The Week That Was, august 11, 2013

     The people who conceived and aired professional ice hockey’s failed experiment with a glowing blue puck have come to the golf business. As part of an effort to stock its forthcoming sports network with live programming, Fox Sports has purchased the rights to broadcast the U.S. Golf Association’s national championships, including the U.S. Open, the U.S. Women’s Open, and the U.S. Senior Open. The contract, which runs for 12 years, begins in 2015. “The decision is consistent with our strategy for delivering golf in new and innovative ways, which can be achieved with a partner that has a completely fresh perspective on the game,” a spokesperson for the USGA wrote in an e-mail to the Associated Press. More importantly, Fox Sports put enough money on the table to get the USGA’s complete attention. The exact amount hasn’t been announced, although some reports say it could be $100 million a year, an amount that dwarfs what the USGA has been collecting. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel says that the USGA’s current television partners, NBC Sports and ESPN, are paying roughly $37 million annually, while other news sources estimate the number to be in the neighborhood of $50 million. Is it too soon to wonder exactly how the USGA will spend the money from this windfall?

     You could see this one coming a mile away: Fox Sports wants Greg Norman, who never met a camera he didn’t like, to be the face of its golf programming. “Yes, they have offered me the job,” Norman wrote in an e-mail to Golf Digest. Norman, whose conservative politics and steadfast support for freewheeling capitalism have made him a Fox favorite, is said to be in the midst of contract negotiations. Don’t expect a hitch, because these guys were made for each other.

     The number of rounds played at U.S. golf facilities during the first half of this year was down by 9.7 percent from the number posted in 2012. Every type of golf facility -- private courses, daily fee courses, resort courses, municipal courses -- showed a decline in play, according to PGA PerformanceTrak, and the industry’s overall revenues were down by 6.9 percent. Only six states, five of them western states, managed to register increases in the number of rounds played. “It is clear the below-average weather at the start of the typical golf season had an impact on year-to-date performance,” the group’s June newsletter concludes. Where do we go from here?

     If you thought Donald Trump’s golden touch and impeccable taste were all Doral needed to restore its fading image, maybe you don’t appreciate how great the place would be with a smoke-filled, whiskey-scented casino. “If gambling ever comes to Florida,” Trump told the Tampa Bay Times, “Doral is the single best location.” The PGA Tour may not agree, but Trump will cross that bridge when he comes to it. For now, he’s put a well-connected lobbyist on retainer to present his case to the state’s legislators. “If Miami doesn’t do casinos,” Trump believes, “that would be a terrible mistake.” You stay classy, Donald Trump.

     GolfNow, the Golf Channel’s tee-time reservation service, is growing the old-fashioned way: by buying up its competitors. GolfNow has purchased a British service, BRS Golf, which reportedly books for more than 750 golf properties in the United Kingdom and Ireland. GolfNow works for more than 5,000 golf courses in six countries and says that it took reservations for more than 8 million rounds of golf last year. “The addition of BRS Golf represents a significant step in expanding GolfNow’s ability to help golf courses market and operate more efficiently,” Jeff Foster of GolfNow said in a press release. The terms of the transaction are being kept secret. Online discounters such as GolfNow and BRS account for 14 percent of the tee times booked these days, according to Forbes, a number that suggests a myriad of opportunities for growth. My question: Are they helping the world’s courses stay financially afloat or slowly sinking them?

     Golfsmith International has licensed the use of its name to a company that wants to open a few golf retail shops in and around Seoul, Korea. The local partner is Golfzon Company, a manufacturer of golf simulators that’s now apparently looking to diversify. “We look forward to a long and prosperous partnership that will deliver a unique customer experience,” Golfzon’s CEO, Kim Young-chan, said in a press release. Unfortunately, the prospects for golf retailing in South Korea aren’t nearly as bright as they used to be. Thanks to an ailing economy and an aging population, South Koreans are playing less than they used to, and that inevitably translates into fewer sales of equipment and apparel. Could this venture be a classic example of a company being a day late and a dollar short?

     A 710-acre site in the Whitsundays, a gateway to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef and other vacation destinations on coastal Queensland, is slated to become a resort community with an 18-hole golf course. The community will be called Regatta Waters, and it’ll have an 18-hole golf course designed by Graham Papworth. Links Living, the property’s previous owner, had hired Papworth to design the golf course for a community it was calling Whitsunday Springs. The Whitsunday Times says that Papworth’s challenge at Regatta Waters will be “to strike a balance between providing a rewarding golfing experience with the demands of the surrounding residential community.” The demands may be substantial, for Latitude aims to build as many as 2,500 housing units.

     Some information in the preceding post originally appeared in the May 2013 and June 2013 issues of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.

     By and large, the first course at Trump International Golf Links Scotland has received favorable, even enthusiastic reviews. But that was before John Paul Newport of the Wall Street Journal made his tee time. Newport has some quibbles with a few aspects of Martin Hawtree’s design, but his true gripe is with the owner’s quest to create a flawless layout. “My main issue is that Trump International isn’t a quirky little ancient links,” he writes. “One of the main joys of playing golf in Scotland is to escape the American-style obsession with trying to make everything perfect as possible.” The way Newport sees it, Trump International’s course comes up short when compared with many ancient Scottish links -- Cruden Bay, Royal Dornoch, and North Berwick among them -- as well as a few courses of recent vintage, namely Kingsbarns, Castle Stuart, and Renaissance Club. While some may think it’s the world’s greatest golf course, for Newport it’s not even the best course in Aberdeenshire.

     It’s been a nearly month since the Royal & Ancient promised to review its policy on whether all-male clubs -- Muirfield, Royal Troon, Royal St. George’s -- should be rewarded with golf’s premier professional events, in particular the Open Championship. “We will have a good look at what people are saying and try to take a view about all of this and find the most sensible way forward,” Peter Dawson, the organization’s main decider, said in a comment published by USA Today. So far, though, we haven’t heard a peep from the R&A on this issue. Dawson is probably working on it really diligently, though.