The Week That Was, july 28, 2013

     Financially speaking, the 2013 Open Championship was a bust. The event managed to attract only 142,036 spectators, nowhere close to the number (170,000) that the Royal & Ancient was expecting. To add insult to injury, this year’s attendance was down by 11.5 percent from the number posted by the Open in 2002, the last time it was played at Muirfield. The R&A is wearing a brave face, claiming that it’s “pleased with this attendance.” It blames the poor turnout on unexpectedly good weather (“We believe the extremely warm weather put off some of our pay-at-the-gate customers”) and competition from television coverage of cricket and bicycling events.

     After you’ve sunk money into golf projects in Michigan, Nebraska, Oregon, Tasmania, and Nova Scotia, there’s really only one other place left to go: Wisconsin. Just ask Mike Keiser. The world’s premier developer of traditional links is said to be looking to invest in a moribund venture floated by Oliphant Golf a couple of years ago. “We’re very hopeful,” a spokesman for Oliphant, a golf construction company, told the Wisconsin Rapids Tribune. At GolfClubAtlas.com, Tom Doak said, “It’s not a done deal yet, but it is a distinct possibility.” Oliphant reportedly controls 350 acres along the Wisconsin River in the town of Rome, in the central part of the state. The property is said to feature 60-foot dunes, although bigger isn’t necessarily better. Matt Ginella of the Golf Channel reports that the usual suspects -- Doak, Coore & Crenshaw, David McLay Kidd, Jim Urbina -- have already sized up the property. Keiser may also have a line on additional property, for Ginella says that there’s “plenty of room for four courses.” For Keiser, there’s an additional benefit to developing in America’s Dairyland: It’s close to his home in Chicagoland.

     Seeing as how his attention is supposed to be focused on the golf course for the 2016 Olympics, how has Gil Hanse managed to find the time to work on Donald Trump’s course in Dubai? Answer: The golf course in Rio de Janeiro has fallen behind schedule again. The anticipated completion date has now been pushed back by four months, to August 2015, which is as far back as it can go without impacting the tournaments that have already been scheduled. One other thing: Hanse is no longer living full time in Brazil, though he does plan to be there for two weeks a month until the work is completed.

     By now, everyone knows that Gil Hanse’s course in Dubai will be the centerpiece of an ultra-luxurious community that’s being developed by Damac Properties. As part of the marketing campaign for Akoya and Trump International Golf Club Dubai, Damac’s managing director, Ziad El Chaar, talked about the venture with Sport360. What he had to say speaks volumes about the way residential developers view golf courses and their role in upscale communities. Here’s a distillation of his comments:
     We have a great set of customers who have been telling us for some time that we like Damac’s luxury but we’d like it in a villa or a mansion. We thought about it for some time and came to the conclusion that if you want to build a luxury residential community of villas and mansions, your best option is to build it around a golf course. . . . 
     We believe that having a championship-size and championship-quality golf course is the key to building a premium residential community. . . . It’s what determines the premiumness of the community. 
     Let’s face it, a villa is a villa. You can only do so much with the interiors. . . . Once you have a villa on a golf course, a lot of prestige and premium gets attached to it. 
     Having said that, we do not want just any 18-hole course. We want to be true to the spirit of golf, and we want the golf course to be an experience in itself. That is the reason why we have teamed up with the Trump Organisation, a most respected name in not just the real estate industry but also in the golf course business, which is why we have someone as respected as Gil Hanse designing our golf course. . . . 
     This is our first golf course project, and we are banking completely on their proven reputation. Maybe we will be more specific on inputs when we are building our fifth or sixth golf course!

     KemperSports has been tapped to manage Hamilton Farm Golf Club, a ritzy private enclave in Somerset County, New Jersey’s horse country. The club, which has been tailored to expensive corporate tastes, features a 36-hole, Hurdzan/Fry-designed golf complex, a helicopter landing pad, a 20,000-square-foot mansion with suites for 10 overnight guests, a lodge with four guest suites, and meeting space. Hamilton Farm was built by Lucent Technologies in the late 1990s, in the hope of creating a super-exclusive club for 18 corporations that might do some business together. But Lucent fell on hard times, and it sold the property to Townsend Capital in 2001. Townsend immediately shifted gears, dropping Lucent’s $1 million initiation fee to a measly $250,000 and setting out to recruit 200 corporate members. Steve Skinner, Kemper’s CEO, describes Hamilton Farm as “a spectacular private club with a tremendous staff” and promises to “enhance the member experience for years to come.”

     The notoriously secretive empire builders at Schmidt-Curley Design, already responsible for something like 40 golf courses in China, are creating two new properties that are expected to open in the spring of 2014. The first one, which is either called Silk Road or on the Silk Road, is described in promotional materials as a “bold, links-inspired” layout that’s been “carved out of fescue-laden dunes” outside Urumqi, in Xinjinag Province. It’s “sure to be well received,” the firm notes. The second one, which isn’t named, is a 27-hole complex that’s taking shape on a “stunning” site in the foothills south of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province. Due to the site’s “ideal topography,” the firm says, only “minimal earthwork” is required. The company offers no guesses about how the second course will be received.

     It appears that a private-sector group will soon be operating the city of Lynnwood, Washington’s struggling golf course. Gene Krekorian of Hermosa Beach, California-based Pro Forma Advisors has advised the city to seek professional help, and the Everett Herald reports that such a move would be “supported by the city parks director.” The 18-hole, executive-length track opened in 1991. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, it lured roughly 60,000 rounds a year, but in 2012 the number was closer to 40,000.

     The zero food waste initiative begun last year at Ferncroft Country Club in Massachusetts must be paying dividends, because Affinity Management is taking it to its golf property in Wisconsin. Silver Spring Golf Club in Menomonee Falls has become the first golf property in the Midwest that aims to turn all of its food waste into liquid fertilizer, via bokashi composting. “The only thing [that] goes into the garbage cans here are bones,” Affinity’s Damon DeVito told WTMJ-TV. “Everything else, including dairy and meat, will be fermented.” Affinity believes the composting will keep 16,000 pounds of garbage out of local landfills every year.

