The Week That Was, march 31, 2013

     If you look closely, you can see the steam escaping from Donald Trump’s ears. Despite his incessant threats, last week the Scottish government approved an off-shore wind farm that will take shape within view of Trump International Golf Links Scotland. Trump



has been bitterly fighting the proposal for months, insisting that the proposed turbines will destroy the beauty of Aberdeenshire’s coast and sink Scotland’s tourism business. Now it appears that he’s willing to spend pretty much whatever it takes to stop the wind farm dead in its tracks. “We will put our future plans in Aberdeen on hold, as will many others, until this ridiculous proposal is defeated,” he said in a comment published by the Scotsman. “Likewise, we will be bringing a lawsuit within the allocated period of time to stop what will definitely be the destruction of Aberdeen and Scotland itself.” It’s hard to predict how this conflict will end. Without question, Trump understands that he can’t create a viable vacation destination with just one golf course. But after drawing such a hard line in the coastal sand, what’s his fallback position? If he does indeed pull the plug on his development plans, who does he really hurt? Or, to ask the question another way, how many enemies will Trump henceforth make in Scotland before he finally admits to being defeated?

     March was chilly, and as a result it doesn’t appear that golf courses in the United States will get the weather-related bump in rounds played that they received in 2012. A case in point is Forest Hills Golf Course in La Crosse, Wisconsin, which WXOW says is “still covered with snow and ice.” Last year, the course opened on March 12. “I think last year we did over 1,600 rounds of golf in the month of March,” the club’s general manager told the television station. “This year is going to be zero.” Golf properties elsewhere in Wisconsin, as well as those in other cold-weather climes, will likewise open later this year. So a critical question moves to center stage: Can an improving economy alone help U.S. golf courses generate more play they did in 2012?

     Lahinch Golf Club is in financial hot water. The world-renowned, 121-year-old club in County Clare, Ireland has lost 500 fee-paying members since 2009, and, in an effort to replace them, it’s sliced its initiation fee from €25,000 (roughly $32,000) to €10,000 ($12,800). Cutting fees is always a dicey strategy, because Lahinch now needs to sign two and a half new members to generate the same income it formerly got from just one. This math problem is especially worrisome because margins at the club, which Herbert Warren Wind once described as “the St. Andrews of Ireland,” have thinned dramatically. Last year, according to the Irish Times, the club’s profits fell by almost half, to €291,947 ($374,300) from €540,231 ($693,000) in 2011.

     The forthcoming Coore & Crenshaw-designed golf course in Dallas, Texas appears to be rolling in membership dough. The promoters of Trinity Forest Golf Club told D magazine that they’ve collected 100 commitments from prospective members, “each with a ballpark $150,000 initiation fee.” If those numbers are accurate, then AT&T, which conceived Trinity Forest as an image enhancer for its golf marketing program, has so far been promised $15 million. Not a bad haul, especially when you consider that the company is only kicking $2.5 million into the venture.

     It’s safe to assume that AT&T hasn’t yet sold a Trinity Forest membership to Don Williams. Williams, a long-time developer -- he’s a former CEO of Trammell Crow Company -- isn’t convinced the club will create as many jobs as AT&T says it will, and he thinks the city of Dallas should invest its $12 million commitment to the club’s construction in more reliable economic-development efforts. “When I first saw it, I looked at it and thought it was the worst use of $12 million that the city could possibly spend,” Williams said in comments published by the Dallas Business Journal. “The last thing we need is another high-end golf course.” Obviously, the city doesn’t agree. It’s promised to kick in its share of the construction costs as soon as AT&T rings up $20 million in membership commitments, an amount that’s already within sight.

     Not often does a writer compare one golf architect’s work directly against another’s. But Jason Scott Deegan recently did so, and he singled out two heavyweights: Jack Nicklaus and Tom Doak. During a golf vacation in New Zealand, Deegan played Nicklaus’ course at Kinloch Club and Doak’s at Cape Kidnappers, and he concluded that “the experience of walking off of both couldn’t have been more different.” Halfway through his round at Kinloch, Deegan said, he “was ready to quit the game.” After playing Cape Kidnappers, however, he was “ready to retire, move to New Zealand, and play golf every day the rest of [his] life.” His verdict: “Doak designs courses that are fun and playable,” while Nicklaus “penalizes even good shots.” Both types of courses have their place, Deegan suggests, but Doak’s fit the current zeitgeist better. Maybe that’s why Doak has his name on four of the top seven layouts listed on Golfweek’s Best Modern Courses for 2013, while Nicklaus has his name on just one. Coincidentally, the one is Sebonack Golf Club in New York, which Nicklaus co-designed with Doak.

     As we wait for Mike Keiser and his partners to break ground on the second course at Cabot Links, consider what course number one has done for the town of Inverness, Nova Scotia. “Stellar coverage in Golf Digest and the New York Times brought the visitors,” writes the Chronicle Herald, “and the spillover effects are waking up the region.” The newspaper’s story is, unfortunately, built exclusively on anecdotal evidence, and it’ll be years before we can do a thorough economic analysis. But the message is clear: Since last summer, when Rod Whitman’s course opened, golf has made a difference on Cape Breton Island.

     Arnold Palmer may believe that the future of golf is in significant ways tied to the 2016 Olympics, but as I intimated recently, many of our contemporaries believe that golf’s appearance at the games in Brazil deserves nothing more than a hearty yawn. Just a couple of weeks ago, after hearing that Gil Hanse’s course was finally under construction, a writer for the National asked a question not often heard in golf circles: “Who cares?” His argument: For any professional golfer, winning a gold medal in the Olympics doesn’t mean nearly as much as winning, say, a green jacket or a Claret Jug. “The ceaseless political histrionics about the Olympic course project outside Rio has become annoying white noise to many,” Steve Elling contends, “just more blather to be ignored for a game whose inclusion as a medal sport was contentious to begin with.” His final request: “Wake me when it’s over.”

     Overwhelmed by work? Bracket busted? Still too cold to play the season’s first round? Maybe you should pour yourself a cold one. But first ask yourself: Did our most ancient ancestors grow grain for beer even before they cultivated it for bread?

