The Pipeline, november 8, 2013

     Borrowing an idea from its European counterpart, the Asian Tour has set out to bring what it calls “a new type of lifestyle” to Vietnam. The lifestyle will emerge at Dalat at 1200, a resort community in Dalat, “the city of eternal spring,” and it’ll be accompanied by an 18-hole, championship-caliber golf course. The course has been designed by Kyi Hla Han, a professional golfer from Myanmar who was a star on the Asian Tour in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Today, he serves as the tour’s executive chairman. Tang Kay Hwa of Centurion Group Development, the tour’s development partner, has said that Dalat at 1200 will be “a resort where you can get back to nature to de-stress and re-charge.” The community is the initial venture in the tour’s planned Asian Tour Destination network, which aims to create a collection of upscale golf communities whose identity is closely connected to the tour and which may host professional events. The European Tour has established a similar network of eight “destination” communities in England, France, Germany, Austria, Spain, and Holland, and it’s always looking to add more.

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

     A fatiguing economy and a moratorium on golf construction have clearly put a chill on the formerly white-hot golf development industry in China. Richard Mandell, a North Carolina-based architect, believes that, despite the hype, there are no more than 50 to 75 courses currently under construction in the People’s Republic. “I don’t think there’s much breaking ground right now,” he says. “It’s never been growing as fast as people who haven’t been there thought it was.” Mandell continues to find opportunities, however. The first 18 at his Skydoor Golf Club in Zhangjiajie, Hunan is open, and its owners plan to break ground on a third nine any day now. What’s more, Mandell has agreed to design two other courses in China. In other words, since the most recent moratorium took effect in 2011, Mandell has completed one course and put himself in position to design two others. “If you have the right connections and money,” he notes, “you can get a project permitted.”

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

     Some of China’s most promising golfers will soon be training at a Greg Norman Champions Golf Academy in Georgia. In his capacity as an adviser to China’s national golf team, Norman expects Olympic hopefuls to make regular visits to practice facilities that he’s designed, including a forthcoming venue at the LakePoint Sporting Community in Emerson, a town roughly 50 miles northwest of Atlanta. “I could not think of a better place for GNCGA to build our second golf academy in the United States,” Norman said in a press release. The 30-acre practice center, which is scheduled to open in late 2014, will feature a nine-hole, par-3 course and a Norman-branded bar and restaurant. Last year, Norman opened a similar facility in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

     The first private golf club in St. Andrews, Scotland will likely be the most expensive member-owned golf property in Great Britain. St. Andrews International Golf Club, which will feature a 19-hole, Tom Weiskopf-designed layout, has priced its initiation fees as high as £200,000 ($320,000), an amount far beyond the reach of most Scots. “The market for this place is basically people resident some distance away, more than likely overseas,” a spokesman for the club told the Dundee Courier. “We’ve had big interest from Asia in particular.” St. Andrews International’s developers hope to attract 500 members. Those who choose to pay top dollar for the privilege can stay in the club’s accommodations for three weeks annually, and they’ll be guaranteed a room whenever the Open Championship is played at the Old Course. The club is expected to open in 2016.

     Economic sanctions may derail Iran’s nuclear ambitions, but its golf ambitions remain on track. An 18-hole, Phil Ryan-designed golf course is under construction in suburban Tehran, as the centerpiece of a 3,500-acre, Western-style community that’s being developed by TSI Group. Following an approved but flawed model, TSI will reportedly flank the course with houses, a hotel, a retail/commercial area, schools, and other attractions. “We are now trying to create a new lifestyle for people,” TSI’s president, S. J. Mousavi, told The Business Year. “A large country like Iran needs more residential housing, sports and leisure complexes, and commercial activities.” Other courses have been proposed in Iran, but none have been built. It appears that the nation currently has just one course, a 13-hole track at the Enghelab Sport Complex in Tehran.

     A golf course may soon sprout up next to an all-grass air strip that’s being built in Middleton, New Hampshire. Charles Therriault aims to transform a 200-acre parcel into Therriault’s Landing, which will feature a small hotel, a ballroom, party rooms, a spa, a restaurant, and a bar. “What we’re really doing is being a premier wedding facility,” Therriault told the New Hampshire Union Leader. If he can get his plans approved, Therriault hopes to break ground on the venue in the spring of 2014.

     It took more than a decade, but the members of struggling Lonsdale Golf Club have secured permission to redevelop part of their golf course. “It’s been quite a journey,” Ross McKenzie, the leader of the club’s redevelopment effort, told the Surf Coast Times. The club, in Victoria, Australia, plans to relocate four of the course’s 18 holes, to create room for 100 houses. It believes that the income from the lot sales will ensure its financial future. The redesign will be overseen by Michael Clayton, who co-designed (with Tom Doak) the original course at Barnbougle Dunes. Clayton will likely have time to take on several other assignments before he turns his attention to Lonsdale, however, because the club thinks it’ll take four years before it generates enough money to build the new holes and make other improvements to the layout.

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

     One more year: That’s how long Talisker Corporation has to complete the golf course at the Canyons, one of the ski resorts in Park City, Utah. The course was originally supposed to open in 2002, back when the Canyons was owned by American Skiing Corporation and before acrimony and litigation gummed up what little progress had been made. Deadlines have come and gone, including one that called for the course to open this fall. Now Summit County has agreed to another extension, mostly because it had no other options. Gene Bates has transformed the track, which had been originally planned as a 6,200-yard resort course, into what’s been described as a “dramatic 7,000-yard mountain golf course with spectacular views and very memorable holes.” Talisker’s new deadline is September 2014. Let’s hope the course is worth the wait.