The Pipeline, august 9, 2013

     With the development of TPC Beijing looking more and more like a lost cause, the PGA Tour has settled on a new location for its first golf property in the People’s Republic. The tour is negotiating with an unnamed group to establish the facility in Shanghai, the world’s largest city and an appropriate stage for high-profile professional tournaments. The centerpiece of TPC Shanghai will be a golf course designed by Robert Trent Jones, Jr., and construction is set to begin as soon contracts are signed. What all this means is that TPC Beijing, which was to feature a Gil Hanse-designed course, is on its way to becoming a distant memory. “It’s pretty much a non-existing project,” reports Steve Wenzloff, the tour’s vice president of design services. Presuming it actually comes to life, TPC Shanghai will be just the second Tournament Players Club to be licensed outside the United States. The other one is in Cancun, Mexico.

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

     The new owners of Rochester Place Golf Club, in Belle River, Ontario, have hired Jeff Mingay to scope out forthcoming improvements to their 18-hole golf course. Paul St. Pierre and his brother, Guy, believe that Mingay, an architect with minimalist sympathies, can put the 34-year-old course “on par with some of the region’s best golf clubs,” says the Windsor Star. Paul St. Pierre told the newspaper that Mingay will “develop the entire new look of the course” and that “it’s going to be pretty easy for us to make this an interesting golf course.” Mingay, who’s based in nearby Windsor, apprenticed with Rod Whitman and has had a hand in several high-profile Canadian courses, including Sagebrush Golf & Sporting Club in British Columbia and Cabot Links in Nova Scotia.

     The property owners at Old Bahama Bay say that their Arnold Palmer-designed course is getting “rave reviews” from their friends and neighbors who’ve given it a test run. And while they still don’t know when the long overdue course will open to the public, they promise that it’ll eventually be “the crown jewel of Caribbean golf.” Old Bahama Bay, which occupies 225 acres in a remote part of Grand Bahama Island, was once part of Ginn sur Mer, a venture that flamed out with the rest of Bobby Ginn’s mini-empire. Once upon a time, Palmer’s course was to be complemented by a Jack Nicklaus “signature” layout, but these days that venture feels like a dream that will never come true.

     What’s India’s next major golf destination? The state of Gujarat, if you believe the Indian Golf Union. These days Gujarat has 14 courses, according to the Times of India, but the IGU, as part of its mission to grow the game, hopes state officials can be persuaded to allocate land for the development of several new public layouts. “Gujarat is definitely taking a lead in golf,” the IGU’s director general, A Parmar, told the newspaper. “Golfing activities have picked up in the state, with youngsters showing keen interest in the sport.” Before the state makes property available, however, the IGU needs to overcome a major obstacle: golf’s image in India. The Times, like virtually all of India’s media, believes golf is “the game rich people play,” and government officials are always reluctant to support such enterprises.

     Government officials in Vietnam have updated the nation’s golf inventory. Vietnam currently has 29 operating courses, they say, along with 22 under construction and 29 others that have been approved but not yet begun. The nation’s agreed-upon limit is 90 courses.

     Subrata Roy, the Indian billionaire, dispatched underlings to Macedonia last month, to hammer out details related to the “Dubai-like summer resort complex” he aims to build on 600 acres in and around the village of Ljubanista, near Lake Ohrid. The nation’s finance minister didn’t appear to be especially pleased with the outcome of the meetings -- “We’ve managed to solve some dilemmas and to reach an agreement on certain things,” he noted dryly -- but he nonetheless believes that construction will begin next year. Roy’s venture, which Radio Free Europe has described as being “opulent and ambitious,” is being called Saharayan Makeeduniya, or Saharaja Macedonia. At build-out, it’ll include several casinos and “world-class hotels” (including a “floating hotel”), a lakefront entertainment district, houses, a marina, a spa, and an “international-standard” golf course.

     Some information in the previous post originally appeared in the January 2013 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.

     In Heath, Texas, an eastern suburb of Dallas, a 791-acre resort community is winding its way through the entitlement process. “What we’re trying to do here,” a councilmember told the Rockwall Herald Banner, “is come up with a first-class development.” Heath Golf & Yacht Club, which has frontage along Lake Ray Hubbard, has been master-planned to include 1,227 housing units and a 27-hole golf complex. Its developer, Rob Whittle, had hoped to break ground on the community this fall, but he’s received resistance from residents who object to the amount of public money that would be invested into his venture. In response, the city has taken the bold move of delaying its vote on the public improvement district that Whittle wants it to create.

     This fall, after at least four years in the entitlement process, Leonhard Astl hopes to finally break ground on his 18-hole golf course in Walchsee, Austria. Moarhof Golf Club will take shape in a grassy mountain valley roughly 40 miles west of Salzburg, on property leased from farmers. Scot Sherman, one of the course’s co-designers, has called the site “one of the most beautiful I have ever seen anywhere,” and he believes the course can be built without moving a lot of earth. “We are lucky to work with land where many golf holes are just there,” he noted in a press release. Sherman and his design partner, Swedish golf pro Anders Forsbrand, expect the construction to stretch over several seasons.

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

     Any day now, the Nicklaus Design course at Penati Golf Resort in Slovakia will get a companion: a layout designed by Jonathan Davison of Create Golf. Penati, which was originally called Gold Golf & Country Club, is emerging on 300 acres in Senica, a town roughly 60 miles north of Bratislava, the nation’s capital, and it aims to become “the best golf resort in Central Europe.” Last fall, Davison said that his course was taking shape on property that has “every ingredient a golf course architect dreams about,” including a sand base, and that it would “leave a lasting impression on anyone who plays it.” If the Slovak Golf Association’s accounting is accurate, Penati is the nation’s 12th golf property.