The Cold, Hard Facts march 29, 2013

     Slowly but surely, the U.S. golf inventory continues to shrink. In 2012, for the seventh consecutive year, our nation lost more golf courses than it gained. According to the National Golf Foundation, 154.5 “18-hole equivalent” courses closed last year, while only 13.5 “18-hole equivalent” courses opened. As a result, today the United States has 15,619 golf properties. The number of closings has exceeded the number of openings each year since 2006. During that time, the trade group says, the total number of U.S. courses has fallen by 3.3 percent off highs reached in 2004.

     The number of golfers in China -- zero in 1983 -- currently stands at 300,000, according to MICE Now. This is a small number, to be sure, and it represents a mere 0.03 percent of the population in the People’s Republic. But if projections by the China Golf Association hold true, the nation’s golf population will reach 20 million by 2020, a number exceeded only by the United States. To be sure, a nation of 20 million golfers will need a lot more than the 600 courses it currently has, and golf construction in China has been prohibited (except on Hainan Island) since the government imposed a moratorium in 2011. So how effective has the moratorium been? “Many local authorities,” MICE Now notes, “have ignored edicts and continue to approve courses.”

     An Asian travel service believes that Thailand is on the verge of becoming the world’s most popular destination for golf tourism. Thailand attracted 750,000 golf vacationers last year, according to Golfasian, and if the current pace of tourist traffic can be maintained, it’ll overtake Spain, the current leader, in 2015 or 2016. Mark Siegel, the firm’s principal, believes that Thailand will lure more than 860,000 golf travelers this year and hit the 1 million mark in 2015. He credits “the great experience of playing golf in Thailand -- the courses, weather, caddies, tourism infrastructure, friendliness of the people, safety, and cost” -- for the increase. And as for the reign of Spain, in recent years the nation has been losing vacationers not just to Thailand but to Portugal, Turkey, and nations in North Africa and Asia.

     When they go on golf vacations, most U.S. golfers are mostly looking to have fun. In an online survey taken last fall by the Sports & Leisure Research Group, an overwhelming number of respondents -- roughly 1,200 of 1,504, all of them men -- said that “playing a beautiful and well-maintained golf course on my golf vacation is more important to me than playing a challenging one.” The survey also determined that a large majority of respondents (80 percent) choose a destination based on the “quality of golf courses” available, while 69 percent make a decision based on the “variety of golf courses” available. Only 64 percent said that they seek out “challenging golf courses.”

     Among attractions that charge admission, the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail is the biggest draw in Alabama. The 26 courses on the 11-stop trail attracted 592,021 golfers last year, up from 512,044 in 2011. The state’s number-two attraction was the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, which lured 572,650 paying customers.

     The U.S. golf industry generates more money for charities than the four major team sports combined, according to Steve Mona of the World Golf Foundation. In an interview with Golf Digest, Mona reports that golf contributes a total of about $3.9 billion annually. Only a small fraction of the money -- just $150 million -- comes from professional golf tours. The rest comes from 150,000 fundraising events hosted by 12,000 “everyday golf facilities,” as Mona calls them. The average event collects $26,000.

     Citing figures from SRI International, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports that “private and public clubs” in the United States spent $2 billion on their facilities in 2011, down from $7.8 billion in 2000.

     Golf clubs in Australia may be losing members, but the members they have appear to be playing more golf. Citing statistics provided by Golf Australia, the Australian Financial Review says that the total number of rounds played last year increased by 2.4 percent, to 12.38 million.

     Even though “anchored” and “belly” putters are still technically legal, fewer golfers are buying them. A sales director from Odyssey Golf told Golfweek that his company expected to sell 80,000 to 100,000 long putters last year but ended up selling only 25,000 or 30,000. In addition, the magazine reports, such putters “were scarce” at the most recent PGA Merchandise Show, an indication that manufacturers believe “an anchoring ban is forthcoming.” All this being said, I’m sure it won’t surprise you to hear that the putter manufacturers see a potential silver lining in this dark cloud. They’re already developing alternative products -- including “heavy” putters and “invisible” anchors -- to help golfers overcome the yips. A designer for Odyssey described the situation as “an opportunity to innovate within the new conforming standards being imposed.”

nicaragua Hope Springs Eternal

     Nicaragua’s long-awaited real estate boom has so far been a bust, but golf development slowly continues in the impoverished Central American nation.
     Guacalito de la Isla, outside Rivas, recently opened its David McLay Kidd-designed golf course, golf construction is wrapping up at Montecristo Beach on the Costa Azul. In addition, Seaside Mariana in San Rafael del Sur hopes to start building its 18-hole, Nicklaus Design layout this year, although it’s been saying that for years.
     Now comes word that Milagro del Mar Beach & Golf Resort, which had to reorganize during the Great Recession, aims to resume golf construction, perhaps in 2013. The resort has already begun to build a few dozen condos, and it hopes to announce a hotel partner sometime soon.
     “We have weathered the storm,” the community’s developer, Roger Keeling, told the Nicaragua Dispatch late last year.
     Milagro del Mar is part of Gran Pacifica, a 2,500-acre spread in the village of San Diego, roughly an hour’s drive southwest of Managua, the nation’s capital city. The community has a nine-hole golf course designed by Tommy Haugen, and Keeling aims to build two more nines.
     Phil Alexander, the community’s vice president of sales and marketing, says that a new architect may be hired to design the forthcoming holes and to possibly redesign the existing track. “I would love to have a course as exciting as Kidd’s,” he says.
     Alexander won’t predict when construction will begin, but he believes that “the improvement and expansion of the golf course is a major part of the plan for developing our portion of the project.”  

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

The Week That Was, march 24, 2013

     A new, feel-good study claims that the golf business in Europe is “on sound footing” and “well-placed to grow,” but its data suggests that the continent’s golf struggles are deep-rooted, stubborn, and tough to overcome. Last year, the golf industry contributed €15.1 billion ($20.2 billion) to Europe’s economy, according to Sports Marketing Surveys, Inc. This is a substantial amount, to be sure, but it’s less than the estimated €15.4 billion ($20.6 billion) that our industry was worth to the Old Country in 2006. SMS attributes the decline to “the more difficult economic times” and confidently predicts a revival “when European performance improves in the years ahead.” But golf in Europe, like golf everywhere else, is bedeviled by fundamental troubles that restrain its growth and won’t magically disappear in an economic recovery. As SMS notes, our industry is generally perceived as being expensive and exclusive, dominated by men, intimidating to women and beginners, and, perhaps worst of all, “getting older in many of the established markets.” Add it all up and you get an enterprise that attracts just 7.85 million of Europe’s 511 million people. Some observers may view a participation rate of 1.54 percent as an opportunity for growth. I think it should spark a cold, hard self-examination.