     Mercedes-Benz, a long-time sponsor of golf events, may soon go into direct completion with E-Z-Go and Textron. The company has unveiled a solar-powered concept golf cart that features such



luxury appointments as an iPhone dock, a high-end media player, a touch-screen monitor, LED headlights, and heated and cooled seats. Mercedes-Benz has also ditched the steering wheel in favor of a centrally located joystick that allows either occupant to drive. Still think Bubba Watson’s hover-craft cart is something special?

Transactions, july 26, 2013

     One by one, Textron Financial Corporation is getting rid of its golf headaches. The Memphis Daily News reports that Textron’s Spe Go Holdings has sold Stonebridge Golf Club in Lakeland, Tennessee to a pair of brothers-in-law. An LLC led by Mark Lowell and Robert Mears reportedly paid $1.5 million for Stonebridge, which features a George Cobb-designed golf course that opened in the early 1970s. Textron has parted with several golf properties this year, among them Bermuda Run Country Club in suburban Winston-Salem, North Carolina; Firethorne Country Club in Marvin, North Carolina; and Legacy Golf Club in Bradenton, Florida. The next one to go may be King’s Creek Golf Club in Spring Hill, Tennessee.

     Gene Haas, a one-time tax evader who now co-owns a NASCAR race team with Tony Stewart, has gotten behind the wheel of Westlake Golf Course in Westlake Village, California. The property features a 5,080-yard course that was designed by Ted Robinson. “It came up for sale, and he liked it,” explained a spokesman for Haas’ Oxnard, California-based company. The seller was a group led by Ted Tomosovich. The Ventura County Star reports that a half-dozen liens had been filed against the golf course, which must remain open space for roughly the next 180 years. Haas pleaded guilty to tax evasion in 2008 and, after making full restitution to the government, served a brief prison sentence. Today his company, Haas Automation, is said to be the largest machine-tool maker in the United States, and his NASCAR team runs cars for Stewart, Ryan Newman, and Danica Patrick.

     One of Japan’s largest confectioners has gone sweet on the first Jack Nicklaus “signature” golf course in Australia. Chateraise Holdings, which sells cakes and desserts in 450 Japanese stores, has purchased Lakelands Golf Club in Robina, Queensland, reportedly for $8.6 million. The Golf Coast Bulletin reports that Chateraise owns 14 golf properties in Japan, along with two ski resorts and two wineries. The company was founded by Hiroshi Saito in 1955. It bought Lakelands from Naonori Fujita, who paid $12 million for it in 2006. Fujita told the Bulletin that he sold the property with regret, and only because he’s getting old and “none of my family members are interested.” Lakelands was established by another Japanese company in the 1990s.

     A business consultant has agreed to buy a deteriorating golf property that faces major increases in what it pays for water in New Mexico, the driest state in the union. Michael Schumacher, the president of Bizdoc Capital Group, believes there’s money to be made at Chamisa Hills Country Club, the home of the only golf courses in Rio Rancho. “This isn’t a fix-and-flip or anything like that,” he said in a comment published by the Rio Rancho Observer. Schumacher is buying Chamisa Hills from Harry Apodaca, who’s been looking for a way out from the moment he learned that his annual water bill was going to skyrocket from $160,000 to roughly $635,000. He tried to sell the club and its 27-hole complex at a public auction a couple of months ago but could find no takers. In addition to the undisclosed purchase price, Schumacher expects to pay for a new irrigation system and other upgrades at Chamisa Hills. If he doesn’t change his mind, he’ll close on the deal sometime this summer.

     Union Hills Country Club, one of the many Del Webb-created golf properties in Sun City, Arizona, has a new name and new owners. The property, now called Union Hills Golf & Country Club, has been purchased by Mark Matarrese, a Sun City resident, and Ric Lanoue, a CPA from Windsor, Canada. The duo plans to make improvements to the club’s golf course, which was co-designed by Greg Nash and Jeff Hardin and opened in 1974. “This was once one of the best facilities in the valley,” Matarrese told the Sun City Independent. “We plan to bring it back to what it was, and better.” Del Webb turned the club over to its members in 1978.

     Accord Golf Capital is branching out beyond its home base in Williamsburg, Virginia. The company, which is led by Paul Mauk of Traditional Golf Properties, has acquired Brookfield Country Club, a 40-year-old property in Roswell, Georgia. In a sparsely detailed press release, Accord describes Brookfield as “one of the finest family-oriented clubs in the north Atlanta market” and announces forthcoming improvements to both the facility’s clubhouse and Mike Riley-designed golf course. Late last year, Accord and Och-Ziff Real Estate teamed up to buy the bankrupt Ford’s Colony Country Club in Williamsburg, which features a trio of 18-hole golf courses designed by Dan Maples. The press release doesn’t mention anything about Och-Ziff’s involvement in the Brookfield purchase, but it doesn’t mention Traditional Golf Properties, Mike Riley, or Ford’s Colony either.

     After being shopped around for more than two years, Briarcrest Country Club has found a buyer. Wallace Phillips has agreed to buy Briarcrest, a 42-year-old property in Bryan, Texas. Though he’s a local residential developer, Phillips has promised to maintain the club’s 18-hole golf course and even make some as-yet unspecified improvements to it. “I have full intentions of leaving it as a golf course,” he told the Bryan Eagle. Phillips also plans to retain Billy Casper Golf as the club’s operator. He expects to close on the purchase sometime this summer.

