farm it was built on. Gatz wanted $10 million for the property but could find no takers. The club, in Riverhead, had been scheduled to sell at a public auction that was canceled due to lack of interest. In 2009, Zucker bought North Shore Country Club in Glen Head and hired Tom Doak’s firm to give it a makeover. (The work was overseen by Bruce Hepner.) It sounds as though something similar may be in the works at Long Island National, for Zucker told Newsday that he plans to have Doak “put his eyes on it.”

     Now that his career on the Asian Tour has ended, Zhang Lianwei is doing what he can to grow the game in China. His immediate mission: To build affordable public courses, which the nation sorely lacks. “I am keen to push this through,” he said in a comment published by the South China Morning Post, “as this is the only way to get more young golfers to pick up and learn the game.” Zhang, who’s considered to be one of the elder statesmen of Chinese golf, told the newspaper that he’s identified three potential sites for his courses but didn’t say where they were. Jack Nicklaus, Greg Norman, and others have said that they also desire to popularize golf in the People’s Republic. Do you think there’s any chance that they might be enlisted to design Zhang’s courses?

     If the PGA Tour agrees to the ban on anchored putting, Harry Manion is going to be a household name in the golf business. At least nine PGA pros -- the group includes Tim Clark, Carl Pettersson, and Adam Scott, the winner of this year’s Masters -- have retained the Boston-based lawyer to defend their right to use so-called belly putters. Manion, a partner in Cooley Manion Jones, will bide his time until the tour signals its intentions, a decision that’s expected to come this summer. His previous clients have included Nike, Dunkin Donuts, Larry King, Panera Bread, Mike Milliken, and the Pittsburgh Penguins.

     Where tourists go, golf courses are sure to follow. And these days, the world’s best-known hoteliers are zeroing in on locations in Asia, particularly those that aren’t already overstocked with high-end properties. The hottest of the hot spots, according to the New York Times, are China (by a landslide), India, Sri Lanka, and Myanmar, but some destinations that are clearly off the beaten track -- Bhutan and Laos, for example, as well as unnamed islands in Indonesia and the Philippines -- are said to be generating interest as well. It’s no coincidence that several of the aforementioned places are expected to see substantive golf development in the coming years. In our business, the easiest way to make a living is simply to follow the money.

     David Fay may have retired as the executive director of the United States Golf Association, but he continues to support youth-oriented grow-the-game initiatives. These days he’s serving as an unpaid advisor to one of the premier training facilities in Rhode Island, the Button Hole Short Course & Teaching Center in Providence. He has several administrative and developmental duties, but his most important role is fundraiser. “At one level, Button Hole is an easy sell, and people do support it,” Fay told the Providence Journal. “But in this day and age, you need consistent financial support.” And Fay is an ideal guy to deliver it.

     The Symposium on Affordable Golf may have started out as a gathering of back-to-the-roots traditionalists, but it’s growing fast and rapidly becoming an institution. The fourth edition of this annual quest for knowledge will be held, as always, in Southern Pines, North Carolina, this year on October 28 and 29. Richard Mandell, a Pinehurst-based architect, created the event to address vital issues that have now happily gone mainstream, in particular playability and sustainability. “The goal,” he’s said, “is to generate healthy discussion on how to return the game of golf to a state of stability, prosperity, and affordable simplicity.” The symposium may not be the biggest get-together in our business, but it’s the most thought-provoking and the one that offers the most potential for change. And it’s free.

     Talk about getting undressed in public: Not long after we read that Gary Player may be sued by his former best friend, it was announced that the 77-year-old course designer and South African stud farmer will appear naked (tastefully, of course) in an upcoming issue of ESPN the Magazine.