     The preceding post originally appeared in the March 2013 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.

     Cue the marching band and release the confetti: At long last, Gil Hanse and a crew of six have begun to hand-clear the site of the golf venue for the 2016 Olympics. According to Golfweek, “with good weather, a disciplined work crew, and no more delays from local officials, the course could be ready within 18 months.”

     Now that Gil Hanse’s construction team has begun to stir, the organizing committee in Brazil has begun to brag about the magnificence of its undertaking. Carlos Nuzman, the president of Rio 2016, believes that the long-delayed construction “represents the beginning of a new chapter in the history of the sport.” For sure, lots of people in our business are praying that he’s right. The course itself, Nuzman contends, will forever serve as “an example of sustainability and preservation of an environmentally protected area” and “inspire millions of youth across Brazil and the globe.” Not to rain on anyone’s parade, but it’s worth noting that Brazil has been, throughout its history, decidedly cool to golf. Don’t expect miracles.

     The ceremonial opening of Nick Faldo’s new course in Vietnam took place last week, and a press release calls it “arguably his boldest and best creation.” The track anchors Laguna Lang Co,



a 700-acre oceanfront resort in Thua Thien Hue Province, about 50 miles east of Hue. “The course is everything we thought it would be, and even better,” Faldo said during the festivities. “I believe it will hold up against the better courses in this region and maybe the world.” The course is Faldo’s second in Vietnam -- his 18-hole layout at Ocean Dunes Golf Resort in Phan Thiet opened in the mid 1990s -- and, according to the press release, his 26th overall.

     Some information in the preceding post originally appeared in the December 2012 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.

     On the face of it, the news is straightforward: Pacific Links International and the PGA Tour’s TPC division have agreed to provide reciprocal play to their respective members. Pacific Links’ members will get access to 23 Tournament Players Club courses (as well as to some properties operated by Heritage Golf Group), while the TPC Passport Program’s members will get access to Pacific Links’ eight properties, the majority of them on Oahu in Hawaii. But I’m wondering: Could there be more going on here? Pacific Links, which is owned by a Chinese entrepreneur named Du Sha, aims to market its courses on Oahu to Chinese vacationers. “Part of our strategy is to replace the Japanese golfer with the Chinese golfer,” the firm’s CEO recently told WorldGolf.com. On the other side, the PGA Tour is drooling over the marketing opportunities offered by the People’s Republic, and it’s already laid plans to build a TPC course in Beijing. It just may be that this collaboration between Pacific Links and the PGA Tour was mostly crafted to generate memberships in China.

     The always captivating Huang Nubo -- poet, propagandist, mountain climber, golf developer -- has earned a long-overdue feature in the New York Times. The newspaper reports that Huang’s plan to build a 100-square-mile, build-it-and-they-will-come golf resort in a remote, desolate part of Iceland has stirred not only controversy but “bafflement” in the nation. “I’m just aghast,” says a dumbfounded tourism official. “It is not the first place I would have chosen,” says a bewildered old friend. “Nobody knows what the devil they are up to,” says a suspicious former ambassador. Huang “is not just a simple poet wanting to find peace of mind in the mountains of Iceland,” says the nation’s wary interior minister. Naturally, Huang’s little-known, Beijing-based firm insists that the people of Iceland have nothing to fear. A spokesperson for Zhongkun Group told the paper that the middle of nowhere was chosen because solitude-seeking Chinese vacationers “don’t like to travel to dirty, noisy places.” It would have been great to hear Huang wax poetic about his intentions, but the Times unfortunately couldn’t reach him. He’s supposedly trekking up a mountain somewhere. He likes difficult journeys.

     Emirates Golf Club celebrates its 25th anniversary this month, and its publicists want you to know exactly how important it has been to the growth of the Middle East in general and Dubai in particular. The club’s original 18 -- the first all-green golf course in the region -- “provided the base around which a whole new city has grown,” writes Sport360, and “kick-started a chain of events that has led Dubai to be constantly named among the top sporting cities in the world these last few years.” As part of its promotional effort, Sport360 also caught up with Karl Litten, the Majlis course’s 80-year-old, Florida-based designer. I’ll bet it won’t surprise you to learn that Litten considers the track, which was personally commissioned by Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, to be his best work. He thinks the sheikh liked it too. “I heard he was very happy,” Litten recalls, “but of course, he never told me that personally.”

     The younger brother of Beastie Boy Adam Horovitz has written a memoir of his days as a caddie at St. Andrews. Oliver Horovitz, who spent seven seasons working at the cradle of golf -- “the only Jewish caddie in the history of the shack,” he believes -- recently talked about An American Caddie in St. Andrews with Sports Illustrated. Here’s how he sizes up the club’s courses: I love the New Course. The New Course is only “new” in relation to the Old Course. It was built in 1895 -- that’s new for St. Andrews. It was laid out by Old Tom Morris, and it’s the only course of any of his designs that still has the greens in their original spots. It’s really fun, and in my opinion tougher than the Old Course. Of the four main courses at St. Andrews -- the Old, the New, the Jubilee, and the Castle, which is the newest -- the Old Course is actually the easiest from the normal tees. The New is much tighter, and the greens are much smaller. The Jubilee has so much gorse on it that it’s really tough, and the Castle is just a monster of a golf course. One other thing: Horovitz helpfully points out that St. Andrews has more pubs per capita than any other place in the United Kingdom.

     Earlier this month, while North Korea was huffing and puffing and making threats that could lead to armed conflict, where was South Korea’s top military brass? On their favorite golf course in Seoul, naturally. Make golf, not war.

The Pipeline, march 22, 2013

     For Tower Holdings, the third time really was the charm. Just weeks ago, planning officials approved a substantially downsized version of the company’s “eco-friendly” vacation spot on Great Keppel Island, including its 18-hole golf course. Terry Agnew, Tower Holdings’ owner, once called Grand Keppel, off the coast of Queensland, “probably the most outstanding island paradise in Australia,” and in the mid 2000s he set out to make it “one of Australia’s premier tourist attractions.” But his grander development proposals were rejected twice, and now his North Sydney-based firm will be limited to building 750 villas, 600 apartments, a 250-room hotel, a marina, and other attractions. A condition in the federal approval will require the proposed golf course, a Greg Norman layout, to be located somewhat farther inland, to preserve a habitat for migratory birds. It’s been a long haul, but these days Tower can clearly see the light at the end of the tunnel.
     Some information in the preceding post originally appeared in the February 2010 and March 2013 issues of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.