     Visitors to Laughlin, Nevada’s Avi Resort & Casino now have their choice of two golf courses. The Fort Mojave Indian Tribe has been offering an 18-hole course at the casino since 1997. Last month, however, it purchased Desert Lakes Golf Course in nearby Fort Mohave, Arizona. Desert Lakes has been given a new name, Huukan Golf Club, and the tribe plans to give its 24-year-old, Bob Baldock-designed golf course what the Needles Desert Star calls a “major upgrade.” If you’re wondering about the meaning of the new name, Huukan reportedly translates as “stick hitting a ball.”

The Week That Was, july 21, 2013

     As promised, Darius Hatami of HVS Golf Services has published “The Path to Growth,” a collection of ideas that are supposed to help the golf industry steer itself back into the financial fast lane. Truth be told, though, Hatami sounds like someone who’s still searching for answers, not like someone who’s found them. At least in the short term, he suspects, our industry’s true growth markets will be in foreign nations. To grow the game in the United States, he believes, we must devise ways to attract the nearly 92 percent of the population that currently doesn’t golf. Inevitably, however, such a path leads us in the direction of kids, women, and minorities, groups that have historically resisted golf’s advances. “A catalyst is definitely needed to reform the thought process of what golf is and what it can be,” Hatami concludes. Unfortunately, he doesn’t identify what the catalyst might be. He suggests that golf needs to find its version of snowboarding, the youthful pursuit that’s enabled the ski industry to shake off its winters of discontent. But he also understands that golf, a business that “needs to simultaneously embrace its tradition while also embracing the future,” doesn’t trust the demographics that might ultimately save it. “The Path to Growth” is a road we’ve been down before and, regrettably, it’s always led to a dead end.

     Despite an economic crash that ravaged golf economies across the planet, between 2006 and 2012 Europe’s golf clubs increased their membership by more than 7 percent, from 4.1 million to 4.4 million. That’s probably the most surprising fact that can be found “The Economic Impact of Golf on the Economy of Europe,” a new study by Sports Marketing Surveys. Here are three others worth noting: One, there are more golfers in Great Britain and Ireland (4.2 million) than in the rest of Europe’s nations combined (3.65 million). Two, of the 4.2 million golfers in Great Britian and Ireland, 32 percent (1.36 million) are members of golf clubs and 38 percent (1.6 million) play at least 12 rounds a year. And finally, golf is worth £12.9 billion ($19.7 billion) to Europe’s economy, an amount that’s nearly £300 million ($458 million) less than it was in 2006.

     For the second time this year, former Olympic star Bob Richards has bought a golf property in Waco, Texas. In January, the 87-year-old pole-vaulting champion paid $1.4 million for Lake Waco Golf Club. Now, for slightly less money, he’s acquired Twin Rivers Golf Club, the home of Baylor University’s men’s and women’s golf teams. Twin Rivers opened in 2001, as Bear Ridge Golf Club, and was foreclosed upon in 2007. It cost its original owners $7.5 million, according to the Waco Tribune, but Richards picked it up for only $1.1 million. The club’s 12-year-old, Peter Jacobson-designed course is said to have flooding problems, but Richards thinks his primary challenge will be to attract new members. He aims to boost Twin Rivers’ number, which has been stuck on about 50 for years, to 225.

     The city of Longview, Washington is seeking an operator for Mint Valley Golf Course. The facility, which opened in 1976, features an 18-hole, Ron Fream-designed golf course and a six-hole, par-3 track. Rounds and revenues have declined in recent years, partly as a result of economic hard times and partly due to deferred maintenance. (Various upgrades, including a new irrigation system, are planned.) Also, the complex’s greens fees haven’t been increased since 2010. The city is offering a five-year contract that begins in January 2014. It’ll oversee the course maintenance while the new operator does the rest.

     After the 2014 World Cup is decided and the 2016 Olympics have ended, what does the future hold for one of Brazil’s favorite vacation spots? Renato Fernandes, the secretary of state for tourism in Rio Grande do Norte, feels his state will sparkle in the afterglow of the world’s biggest sports events. The state’s beaches already lure legions of Brazilian travelers, and, with a new international airport set to open next year, Fernandes is trying to enlist the private sector to build more tourist-friendly attractions, among them marinas, theme parks, and a half-dozen or more golf courses. “I think tourism is going to transform this state,” he believes. In a press statement, Fernandes noted that “analysis was underway for the creation of a world-class golf course,” but he didn’t identify it by name.

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

     There were times when it seemed as though it might never happen, but Billy Casper Golf has helped a homeowners’ group in Bastrop, Texas reopen its golf course. ColoVista Country Club, which had been overgrown with eight-foot weeds and scorched by fire, had been closed for more than three years before the home owners engaged BCG to revive it. “Billy Casper Golf has a wonderful vision about what ColoVista can be,” Carson Stephens, the president of ColoVista Golf Club Property Owners Association, said in a press release. “Together, we will build an excellent golf and lifestyle experience.” The 16-year-old layout may never again be what it used to be -- it had once been ranked among the state’s top tracks -- but right now that really doesn’t matter to ColoVista’s residents. “This community has been separated since the course closed,” one of them told the Austin Statesman. “Now we all have somewhere to come and be together.”

     If golf is snooty, uptight, tradition-bound, and reserved for the privileged elite, who’s to blame? Alex Stevenson thinks he has an answer: The British middle class. “Golf is one of the least democratic sports around,” he argues in an essay posted at Yahoo! News. “And it is the English middle class which has ruined it.” By “ruined it,” Stevenson means that social strivers took a fundamentally egalitarian sport, one created by farmers and laborers, and locked it away behind the doors of high-priced private clubs. Before long, golf became a weapon of class warfare. And today, he contends, “The chief preoccupation of those in power in the nation's golf clubs is keeping the hoi polloi away from their carefully cultivated greens.” As anyone who’s ever spent a few hours in an uppity club knows, there’s some truth in what Stevenson has to say. But in nations all over the world, golf is played on courses that welcome the hoi polloi. Are those venues part of the class struggle as well?

