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. . . .