     Government authorities on Luzon Island in the Philippines have endorsed plans for an eco-tourism resort and industrial park that will include a controversial 18-hole golf course. The construction will take shape on 660 coastal acres immediately west of Lingayen, the capital city of Pangasinan Province. In an effort to woo both tourists and foreign investment, the province aims to build a hotel, a shopping mall, an electric-car manufacturing plant, an electronics factory, and a golf course that some local officials believe will “put the province in the world sporting map,” according to Positive News Media. The proposal has generated considerable debate, however, as some residents of the villages where the construction will take place -- the “barangays” of Sabangan, Estanza, Malimpuec, and Capandanan -- fear that earth movement along the waterfront will trigger erosion. Those fears have largely been allayed, however, and now the province is seeking private-sector groups to undertake the various projects. It’s possible that the golf course will be developed by a South Korean entity called All Weather Aqua City Philippines, which has been linked to both the resort and the industrial park.
     The original version of the preceding post first appeared in the August 2012 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.

     Taylor Morrison is trying to breathe new life into what is widely believed to be a vanishing species: A gated golf community in Naples, Florida. The 1,800-acre spread, called Esplanade Golf & Country Club, will eventually include more than 1,100 single-family homes and other housing types, a wellness center with a spa, hiking and biking trails, lakes and nature preserves, and an 18-hole, “eco-friendly” golf course. The latter has been designed by Chris Wilczynski, a protégé of Arthur Hills, who aims to “encourage beginners while challenging the most seasoned players,” according to a press release masquerading as a newspaper story. The 6,900-yard track is expected to open sometime next year.

     A mined-out quarry in suburban Christchurch is being eyed as the new home of Templeton Golf Club. The quarry is just a hop, a skip, and a jump north of Templeton’s 6,619-yard course on New Zealand’s South Island, and its owner has agreed to build a new course and a clubhouse in exchange for the club’s 130-acre property. Greg Turner and Scot Macpherson, a design duo based in Queenstown, have sketched out a routing for the 18-hole track, which Templeton’s president believes will provide “a unique golfing experience” that would help to attract new members. But don’t hold your breath waiting for Templeton to move. The club expects the entitlement process to take two years or more, and course construction will add another year or two to the time line.  
     The original version of the preceding post first appeared in the February 2013 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.

     Slowly but surely, the members of Minot Country Club are getting closer to building their new home. Planning officials in Minot, North Dakota, a city desperately in need of new housing, have given partial approval to the community that the club will eventually be part of. If the community’s developer can secure the density it wants, it’ll allocate 300 acres of its property for the club’s new, Jim Engh-designed course. The club’s original course has been closed since the spring of 2011, when it was covered by waters spilling out of the Souris River. The flooding devastated the entire city of Minot, although the area’s oil boom is helping it recover quickly.  
     Some information in this post originally appeared in the July 2012 issue of the U.S. Golf Course Report.

     A proposal to build a nine-hole course on a small farm just north of Toronto has stirred some controversy. Carlo Baldassarra, a well-known developer in the area (his Vaughan-based Greenpark Homes is said to be Canada’s largest home builder), wants to build the course at his 128-acre Westlin Farms, in an unincorporated area just west of King City. He intends to build the course for his personal use, but his proposal has nonetheless triggered worries among some of the area’s residents about excessive water use and the loss of agricultural land. If Baldassarra and his representatives can placate those concerns and persuade local planning officials to rezone the property, construction will likely begin in 2015. The course will be designed by Doug Carrick, an architect based in suburban Toronto.
     The original version of the preceding post appeared in the January 2013 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.

     The new owners of Essendon Country Club in Hertfordshire, England are laying plans to take their New course to the next level. Kieran and Liam Griffin bought the 400-acre club (the former Hatfield London Country Club) in 2012, with the aim of making it what they describe as “an inclusive and integrated club that appeals to all the family.” The club, in a northern suburb of London, features a pair of 18-hole courses -- the Fred Hawtree-designed, 6,808-yard Old course, which opened in 1976, and the 6,938-yard New course, which was designed by Landscape Design Company and opened in 1992 -- along with a nine-hole pitch-’n’-putt track and a practice center. The Griffins, who own a local taxicab company, plan to upgrade the entire facility, starting with the New course. “We are in the process of commissioning an architect to recommend changes and genuinely believe it has the potential to stand comparison to anything else in the area,” Liam Griffin said in a press release.  
     The original version of the preceding post appeared in the January 2013 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.

     The members of a historic club in northeastern Scotland have approved a master plan for future renovations. The plan, created by Tom Mackenzie and Martin Ebert, will provide a road map for improvements at Edzell Golf Club, which features an 18-hole, Bob Simpson-designed course that dates from 1895 and a nine-hole, Graeme Webster-designed course that opened in 2001. Top 100 Golf Courses of the World calls Simpson’s 6,455-yard layout, which was redesigned by James Braid in the early 1930s, “an enchanting experience” that’s been laid out in “one of the best settings for an inland course anywhere in the British Isles.” Mackenzie and Ebert don’t figure to mess with the course’s essence, as they’ve sympathetically modernized many British golf antiques, among them three that have recently hosted Open Championships: the Ailsa Course at Turnberry (2009), Royal St. George’s Golf Club (2011), and Royal Lytham & St. Annes Golf Club (2012). Edzell, which is located in the town of Edzell, hasn’t yet announced when construction will begin.  
     The original version of the preceding post appeared in the January 2013 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report. 