     John Deere has come up with a novel way to introduce kids to the golf business. The Moline, Illinois-based company is funding educational sessions about golf agronomy and maintenance at First Tee programs in suburban Chicago, Boston, and Atlanta. Two teenagers from each First Tee group will get a chance to “shadow” a superintendent as he (or she) prepares his venue for a PGA Tour event. You may remember that Deere made a $1 million contribution to the First Tee earlier this year. Part of the money is being used to pay for “Careers on Course,” which will expand to other First Tee chapters next year.

     When he isn’t aggravating Rory McIlroy, Nick Faldo is going to serve as a pitch man for MasterCard. Part of the job apparently involves giving golf lessons and posing for photographs. Faldo becomes the eighth golf pro on MasterCard’s sales team, joining Tom Watson, Ian Poulter, Graeme McDowell, and others, and the company’s top marketing official called his signing “a crown jewel in our campaign.” Which is nice, but not quite priceless.

Vital Signs, july 20, 2013

     Hard times continue to put the pinch on South Korea’s golf industry, and private clubs, which account for two-thirds of the nation’s golf properties, are currently being squeezed the hardest. “The prolonged economic slump has made people more reluctant to golf, reducing the demand for memberships,” a spokesperson for the Korea Golf Course Business Association told the Korea Times. The imbalance between supply and demand is reflected in the average price of a lifetime golf membership, which the association says has fallen by 63 percent since 2008. Such price declines are bleeding clubs dry, but it isn’t the only big problem they face. Clubs that have opened since 2005 are obligated, under law, to refund membership fees when members decide that they want their money back, and that’s a difficult financial burden to bear. “The majority of membership courses will be insolvent at some point,” said Seo Cheon-beom of the Korea Leisure Industry Institute. “I think they will either have to close or turn into public courses to remain in business.” Seo predicts that close to half of the nation’s golf properties will be public by 2016.

     What goes up, it’s often said, must come down. And today, what’s coming down are real estate values in India. Thanks to a slowing economy, the nation’s residential developers are witnessing the initial signs of a decline in sales of upscale housing, the kind that’s typically built along the fairways of golf courses. “The richer middle class,” says the Times of India, “isn’t buying homes like before.” Mudassir Zaidi, a regional director for Knight Frank, acknowledged that “it’s now getting increasingly difficult to sell luxury homes across major markets like Gurgaon, Mumbai, and Bangalore.” Seeing as how a high-flying housing market has inspired many of India’s golf development dreams, can you predict what comes next?

     This year’s lousy spring weather has inflicted major pain on the municipal golf operations in St. Paul, Minnesota. Three big snowfalls in April and 20 days of rain in May have put the city’s four golf courses so far behind the eight ball that they aren’t likely to match the play they generated last year. “Unprecedented is probably the word we’d choose,” said Brad Meyer, a spokesperson for the city’s parks and recreation department, to KARE 11. Through the end of May, rounds at the city’s courses were down by 50 percent from 2011, while revenues were down by 41 percent. What’s increased for the city are expenses, largely due to the cost of making weather-related repairs.

     Golf tour operators are beginning to send more of their customers to Trump International Golf Links Scotland. “Our tour operator bookings have more than doubled as news on our course spreads,” the resort’s Sarah Malone told the Scotsman. “Tour operator interest now contributes to more than 30 percent of our business, compared to 10 percent of our bookings last year.” In the year since it opened, according to Malone, the resort has entertained groups from the United States, Australia, India, South Africa, Argentina, Canada, and many European countries. Ronnie MacAskill, the director of golf at the nearby Royal Aberdeen Golf Club, isn’t surprised. “Trump has delivered exactly what he set out to do: a sensational golf course, with many visitors claiming it is one of the best they have ever played.”

     Between 2009 and 2012, the 650 clubs in the Carolinas Golf Association lost nearly 30,000 members, according to the association’s executive director.

     Time is quickly running out on China’s reign as the world’s most populous nation. The United Nations predicts that India, the world’s second-place nation (current population: 1.24 billion), will pull even with the People’s Republic (1.34 billion) by 2028, when both will have 1.45 billion people. When it comes to population growth, however, the nation that’s really on the move is Nigeria (162.5 million), which is expected to pass the United States (314 million) by the middle of this century and might pass China by the end of the century. Among the world’s other fast-growing nations, the U.N. says, are Indonesia, Tanzania, Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Uganda, and Niger. Their populations are expected to swell past 200 million by 2100.

     Are course renovations guaranteed to attract more play? Those who believe upgrades are a can’t-miss proposition would be advised to consider the experience of Don Veller Seminole Golf Course, a property owned by Florida State University. In the late 1990s, the course averaged 70,000 rounds a year. Not long after, the Tallahassee Democrat reports, the university built a new clubhouse (cost: $5.5 million) and spent $2.2 million on golf course improvements. Despite the investment, however, the course has lost, on average, $500,000 a year for the past five years. Nowadays it rings up just 36,000 rounds annually. The moral: In golf operations, there are no easy answers.

     Real estate values aren’t all that’s rising in Dubai. A record number of tourists -- more than 10 million of them -- visited the emirate last year, a 9.3 percent increase over the number posted in 2011.

The Week That Was, july 14, 2013

     In an attempt to shore up its bottom line, ClubCorp is going public. The nation’s largest owner of private golf properties aims to raise up to $100 million in an initial public offering, money that the Wall Street Journal says would be used to pay off debt, including “a one-time payment” to its owner, KSL Capital Partners, “in connection with the termination of a management agreement.” It sounds as if KSL, which expects to maintain its majority control, will be the big winner here, at least in the short run. So is ClubCorp’s stock worth buying? Well, the company has a portfolio of 102 well-regarded golf properties (80 of them company owned) with more than 82,000 dues-paying members, and it also owns other city, business, and sports clubs that generate substantial income. According to a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, however, ClubCorp’s golf properties lost 15.5 percent of their members in 2011 and 16.5 percent in 2012. Overall, the company lost $26 million last year. And that debt it wants to pay off? It amounts to $781.5 million. When it comes to an investment in ClubCorp, an investor should hope that past performance doesn’t guarantee future results.

