The Week That Was, december 23, 2013

     More than 100 members of Japan’s Professional Golfers Association have lost their jobs in the wake of a scandal involving two of the group’s top executives. The executives had played golf and shared a meal with the head of an organized crime group earlier this year, and they were dismissed in October. Now, the PGA has effectively cleaned house, as its chairman, its four vice chairmen, 20 board members, and all 91 of its area representatives have resigned en masse. The officials reportedly took the action to restore public trust in the PGA. “We take the matter very seriously,” the group’s current vice chairman said in a comment published by the Guardian. “We want to do our utmost to prevent something similar from happening again.” A new slate of officials will be elected next month.

     The Indian government may discipline some of the nation’s top army officials, who’ve been accused by a public-accounts committee of building as many as 90 golf courses on properties that were supposed to be used exclusively for military training purposes. The committee also appears to be ticked off that the army sold golf memberships to civilians and foreign diplomats and pocketed the revenues generated by the courses. “The committee deplores the gross misuse of golf courses and recommends that [the] entire policy of golf courses be revisited and remedial action be taken to ensure that facilities for armed forces personnel are not abused in any manner,” the committee’s report concluded. The committee has recommended that India’s defense ministry hold an inquiry and make the officers involved accountable.

     The city of Midland, Michigan hopes that Billy Casper Golf can heal its ailing golf course. BCG will take over management of Currie Municipal Golf Course, a 45-hole facility, on January 1. Currie has posted losses in four of the past five fiscal years and is currently almost $2.1 million in the hole. Rounds have fallen from nearly 60,000 in 2008 to less than 40,000 in 2013. According to a report by WSGW News Radio, however, BCG has promised to turn a profit within five years.

     A Raleigh, North Carolina-based investment group has purchased Grande Dunes, a golf community in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina that was begun by Burroughs & Chapin just after the turn of the most recent century. For an undisclosed price, LStar Management has acquired a 2,200-acre spread that includes, among other things, a marina, a waterfront café, 770 acres of developable property, and an 18-hole, Nick Price “signature” golf course. (The track, which is private, was co-designed by Craig Schreiner.) “It’s really a one-of-a-kind facility,” LStar’s managing partner, Steve Vining, said to the Myrtle Beach Sun News. “It was just a great opportunity, frankly.” LStar has appointed McConnell Golf to oversee the golf course and other operations at Grande Dunes. McConnell owns seven golf properties in the Carolinas (among them Treyburn Country Club in Durham, North Carolina and Musgrove Mill Golf Club in Clinton, South Carolina) but the contract at Grande Dunes is the first for its recently established management wing. LStar didn’t buy Grande Dunes’ 18-hole Resort course, which is still owned by B&C.

     ClubCorp has also completed an end-of-year transaction, picking up Chantilly National Golf & Country Club in Washington, DC’s Virginia suburbs. The seller was Wimsatt Farms, an entity based in Kentucky. ClubCorp prides itself on “building relationships and enriching lives,” a phrase it saw fit to trademark. The publicly traded firm has promised to upgrade Chantilly National’s Ed Ault-designed course, which opened in 1960 and was remodeled by P.B. Dye in the early 1990s. Eric Affeldt, ClubCorp’s president CEO, said that the purchase and the forthcoming renovations demonstrate the firm’s “strategic pursuit of growing through value-enhancing acquisitions, reinvention through capital investments, and adding reciprocal benefits for our more than 370,000 members.” Chantilly National, which calls itself “a place you call home,” is the third golf property that ClubCorp has purchased this year. The others: Oak Tree Country Club in Edmond, Oklahoma and Cherry Valley Country Club in Skillman, New Jersey.

     Like a latter-day Friedrich Nietsche, the head of the Scottish Golf Union believes that what doesn’t kill a golf club makes it stronger. Hamish Grey, the union’s long-time CEO, has seen many members go out of business since the onset of the Great Recession, and he concedes that others will follow. But he aims to slow the losses by persuading the union’s 576 remaining clubs to adopt business practices that can maintain their financial health. “Clubs are now having to ask themselves, How can we run ourselves better?” he said in a conversation with the Scotsman. “If clubs can get their houses in order in these tough times, then they can come out in a much stronger position on the other side.” In particular, Grey is urging the union’s members to market themselves aggressively, create more welcoming environments for prospective new members, and replace one-size-fits-all membership plans with a range of flexible options tailored to their prospects’ needs. Still, however, the losses mount. Grey has a big job ahead of him.

     The new owners of Woods Valley Golf Club, in Valley Center, California, aim to offer their customers “a cleaner course, and a course that’s in better condition.” The San Pasqual Band of Mission Indians, which purchased Woods Valley in October, will make unspecified improvements to the club’s 10-year-old, Dave Ginkel-designed layout and, within two years, build a new clubhouse. In addition, in the hope of creating “a more professional atmosphere,” it’s installed JC Resorts as the club’s manager. “Our plan is to put a little money into this course, because we want to be one of the top golf courses in San Diego,” the president of the tribe’s economic development agency told the Valley Roadrunner. Among the items on the to-do list: The tribe aims to get all seven of the layout’s waterfalls working again. At this time, only three are said to be operational.