     A recession-delayed resort community in Los Cabos, Mexico is about halfway finished with construction of its Jack Nicklaus golf course. The 7,200-yard track, which will likely open sometime next year, is one of two “signature” layouts in the master plan for Quivira Los Cabos, an oceanfront community that’s finally taking shape along the picturesque cliffs at the bottom of Baja Peninsula. The 1,850-acre spread, originally known as Cabo Pacifica, has been kicking around since the mid 2000s (if not before), when Ernesto Coppel, its developer, claimed to be “ready to build the best golf courses in North America.” Nicklaus has called the site “a great piece of property,” as have most others who’ve seen it, including the Hollywood producers who filmed parts of Troy there. The rest of Quivira Los Cabos will include a parade of single-family houses, some hotels, time-share and fractional condos, a village center, a “holistic retreat and spa,” two beach clubhouses, several sports parks, a protected wildlife area, and more than 20 miles of hiking trails. The community is even supposed to provide a helicopter for the use of its residents.  
     Some information in the preceding post originally appeared in the November 2011 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.

england Laying a Claim on London’s Suburbs

     The people responsible for the first Seve Ballesteros-designed golf course in the United Kingdom have unveiled plans to build two more golf properties in the suburbs of northwestern London, England.
     Tony and Anne Menai Davis, the owners of Shire London in Barnet, have already broken ground on phase one of a 27-hole complex that will complement their new West London Golf Centre in Northolt. Next, they’re hoping to secure permission to build what they’ve called an “extraordinary” 18-hole course in Edgwater. When the facilities are completed, they’ll all be within a few minutes’ drive of each other.
     The West London practice center, which includes a retail golf shop and a coffee house, opened in late 2012. In the fall of this year, the center is expected to open a nine-hole, 3,500-yard course, and its 18-hole course, to be called West London Links, is scheduled to open in 2016.
     But West London’s courses aren’t expected to match the “championship-standard” track in Edgware, which the Menai Davises aim to open by the end of the decade. The identity of the course’s designer hasn’t been revealed, but Tony has said that it’ll be “one of the world's most celebrated golf course architects” who’ll be doing his first course in the United Kingdom.
     The Menai Davises enabled Ballesteros’ to make his U.K. debut in 2007, after they completely re-created what’s been described as “a pancake-flat” site with fill from the construction of Wembley Stadium. The property, once the home of Bridgedown Golf Club, now features the 7,200-yard Masters Course, a nine-hole “challenge” course, and a practice center.
     I’m just speculating here, but it may be that the Menai Davises have even more golf development in their future. In promotional materials accompanying the West London facility, they refer to “at least one other extraordinary new course” that they plan to open “before the decade is out.” We know about the course in Edgware. Could there be another?

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

The Week That Was, march 17, 2013

     For the moment, at least, Greg Coffey has pulled the plug on his seaside links in Scotland’s Inner Hebrides. Coffey, the owner of the massive Ardfin Estate on Jura Island, hasn’t explained why, and a report by the Herald doesn’t shed much light on the subject, either. The Bob Harrison-designed track was slated to take shape on sandy, windswept property that some people believe is made to order for world-class golf. An islander told the newspaper that many of his neighbors were “fairly neutral” regarding the course, although “a few” felt that it would compromise the property’s “wilderness element.” A spokesman for Scottish Natural Heritage said that his group “didn’t see any problem” with Coffey’s proposal and has “offered to meet the estate again to discuss the proposals and any issues they may have.” Coffey’s decision must be a major disappointment to Harrison, a Sydney, Australia-based architect who’d been enlisted to design a course that might have given him an international reputation. He once called Jura “my favorite place on earth” and said the Ardfin site was “the most beautiful I have ever seen.”
     Some information in the preceding post first appeared in the August and September 2012 issues of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.

     Regarding the construction of the golf course for the 2016 Olympics: Not to worry. That’s the message delivered last week by the president of Rio de Janeiro’s organizing committee. Carlos Nuzman told Inside the Games that the primary impediment to the groundbreaking -- the legal quarrel over ownership of the land upon which the course will be built -- has been settled. “We have signed the contract with the owner of the land, so we are in control of the project,” he said. He added: “It is definitely all sorted, and we will certainly have the golf course ready on time.” So why don’t I feel completely at ease?

      Speaking of the 2016 Olympics, last week Brad Klein of GolfWeek published a biographical profile of the architect who’s designed and -- fingers crossed -- may soon start building the Games’ golf course. It’s a portrait of Gil Hanse as a hands-on

architect who’s “never overcome the thrill of pushing dirt around” and continues to work on site, often from the driver’s seat of a bulldozer. Drawings, Hanse believes, are “helpful in communicating ideas to clients and memberships but can’t replace what takes place in the field.” As Klein sees it, Hanse produces walkable, natural-looking, fun-to-play, easy-to-maintain courses that exemplify today’s design zeitgeist. “In an era that has catered to good players who want to see everything in front of them,” Klein writes, “Hanse has shown the value of a different, almost dissident style focused on variety, intrigue, and uncertainty.” And while he awaits a green light to begin construction for the Olympics’ course, Klein reports, Hanse is working on upgrades to one of Rio’s existing courses, a 92-year-old track at Gavea Golf & Country Club.

     Golfers in Florida who think they can resign from their clubs and recover the promised refund on their equity memberships may have another think coming. These so-called refundable memberships, the Naples Daily News says, were merely “a lure marketed by developers” who were intent on creating “luxury-related golf communities designed by top golf architects.” After the economy crumbled, many private clubs in the state had to slash or eliminate initiation fees to attract new members, meaning that they may no longer have the cash on hand to make payments to members who quit. “The problem, in some cases, is that the membership scheme was a pyramid based on a false assumption of perpetually rising values,” a local lawyer notes. As a result, the News reports, an increasing number of current and former club members are filing lawsuits, contending that their clubs don’t always make a sincere effort to make refunds. As Steve Graves of Creative Golf Marketing put it, “It’s like the line in the song Hotel California: ‘You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.’”

     Golf clubs in Australia, like those in Great Britain and the United States, aren’t nearly as crowded as they used to be. According to Golf Australia’s 2011 census, the number of club members in the nation has fallen from roughly 490,000 in 2000 to roughly 412,000 in 2011, a decline of about 16 percent. As a result, the Australian Financial Review reports, “waiting lists at all but the most exclusive clubs around the country barely exist,” initiation fees have “largely been abolished or halved,” and properties from coast to coast are advertising aggressively to attract new members. Some have begun to offer enticements, such as sets of woods and irons, to those who sign on the bottom line. “These are clear signs of the steady and accelerating decline in golf,” the Review concludes, “particularly among those in the 25 to 40 age group.” Of course, once properly incentivized new members are signed, clubs face another, even more challenging problem: How to keep them.