     This will come as a surprise to absolutely nobody, but Dubai Holding has officially pulled the plug on its Tiger Woods-designed golf course. Not a grain of sand has been moved for Al-Ruwaya Golf Club since 2009, and construction was officially halted in 2010. For his trouble, though, Woods pocketed a staggering $55.4 million, and Arabian Business reports that he was to receive an additional $14.6 million when the course opened. Nice money if you can get it. These days, six mostly completed holes are out there somewhere in the desert, gathering dust.

     Peter Harradine, a course designer with an office in Dubai, thinks that the prospects for golf development in the Middle East “have definitely improved” but won’t likely ever match what they were before the Great Recession. “Much of it was commercially unsustainable,” he said in an interview with KPMG’s Golf Advisory Practice. “The fees were crazy. The construction was crazy. The returns, even in the good days, would never have warranted that type of expenditure.” If the Middle East expects to thrive as a golf market, he believes, it needs to divorce itself from residential development and start building affordable tracks that can generate indigenous growth. “For the overall good of the game and business,” he says, “we need more people to be playing golf in the developing golf countries.” No doubt, building a sustainable golf industry isn’t as easy as Harradine suggests it is. But as the Middle East has discovered, there’s a limit to how far wealthy home buyers, fickle tourists, and fly-by corporate executives can take us.

     The friendly persuaders at Troon Golf have convinced city officials in Indian Wells, California to cough up $2.25 million for improvements to the ailing Indian Wells Golf Resort. The resort, which Troon has managed for three years, isn’t profitable, and the city desperately wants to end the losses before it’s bled completely dry. So it’s decided to spend money to make money. “We are on a path literally to failure,” the city’s mayor pro tem, Ted Mertens, acknowledged to the Desert Sun. The financial request was part of a five-year strategic plan that Troon believes will help the 27-year-old resort stand on its own. “We’re really happy the council approved our plan and look forward to making the resort profitable,” the resort’s general manager, Steve Rosen, told the newspaper. Troon plans to spend the money on a new banquet center, renovations, and a marketing campaign that will promote the resort’s to-be-created new name.

     Mike Keiser is going to pay through the nose for the right to build a municipal golf complex south of his property at Bandon Dunes. For 280 acres of state-owned land in the Bandon State Natural Area, the Oregonian reports, Keiser has agreed to give up 208 acres near Bandon Dunes and to pay the state as much as $3.25 million. The Oregon State Parks & Recreation Commission plans to spend $300,000 of Keiser’s money to remove gorse from some of its property in the Bandon area and to spend the rest of it on land purchases, primarily a 6,100-acre spread in Grant County that will become a state park. On top of all that, Keiser is obligated to pay for the design and construction of the planned Gil Hanse-designed, 27-hole complex that the state will own. The recreation commission hasn’t yet determined whether this transaction constitutes an “overwhelming public benefit,” which it must do to be approved. It appears to be on track to decide in September.

     Billy Casper Golf is making its presence felt in Winter Haven, Florida. Just weeks after it took over management of the former Lake Region Yacht & Country Club, a private property, BCG has accepted an offer to manage the city’s Willowbrook Golf Course. The five-year contract is one of dozens that BCG has made with municipalities since the onset of the Great Recession. “What we bring to 71 municipalities,” Douglas White of BCG told the Lakeland Ledger, “is the ability for them to get out of the subsidy business and to start putting money into reserves.” The city, which is facing a $3.7 million budget deficit, will pay BCG at least $84,000 annually plus bonuses. It expects to save only $200,000 over the life of the contract.

     As his taste in golf design evolves, Donald Trump is winning new friends. And chief among them is Gil Hanse. “The thing about Donald Trump is that he is passionate and knowledgeable about golf,” Hanse said in an interview with Sport360. “I have been teased a lot that his aesthetics does not necessarily match the one that we portray, but at the core, like us, he wants good golf.” Hanse is working for Trump in both Florida and Dubai, so it’s safe to assume that he doesn’t want to bite the hand that feeds him. Still, two years ago nobody could have predicted that Hanse would get even one commission from Trump, let alone two. “It is an odd partnership, in that we are very opposite,” Hanse concedes. “But at the core, he loves golf, and that is something that is sometimes lost on people.” This unlikely partnership has improved Trump’s image. What’s it done to Hanse’s?

     In September, the most beloved golf course in Phoenix celebrates its 50th birthday. It’s Papago Municipal Golf Course, which was once so popular (110,000 rounds annually) that golfers camped out overnight in their cars to get a tee time, as they do at Bethpage Black. Billy Mayfair learned to play golf there. Movies and television commercials have been shot there. The good old days have long passed, but the Billy Bell-designed track still has dazzling desert vistas and continues to offer a challenge worthy of a Publinks championship. Papago will soon have a private-sector manager, and I’m willing to bet that it’ll be marketed as the crowning jewel of Phoenix golf.

     My search for stars who might popularize golf among young people continues: Last week, heart-throbs Harry Styles and Niall Horan -- they’re the stars of One Direction, the immensely popular British boy band -- were photographed playing a round at National Golf Club of Canada in suburban Toronto. I’m thinking they could be a nice fit for an advertising spot, seeing as how golf has a While We’re Young campaign and One Direction has a song called “Live While We’re Young.” Do you think Styles and Horan could convince teenage girls that golf is cool?

