The Week That Was, december 8, 2013

     Welcome to the National Golf Foundation’s new, redefined era of golf! Before the Great Recession began to suck the life out of the U.S. golf industry, the NGF believed that quantifiable statistics -- the number of rounds played in a given year, for example -- accurately reflected truths about the state of our business. Today, however, the group is focusing less on the cruel, sharp edge of hard numbers and more on an ambiguous concept: the love of the game. It’s suggested that we measure our relative health by our customers’ “commitment to the game as opposed to their frequency of play.” And guess what: This alternate balance sheet offers plenty to be optimistic about. As the NGF cheerfully notes, there are “many more committed golfers than you would be led to believe existed by looking only at frequency of play.” In addition, nearly 60 percent of the golfers who play fewer than eight times annually are in actuality committed golfers who “just don’t play very often.” The NGF deserves credit for thinking outside the box. Unfortunately, the nation’s course owners and operators remain trapped in the nitty-gritty of dollars and cents.

     When it comes to China and golf, it’s often difficult to distinguish between truth and fiction. Asia Golf Monthly, for instance, reports that China currently has “over 5 million” golfers, an absurdly high estimate. Most sources suggest that the actual number is closer to 1 million, and the director of Troon Golf’s operations in Asia believes it might be in the neighborhood of 700,000. The magazine doesn’t offer a source for its inflated estimate, but the likely culprit is Ken Chu, the CEO of Mission Hills Group, who gave the keynote address at the recent Asia Pacific Golf Summit. In his speech, Chu claimed that the number of existing golf courses in the People’s Republic now “exceeds 900.” Most everyone else thinks 600 is a more accurate reflection of reality.

     Via an entity called Borriol Golf, Sergio Garcia has taken control of the beleaguered private club where he learned to play golf. Details are sketchy, but the Spanish golf star and some partners (including Rafael Nadal, the world’s top-ranked tennis professional) have agreed to lease Golf Club La Coma, in Valencia, with an option to buy. The club is deeply in debt and had been in danger of extinction before Garcia stepped up. Since 2008, it’s reportedly lost more than half of its 1,300 members.

     Greg Coffey’s on-again, off-again golf venture appears to be on again. In mid 2012, the retired hedge-fund manager hired Bob Harrison to design a links course on a coastal slice of his 11,668-acre Ardfin Estate, which lies along the southeastern coast of Scotland’s Jura Island, in the Inner Hebrides. Earlier this year Coffey abruptly abandoned his development efforts and gave no explanation for why he did so, but now he’s lodged a formal application with local planning officials. He hasn’t provided any details about his new plans, and one of his representatives has said that “we are not discussing anything about it.” Harrison spent the better part of two decades serving as the “ghost” architect in Greg Norman’s Australian practice and is largely responsible for its best work. When he won the commission, he said that “nothing I’ve seen anywhere in the world competes with the sheer beauty of the Jura site.”

     In Western Australia, global climate change is having an impact on waterfront golf development. Responding to revised predictions about rising oceans and the likely loss of coastal real estate, state officials have decided to re-evaluate the amount of land allotted for development at the Western Australia Beach & Golf Resort. The community has been master-planned to include nearly 800 houses and overnight accommodations, a marina, and a nine-hole golf course, but its footprint will almost certainly shrink. State planning officials believe the waters off the community, in Port Kennedy, will rise by nearly a meter over the next century. According to the West Australian, the Western Australia Beach & Golf Resort is “the first development to be affected by new sea level predictions.”

     After two years of management by its member/owners, Loch Lomond Golf Club appears to be finding its financial bearings. In 2011, when the exclusive Scottish club was on the brink of insolvency, it was in a £132 million ($215.6 million) hole. Now, according to the Herald, it’s reduced its debt to £37 million ($60.4 million), only £5 million of which ($8.2 million) is owed to banks. The club, which counts Sean Connery among its members, reportedly has an initiation fee of £70,000 ($114,000).

     A development group in the Catskills has floated a proposal to build a casino-centered resort community that will be complemented by an 18-hole golf course. Robert Berman and Joe Bernstein, operating as RH Land Development, want to build the Catskills Entertainment City & Casino Resort on 527 acres in Rock Hill, New York. In addition to the casino and golf course, the community will feature a hotel, several live theaters, a Catskills Comedy Hall of Fame, and what the Times Herald-Record describes as “a Woodstock Revival.” RH Land is one of at least five groups vying for one of four casino licenses that will be issued in northern New York. The winners will be chosen next summer, according to the newspaper.

     Africa is beginning to make a name for itself as a golf destination. More than 1.6 million people took a golf vacation in 2012, according to the International Golf Tour Operators Association, and 320,000 of them (20 percent) visited Africa. The fastest-growing nations on the continent are said to be Kenya and Nigeria. All in all, golf travelers spent $2 billion last year.