     Ted Siedle, a Florida-based writer for Forbes, poses a delicate question: Is it possible to be too honest for country club membership? Siedle says the area of the state where he lives is crawling with “hedge-fund managers gone bad, Ponzi schemers, and disbarred lawyers,” many of whom belong to country clubs filled with wealthy and socially prominent members who may be easy marks for crooks. His fear is that clubs controlled by unsavory members may bar people like him -- he investigates financial wrongdoing -- because they might expose illegal activities. What’s more, he believes, given the open arms with which Florida greets hedge-fund managers, more Bernie Madoff-type trouble is on the way. “More hedge funds moving into the state means more country club marketing and, inevitably (given the lack of regulation of these funds), more scamming,” he contends. So ask the members of your club this question: Do they want to rub shoulders with a guy like Siedle on a regular basis?

     Greg Norman’s links-style golf course in Vung Tau Province, Vietnam is currently being grassed, but the casino-focused community it anchors appears to be stuck in development limbo. Ho Tram Strip, which will feature Vietnam’s first “Las Vegas-style” casino hotel, won’t open as scheduled this spring, in part because its casino operator, MGM Resorts, has exercised a clause in its contract and taken a hike. Calvin Ayre, a gambling-industry blogger, says that Ho Tram has been “fraught with delays and cost overruns” and that its Canadian developer, Asian Coast Development, Ltd., has defaulted on an agreement with the provincial government due to a “failure to meet certain construction deadlines.” The default led a consortium of bankers to withdraw $175 million in financing, emptying ACDL’s pockets. Ho Tram’s first phase, including the casino and a hotel, is said to be complete, but ACDL can’t open for business until it finds a replacement for MGM.
      Some information in the preceding post first appeared in the November 2008 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.

     He felt the earth move, and the next thing he knew, he was being swallowed up by it. I’m referring, of course, to the mortgage banker who recorded his personal version of a hole in one when he got sucked into a sinkhole on the 14th fairway at Annbriar Golf Course in Waterloo, Illinois. “It didn’t look unstable,” Mark Mihal said of the depression he stepped upon. “And then I was gone.” A lot of jokes have been made about the incident, but it illustrates yet another legal hazard that many U.S. courses need to negotiate. Southwestern Illinois alone is said to be riddled with as many as 15,000 similar sinkholes.

     You’ve heard of “goat tracks”? Well, for a brief time recently, the Jim McLean Signature course at the Doral resort was a cow pasture.

Memento Mori, march 15, 2013

     In late January, the owners of Country Club at the Legends bid their members adieu. The heirs of Carmelo Natoli, who died late last year, said they were “no longer willing to fund an unprofitable business” or to foot the bill for “needed capital improvements,” according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The 24-year-old club in Eureka, Missouri featured an 18-hole, Robert Trent Jones, Jr.-designed course and a nine-hole, Gary Kern-designed course. Patti Natoli, the club’s manager, told the Eureka-Wildwood Patch that the club hasn’t been profitable since her father bought it in 1996. But while Carmelo Natoli had been willing to cover the club’s losses, his children weren’t. “This is a sad decision all around,” said Patti Natoli, the club’s manager. “But we have great hopes that something will work out for this club.” Last month, a city official told the Patch that “four or five parties” have expressed an interest in the property and that he hoped to see “a smooth transfer of ownership in the next month or two.” So far, though, there’s been no word of a pending sale.

     The clock is ticking for McCall Lake Golf Course in Calgary, Alberta. The 27-hole municipal complex, which has been in business since 1981, is slated to close at the end of the 2014 golf season. City auditors says that McCall Lake loses more than $200,000 a year -- the number of rounds played there has fallen from 68,713 in 2004 to 58,505 in 2012 -- and the Calgary Herald reports that the city expects to pocket “upwards of $30 million” from a planned sale. “While I’m sad to see the golf course close,” an alderman said, “I’m very excited about the potential re-purposing of this site for industrial and recreational purposes.” The city has promised to spend some of the proceeds from the sale on improvements to its other courses. But those courses may not have much of a future, either. The city’s golf manager told the Herald that Calgary was seeing “an increase in ethnic diversity in our communities, and golf is not necessarily the game of choice anymore.”

     The Craythorne’s days are numbered. The 18-hole layout in Staffordshire, England will close at the end of this month, unless a buyer unexpectedly emerges. “The golf course is simply financially unsustainable,” the Craythorne’s owner said in a letter to members. According to the Burton Mail, Tony Wright blamed the course’s fiscal troubles on rainy weather, tax-related issues, and “government mismanagement of the economy.” The Craythorne’s first nine opened in 1974, its second nine a decade later. Wright plans to continue operating the property’s driving range, pub, restaurant, and hair salon.

     A boondoggle in Pennsylvania is about to meet its predictable demise. Hershey Links, which was established in 2003 as Wren Dale Golf Club, will close at the end of the 2013 season. The 18-hole, Mike Hurdzan-designed layout may be located just outside Hershey, “the sweetest place on earth,” but its short, controversial history has left a sour taste in many local mouths. The Milton Hershey School, which controls the famous candy company, paid $12 million for the still-unfinished course in 2006 -- “an inflated price,” notes the Philadelphia Inquirer -- and then spent $5 million more on amenities. Today, executives of the school, the chocolate maker, and the Hershey Trust Company -- some of them interchangeable parts -- are being investigated by the state’s attorney general. The school, which was established to educate impoverished children, will replace the course with student housing.

     A George Fazio-designed golf course in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania has roughly six more weeks of life. Some local Realtors have purchased Silver Spring Golf Club, reports the Patriot-News, with the intent of converting the 90-acre property to single-family houses. The Realtors reportedly paid $1 million for the club, which opened in 1965.

     A year or so from now, a golf course in Surrey, England will be converted into a training center for a rugby club. “It is a pity to see a much-loved local facility disappear,” the head of a local residents’ association told the Surrey Herald. “The golf club had a lot of members, and it brought pleasure to a lot of people of all age groups.” The center’s nine-hole, Jonathan Gaunt-designed track opened in 1992.

     By a unanimous vote, the village council in Flat Rock, North Carolina has agreed to make an offer for Highland Lake Golf Course. If the offer is accepted, the nine-hole, 2,615-yard track will host its final rounds in September. “The only thing left is to agree on a price,” a course employee told me. The course opened in the early or late 1970s, depending on which source you believe, and its owners -- Jim Sparks and Tom Davis, the principals of Flat Rock-based Course Doctors, Inc. -- have been trying to sell it for two or three years. The city plans to turn the 66-acre property into a park.