The Pipeline, july 12, 2013

     Grin and bare it: A municipality is Hebei Province plans to invest more than $500 million in a resort that will feature the largest clothing-optional beach in China. Yes, you read that last sentence correctly, and no, I’m not kidding. Luan County, 120 miles east of Beijing, has identified a 1,330-acre site for the to-be-named resort, which will also include a golf course and an equestrian center. If you’re wondering about the popularity of nude beaches in China, you should know that Luan County’s, presuming it’s actually built, will be the first on the mainland. Those who keep track of such attractions say that the nation’s only other one is outside Sanya, on Hainan Island, which has a few golf distractions as well.

     A new lodge opened this season at Roscommon, Michigan’s Forest Dunes Golf Club, and a second golf course may not be far behind. Lew Thompson, who bought the financially struggling property in 2011, is evidently pleased that real estate sales have picked up and is said to be thinking that another 18-hole track could create a Midwestern golf destination. Forest Dunes certainly has a solid foundation to build upon, as its existing Tom Weiskopf-designed course has been ranked among both the state’s and the nation’s top public layouts. Thompson, who made a small fortune in the trucking business, owns a Jack Nicklaus “signature” course in Montrose, Colorado, but for this commission he appears to be leaning toward an architect with minimalist sympathies. The names of Tom Doak, Coore & Crenshaw, and Mike DeVries have been floated.

     It’s taken nearly a decade, but Huffines Communities has begun laying plans to develop the ranch it bought from Meredith Cullen in 2004. The Dallas-based developer is trying to secure water for Cullen Ranch, which the Greenville Herald-Banner says will include 656 single-family houses, a retail/commercial area, a 350-acre lake, and “a 298-acre golf course.” If that number is accurate, Huffines could conceivably build more than 18 holes. The 2,000-acre property, a “one-time hunter’s paradise,” is just west of Quinlan, Texas, not far from Huffines’ Waterview golf community in Rowlett. Huffines also owns Riverside Golf Club, the centerpiece of its Viridian planned community in Grand Prairie.

     A multi-billionaire from Hong Kong is eyeing property in Queensland, Australia for an upscale resort that will cater primarily to Chinese tourists. Tony Fung, the face of one of Asia’s wealthiest families, has optioned 700 waterfront acres north of Cairns where he aims to build a casino, five hotels, vacation houses, what’s been called “the biggest aquarium in the southern hemisphere,” a golf course, and other attractions. The proposal “has the potential to completely reinvigorate the tourism industry in Cairns and Queensland,” a state official told the Sunday Mail. The venture is no sure thing, for Fung -- his full name is Tony Fung Wing Cheung -- must secure approvals from a parade of local and state agencies and pass inspection by Australia’s Foreign Investment Review Board. That being said, Fung has been investing in Queensland for well over a decade -- his holdings reportedly include a ranch and a sugar cane farm -- and he’s rich enough to have friends in high places. Working his corner on the venture in Carins is Rob Borbidge, the premier of Queensland in the mid 1990s.

     The operators of the Channel Tunnel have won a competition to build a golf community in Sangatte Bleriot-Plage, the French end of the undersea passageway. The centerpiece of the to-be-named, 400-acre community will be a tournament-worthy golf course designed by Kyle Phillips, one of golf architecture’s rising stars. Phillips, who apprenticed with Robert Trent Jones, Jr., has created two tracks ranked on Golf Digest’s list of the best courses outside the United States: Yas Links in Abu Dhabi (#24) and Kingsbarns Golf Links in St. Andrews, Scotland (#34). His latest endeavor may never reach such heights, but a consultant to the developers believes it’ll be “France’s first authentic links course.” Groupe Eurotunnel, the publicly traded firm that has a concession on the tunnel through 2086, hopes to break ground on it next year.

     Some information in the preceding post first appeared in the April 2013 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report. 

     A Scottish development group has floated a plan to build a daily-fee links on a farm just 10 miles south of the much-loved golf courses at St. Andrews. The forthcoming course, which will take shape on the Balcarres Estate in Colinsburgh, doesn’t yet have an official name, although the development group’s moniker -- Dumbarnie Links Golf LLP -- may offer a clue. The track will be designed by La Quinta, California-based Clive Clark, an Englishman who played professionally on the European Tour (he was a member of Europe’s Ryder Cup team in 1973) and later served as a golf analyst for the BBC. Clark has designed more than a dozen courses in Great Britain and the United States (in California, Maine, and New Hampshire). Malcolm Campbell, a golf writer and a principal of the LLP, believes that Clark’s track “has the potential to be a world-class addition to Scotland’s collection of classic links courses.”

     After a five-year wait, one of Canada’s best-known architects has finally started to build a links-style golf course within the city limits of Halifax, Nova Scotia. Tom McBroom’s 7,100-yard layout will be the centerpiece of Brunello Estates, a 560-acre community that’s been master-planned to include 3,200 housing units, office and retail space, a spa, a community center, and a variety of recreational attractions, among them an ice-skating rink. Despite Brunello’s density, the Toronto-based designer has described the site he’s been given as having “a sense of grandeur around it” and being “a picture-perfect setting for golf.” McBroom began planning the Links at Brunello in 2008. By then, five of his creations had been named by Golf Digest as Canada’s course of the year, among them the Links at Crowbush Cove on Prince Edward Island (1994), Bell Bay Golf Club in Nova Scotia (1998), and Ridge at Manitou Golf Club in Ontario (2006).

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

     Thanks to lobbying by local residents, a land-use plan being created in Doniphan, Nebraska may allocate roughly 140 acres for an 18-hole golf course. As part of the effort, according to the Grand Island Independent, the members of a recently created golf course committee have met with “a course planner” in an effort to persuade city officials of the course’s viability.

