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?