     The only par-3 golf course in Racine County, Wisconsin -- and one that was lighted for night play -- has been sold and will likely become the site of a business park. “We have gone out of business,” Raymond Heights Golf Course reports on its Facebook page. The future of the nine-hole, 37-acre course had been “murky,” according to the Racine Journal Times, and Jon Henderson bought it late last year, reportedly for $377,000. A county tourism official told the newspaper that Raymond Heights, which opened in the early 1960s, was “a great course for beginning golfers” but was, unfortunately, located on “a valuable property.”

     A nine-hole, par-3 course in Kentucky’s Kenlake State Resort Park has met its end and won’t operate this season. Bill Hamrick Memorial Golf Course, which opened in 1950, saw just 2,134 rounds last year, a number so low it’s hard to believe. That being said, a spokesman for the state’s park system told the Marshall County Tribune-Courier that his agency spent no more than $50,000 to keep the course open.

canada A New Course for the Falls?

     A golf community may soon take shape on the Canadian side of “the honeymoon capital of the world.”
     I’m talking about Niagara Falls, of course, a destination for young lovers since 1802. The city isn’t famous for its golf courses, but late last year the door was opened for a venture that a top local hotelier has been romancing since the late 2000s.
     Hospitality Resorts, Inc. wants to build the community, called Mont Rose, on 410 acres in the northwestern part of the city. In addition to an 18-hole “championship” golf course, it’s been master-planned to include 240 houses, a winery, and a vineyard.
     Hospitality Resorts, which owns the city’s Hilton hotel (it’s said to be the tallest hotel in Canada), is controlled by the DiCosimo family, a business force in Niagara Falls since the 1960s. The DiCosimos have hired Toronto-based Tom McBroom, one of Canada’s best-known architects, to design the course. They hope to break ground on it in late 2013 or early 2014.
     The development of Mont Rose has been held up because the DiCosimos’ property is located outside city limits. But in 2012, after years of negotiations, local officials agreed to expand Niagara Falls’ urban boundary to include it.
     Next, the DiCosimos need to persuade local and provincial officials to approve their master plan. Let’s hope the remaining steps in the development process lead to a happy marriage.

     The original version of the preceding post first appeared in the December 2012 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.

The Week That Was, march 10, 2013

     Donald Trump, who made his reputation by doing things bigger and theoretically better, has decided to spend less -- much less -- on the hotel at his golf resort in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Not two years ago, the celebrity developer and reality-TV host had planned to build a luxurious 450-room, £280 million ($418 million) hotel for guests at Trump International Golf Links Scotland. Today, he’s sliced the number of rooms to 140 and plans



to invest a measly £99.4 million ($148 million). In a conversation with the Scotsman, a critic has already complained that the new building looks like “a Frankenstein’s monster of architectural body parts” and “as dead as the Victorian style it hopes to re-create.” Despite the financial cutback, Trump insists that the finished product will be “among the finest hotels in Europe, with breathtaking direct views of the North Sea and the Great Dunes of Scotland.” But don’t hold your breath waiting to construction to begin, because Trump continues to insist that he won’t invest another dime in Scotland if the government okays a proposed off-shore wind farm within view of his property.

     The pressure to deliver the golf course for the 2016 Olympics is, quite understandably, starting to gnaw at Gil Hanse. ESPN reports that the Pennsylvania-based architect, who’s in Rio de Janeiro and waiting impatiently to rev up his a bulldozer, “sounded hopeful but also frustrated” about the delays that have held up construction for nearly six months. “It just seems like there’s this bureaucracy that won’t seem to let its tentacles go,” Hanse said in an interview with the Golf Channel. “I’m disappointed in that. I’m disappointed in myself because I thought, gosh, it’s the Olympics, you can’t get any bigger than that, they’ve got to be able to just move this through. Unfortunately, I was dead wrong with that.” In the interview, Hanse also acknowledged that he and his crew are “right up against the deadline” if the course is to be ready for test events in 2015. Fingers crossed, he hopes to start moving dirt around the first of next month.

     Are Donald Trump and Gil Hanse butting heads over the forthcoming renovation of the Blue Monster course at Doral? Last week, Trump told reporters that he plans to “blow up” the Dick Wilson-designed track and create an island green on hole #15. But it doesn’t appear that Hanse shares Trump’s design vision. “As far as I know, Dick Wilson never built an island,” Hanse said during an interview with the Golf Channel. “So while we’re going off the reservation on a number of changes, we’re hoping stylistically it’ll still have the appearance of a classic Wilson course. And an island green doesn’t really go into that.” Hanse’s idea, according to the Golf Channel, is to create a “peninsula green” that will give the 15th some teeth without inviting comparisons to the 17th at TPC Sawgrass. My guess is that the compromise gets a thumbs-up from Trump.

     Greg Norman, golf’s proudest and loudest conglomerate, has found a new way to market his diverse business interests: He’s agreed to become an advisor to China’s national golf program. “There’s a lot for them to learn,” Norman noted in a comment reported by the Golf Channel. “I think I can hone their skills and give them a lot of important factors about how to develop their skills to become world champions.” Specifically, Norman will help China’s golf association develop a training regimen for junior golfers and to select the team that will compete at the 2016 Olympics. In discussing his new role in the People’s Republic, Norman made it clear that he would have lent his expertise to nations closer to his heart, if they’d only asked. “I’ve never been asked by Australia, never been asked by the United States or anybody else to help guide a group of golfers to an ultimate goal of being in the Olympics,” he said. “So I seized the moment.” So what does Norman, a classic example of a guy who’s only in it for the money, hope to get in return for taking on this new role? Well, he’s opened an architectural office in China, and greater visibility sure won’t hurt his chances of securing future design commissions. And then there are his sales of Kobe beef and wine, plus the Norman-branded pants and shirts. And the sunglasses. Don’t forget the sunglasses.

     A mothballed golf course in County Limerick, Ireland is about to reopen as the centerpiece of a member-owned club. Limerick County Golf Club in Ballyneety, which went belly up in early 2011, has been purchased by investors from Cork who aim to “return the course to its former glory,” according to the Limerick Leader. The course, which was designed by Des Smyth and opened in 1994, is expected to begin its second life later this month. “There was a great love of the former club, and people missed it sorrowfully when it closed,” a spokesperson for the investment group told the Limerick Post. And as a profession of their love, more than 400 local golfers have already paid subscription fees for 2013.