     Painfully slowly, and perhaps unnecessarily, private golf clubs are making their way into Russia’s largest cities. The latest metropolis to take a spot in the pipeline is Leningrad, where United Development Group plans to build Burnaya Golf Park. The golf course will anchor a 225-acre spread that’s expected to include about three dozen houses, a hotel, a wildlife park, and, in a nod to the mother country, what a Russian newspaper calls “a military-patriotic park.” United, which keeps a low profile, hopes to feel the Burnaya in 2016.

The Week That Was, july 7, 2013

     Exactly how committed is Gil Hanse to minimalist principles? I raise the issue because the Donald Trump-endorsed architect has decided to go full-tilt maximalist with his forthcoming course in Dubai. “I’d be lying if I say that we are going to have a minimalistic approach to this golf course,” he told Sport360 after a recent two-day site visit. “We will have to be very creative, but we will have to move a lot of earth.” The site, alas, is a flat, nearly featureless expanse of desert, much like the one outside Las Vegas that Tom Fazio turned into Shadow Creek Golf Club. And like Fazio, who is often criticized for taking liberties with a landscape, Hanse intends to create something from nothing. “It represents a different path for what my partner, Jim Wagner, and I have been doing,” Hanse explained. “Most of the golf courses we have built are on great natural sites.... Trump International Dubai will show a side of our creativity to take a site that lacks those natural advantages and to create something very special out of it. It will show another aspect of the talent that we possess.” These are among the compromises that a designer is required to make as his work becomes valued and more lucrative opportunities come his way. A philosophy is one thing, and a paycheck is another.

     The long-simmering debate over men-only golf clubs has heated up again, as Alex Salmond, Scotland’s top government official, told the operators of Muirfield that he wouldn’t attend the Open Championship because of their discriminatory membership policies. Salmond, a serious golfer, also criticized the Royal & Ancient, one of golf’s governing bodies, for awarding the event to a club that prohibits entry to women. “I don’t think it helps the game to have the suggestion of a bias against women,” Salmond said in comments published by the Telegraph. It’s hard to tell if Salmond is expressing genuine moral outrage or simply being politically expedient. But clearly, his protest would have more teeth if he hadn’t agreed to send a junior minister to the tournament in his place.

     The members of Minot Country Club have set a date for the opening of their new golf course and hired OB Sports Management to operate it. The club, which was established in 1928, was wiped out in 2011, when flooding along the Souris River destroyed much of Minot. MCC’s forthcoming Jim Engh-designed golf course, which is taking shape on a different site (one that Engh personally selected), is scheduled to open in late 2014. OB Sports manages nearly 40 golf properties in Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, and 11 other states, but MCC is its only one in North Dakota. Incidentally, MCC sold its original property to a local group that’s restoring the golf course and hopes to reopen it, as the 28 Club, this summer.

     The recent floods in southern Alberta, Canada have taken their toll on some of the province’s golf courses. The Edmonton Journal reports that both of the 18-hole tracks at Kananaskis Country Golf Course, a provincial complex in suburban Calgary, will be closed for the rest of the season (and probably longer), while the fate of as many as 10 other properties in and around Calgary -- among them Inglewood Golf & Curling Club, Glencoe Golf & Country Club, Redwood Meadows Golf & Country Club, Valley Ridge Golf Club, and McKenzie Meadows Golf Club -- is up in the air. All of the courses suffered significant damage during what the Journal describes as “the worst flood in Alberta history.”

     This year, an estimated 1 million tourists may take golf holidays in Southeast Asia. The estimate comes from Golfasian, the region’s top tour operator, which notes that the vast majority of the travelers (85 percent) are booking trips to Thailand and Vietnam. Mark Siegel, the firm’s founder, reports that he’s seeing increased demand for trips to Malaysia and Cambodia as well.

     Sierra Golf Management has agreed to take over interim management of Apple Valley, California’s municipal golf course, with an eye toward completing a long-term contract. The course, which the town has owned since 2011, is in a $1.5 million financial hole, but Sierra believes it can boost its fortunes. “We are 100 percent confident that we can make a positive difference in the facility and the golf course bottom line,” said Jeff Christensen, Sierra’s president, to the Victorville Daily Press. The company’s revival plan includes improvements in marketing and service as well as future upgrades to the William F. Bell-designed golf course.

     Now that the PGA Tour has rendered its verdict on anchored putting, Harry Manion is plotting his next move. As I reported last week, nine PGA pros have retained the Boston-based lawyer to defend their right to use so-called belly putters. “It could be all nine decide just to accept the decision, it could be somebody might want to do something,” Manion said to the Boston Globe. “Each golfer now has to decide what he wants to do, in light of the fact that the tour has acted.” Manion and his clients have until January 2016, when the new rules take effect, to make their case.

     The over-praised While We’re Young campaign has been grabbing a lot of the headlines, but the United States Golf Association isn’t the only taste-maker in our business that’s trying to address pace-of-play issues. Golf Digest is collaborating with the PGA of America and other groups to promote Time for Nine, a well-intentioned but fundamentally flawed idea (a shorter round isn’t necessarily a better round), and the non-profit Three/45 Golf Association, which takes its name from what it believes is the length of an ideal round, is trying to collect pledges from golfers with a need for speed. Most recently, Troon has unveiled its Troon Values Your Time program, which establishes time standards and delivers a series of gentle reminders to golfers about heeding them. My question to all of these groups: What took you so long?

     The While We’re Young advertising effort got old fast for some U.S. course owners and operators. In promoting the initiative, the United States Golf Association laid some of the blame for slow play on course owners and operators who don’t set up their courses property and try to pack them with too many golfers at the same time. Them was fighting words to Joe Munsch, the president of Eagle Golf, who promptly fired off a letter of objection to Glen Nager, the president of the USGA. Here’s the gist of Munsch’s complaint:
     As the president of a company that manages and operates golf facilities across the United States, we recognize that pace of [play] is one of the game’s biggest problems. I have been very critical of the USGA in the past because I think the organization is out of touch with the real world of golf and the need to grow the game and make it more fun. And last Sunday, the ideas expressed in your interview further support my argument. 
     You said the game at the recreational level needs to be fun. You said golf course operators need to slow down green speeds, lower rough heights, widen fairways, and generally make the courses more playable. These comments suggest you have not recently visited a course that was not set up for one of your tournaments, because golf course operators have understood these issues and done these things for years. 
     You further stated that the professional game is not the standard for the recreational game and that the recreational level needs to have a different paradigm. Those thoughts are surprising coming from an organization that recently ruled to ban the anchored putter, created unnecessary controversy when Callaway introduced the ‘non-conforming driver,’ and often frowns on the improved travel distances of today’s golf balls. 
     I am left to wonder what exactly is the different ‘paradigm’ sought by the USGA. Most, if not all, of the organization’s recent applicable rulings attempt to make the game more difficult and less fun to play. 
     Most disturbing to me was when you called for recreational golfers to visit your web site and unite with the USGA to send a message to the golf industry that the game needs [to] change and become more fun. 
     Those of us on the front lines of the golf industry have understood this for years. Our courses don’t have six-inch rough, 530-yard par 4s, and 270-yard par 3s. The best golfers in the world were unable to break par at your tournament once again, and nothing about the course setup looked fun to me or to the golfers, based on their comments and on-course reactions throughout the week. 
     In the golf industry, we fight, scratch, and claw to get golfers out to our courses. If they don’t have fun, they don’t come back. We have known for years that time is a factor. I am glad the USGA has finally come to this realization as well. 
     Welcome, at last, to the real golf industry. Here, the golf ball doesn’t go too far, short courses are not obsolete, the golf clubs are not too forgiving, and even the recreational golfer enjoys an occasional birdie. . . .

Operations, july 5, 2013

     The new owners of the Cliffs Communities in the Carolinas don’t appear to be as committed to golf as the original owners were. These days, in fact, investors behind Silver Sun Partners are busy perking up their health and wellness centers as well as the menus at their restaurants. “We believe food is going to be the new golf,” says Davis Senza, the CEO of the Cliffs’ management group. The strategy may be resonating with prospects, because the Asheville Citizen-Times reports that the Cliffs’ membership rolls have grown from 1,970 to 2,700 in the year since the seven-property chain emerged from bankruptcy protection.

     A veritable who’s who of management companies is vying for the opportunity to manage the city of Tucson, Arizona’s five golf properties. The city has whittled 15 original applicants down to seven: Billy Casper Golf, CourseCo, Foresight Golf, KemperSports Management, Kitson & Partners, OB Sports Management (KVOA-TV identifies it as “the frontrunner”), and Southern California Golf. All seven have all promised to improve course conditions, customer service, and marketing. But larger questions remain. In particular, the city wants to know how the companies plan to pay for overdue capital improvements to the properties. And some of the city’s golfers want to know if they plan to close two courses, Fred Enke and El Rio, that have long been swimming in red ink. A winner will be named later this year.

     The city of Phoenix, Arizona, the owner of a half-dozen financially challenged golf properties, has endorsed a plan to seek private-sector management. Sometime this summer, according to the Arizona Republic, the city will request proposals for the operation of five courses. The sixth course, Papago Golf Course -- it’s the city’s premier golf property -- will be outsourced separately. Deep-pocketed bidders will likely get special consideration, seeing as how the courses need substantial capital improvements and city’s golf enterprise fund will soon be $17 million in the hole.

     A private club in suburban Denver, Colorado has hired Billy Casper Golf to lay the foundation for its future. BCG has pretty much assumed total control of The Golf Club at Ravenna, which features a Jay Morrish-designed that’s been cited for excellence several times since it opened in 2006. “Our mandate is to leave no stone unturned, so members feel a vibrant sense of activity and belonging,” said Peter Hill, BCG’s CEO, in a press release. BCG operates more than 140 U.S. golf facilities, but Ravenna is its only property in Colorado.

     Greenway Golf Management has begun tending to the turf at Grand Palms Hotel & Golf Resort in Pembroke Pines, Florida. Bidders for such contracts all provide essentially the same service -- “They fertilize, cut, and water,” the property’s general manager said in a press release -- but Greenway distinguished itself by providing something more: “A unique plan to take Grand Palms to the next level.” The plan involves an immediate regrassing of the 27-hole complex’s fairways, followed by improvements to tees and greens. Greenway is conducting similar programs at its other properties in Florida, Bonaventure Country Club in Weston and Davie Golf & Country Club in Fort Lauderdale.

     To understand the challenges posed by “the new normal,” consider the nature of the turnaround taking place at Valley Oaks Golf Course in Visalia, California. The good news is that CourseCo appears to have reversed a decline in the number of rounds played annually at the 27-hole municipal complex. The city believes Valley Oaks will attract more than 64,000 rounds this fiscal year, up from 62,500 in 2011-12, and CourseCo predicts increases of about 2 percent a year over the next five years. The trouble is, at such a rate of growth it’ll be more than a decade before the complex can again match the 77,100 rounds it rang up in 2007-08. Joni Mitchell was right: You don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone.

     This summer, the state of Georgia will turn over five of its parks to private-sector management. Coral Hospitality has agreed to take control of the properties, two of which -- George T. Bagby State Park and Little Ocmulgee State Park -- include golf courses that haven’t shown a profit for at least five years. Coral has some experience in course management, as it’s operated tracks in two other Georgia state parks for the past decade.

     A nagging problem has resurfaced in Prescott, Arizona. Antelope Hills Golf Course, a 36-hole municipal complex, continues to operate at a deficit, and profits aren’t expected anytime soon. “We anticipate that at some time in the future it’s going to be contracted out,” a city official told the Prescott Daily Courier. “The only question is when, and whether it’s a part of something much larger.” The “something much larger” may involve closing nine of the complex’s holes and turning the complementary nine into an executive-length track.