     A Houston, Texas-based company, Capital Direct Funding Hard Money, has decided to start funding U.S. golf ventures. “What many investors would consider a risky proportion,” says a press release, “Capital Direct Funding Hard Money views as a major opportunity.” One worry: The firm doesn’t identify its principals, either in the press release or on its website.

     You can add Tony Jacklin’s name to the chorus of voices calling for restrictions on the flight of golf balls. “The ball going as far as it goes does not make golf a better game,” the former touring pro told the London Evening Standard. “But it suits all these companies who make big money selling these balls on the idea of distance, distance, distance. What about direction? Does that not matter?” As a course designer, Jacklin understands the savings that would accrue if golf courses were, say, 15 percent shorter. But he knows it isn’t going to happen. “It is all about making billions for equipment manufacturers,” he argues, “and it is ruining the game. To take five, six hours to play a round of golf is ludicrous.”

     It attracts the world’s best players, it’s played on the same course every year, and it has Amen Corner. Those are three of the five reasons why Steven Stromberg believes the Masters is the best sporting event on the planet. Though love may know no bounds, journalism should.

    Speaking of the Masters, one of its iconic green jackets has become the focus of a lawsuit brought by Augusta National, Inc. A collector of golf memorabilia is trying to auction a blazer -- one



originally given to Art Wall, Jr., the winner of the 1959 Masters -- but the club-related entity has at least temporarily blocked the sale, arguing that the item was stolen from its clubhouse and must therefore be returned. “The green jacket to Augusta is the Statue of Liberty to New York or the Mona Lisa to the Louvre,” a club official said at a court appearance, according to the Dallas Morning News. That may be true, but the club unfortunately never filed a police report on the alleged theft, which it says also involved green jackets belonging to Gay Brewer, George Archer, and Fuzzy Zoeller. What’s interesting to me is that Wall’s jacket has a number: 80469M. I’d love to know what that number represents.

The Critical List, march 8, 2013

     On April Fools’ Day, the joke will be on the members of Escondido Country Club. The 49-year-old club in Escondido, California will close on that day, because its new owners have determined that “there is an oversupply of public and private golf clubs in the North San Diego County market.” Of course, they knew that in December, when they bought the club. Their due diligence also should have told them that the club was “facing insurmountable financial challenges” and needed nearly $2 million worth of improvements. So when these folks told the San Diego Union-Tribune that they plan to build houses on the 80-acre property and that “no one is more disappointed” than they are about this most unfortunate occurrence, I had to laugh.

     Time is running out on Woodcrest Country Club in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. The club has been bouncing “from one near-death experience to another,” according to the Philadelphia Inquirer, and a date for an auction of the 155-acre property will likely be set next week. Woodcrest’s 18-hole golf course was co-designed by William Flynn and Howard Toomey and opened in two phases, in 1930 and 1931. In 1948, the track became the centerpiece of a club created for the Philadelphia area’s Jewish golfers. The club’s demise, the newspaper says, was sparked by “a disputed and ill-fated clubhouse expansion.”

     The forthcoming golf season will almost certainly be the swan song for Summerhill Golf Course in Hay-on-Wye, Wales. The owners of the nine-hole track plan to start farming the property, an idea that doesn’t sit well with the club’s captain. “There is a surplus of farmland in the Hay area but only one golf course,” he told the Hereford Times, “and its closure would be a another massive loss to those who enjoy sport in Hay-on-Wye.” The course, which opened in 1997, was designed by Bob Sandow, a former touring pro who believed that “system-built nine-hole courses” were, in the words of the Times, “the way forward” for daily-fee golf.

     The upcoming golf season may also be the last for Riviera Golf Club in Dublin, Ohio, which is said to be “struggling with waning interest in the game and high operating costs.” Back in October 2012, the Columbus Dispatch reported that at least 14 offers had been made on the 42-year-old club. It’s apparently a prime site for a subdivision.

     After nearly 60 years as a going concern, golf course in Albertville, Alabama faces an “uncertain fate,” according to the Sand Mountain Reporter. Albertville Golf & Country Club has exactly one week to pay off or renegotiate the loans on two defaulted mortgages. The total hit: More than $1.1 million. Club officials are making last-ditch efforts to fend off a foreclosure, but they face harsh realities. “We have a real serious issue on our hands, and it’s been that way for a long time,” said the spokesman for a group of members that hopes to buy the club. “Unfortunately, what we learned is [that] some of the worst of what we thought might happen has already happened.” Among the worries: The club’s loans may be sold to a developer of low-income housing.

      No golf will be played this year on the 36 holes at Mississippi National Golf Links. Things began to unravel for the municipal complex in Red Wing, Minnesota late last year, when its private-sector operator took a hike and left the city holding the financial bag. As a result, this year the city expects to spend $375,000 on maintenance for the 400-acre property, and a councilmember fears that the Gordon Cunningham-designed courses may not reopen anytime soon. “I’m almost guaranteeing [that] if we shut it down,” he said in a comment reported by the Rochester Post-Bulletin, “it’s going to be a long time before it comes back, if ever.” This summer, the city hopes to conduct a search for a buyer or another operator.

     Sefton Council has been forced to assume management of Bootle Golf Course, after the property’s private-sector operator went broke. The course, in suburban Liverpool, England, had been operated by Fairway Investments, Ltd., on a 75-year lease.

     Flooding has contributed to financial woes at Painted Hills Golf Course in Spokane, Washington, and today the facility’s future is said to be “up in the air.” The property’s owners filed for bankruptcy protection last year, and this week their attorney told the Spokane Spokesman-Review they’re “considering all possibilities right now, including sale of the golf course.” The owners are seeking a buyer who’ll preserve the property’s golf courses -- Painted Hills features a pair of nine-hole layouts -- but their lawyer won’t guarantee that one will be found.

     Lynnwood Municipal Golf Course, in the state of Washington, is “in financial trouble and in jeopardy of shutting down,” says KOMO News. The number of rounds played at the 18-hole facility “has fallen almost every year that it’s been open,” says the Associated Press -- from nearly 60,000 in 2002 to 41,000 in 2012 -- and now the property is said to be saddled with more than $1 million in debts. In late December, the Associated Press reported that the city will decide the course’s fate “in the next three months.” So far, though, the verdict hasn’t come down.

england Wirral: Looking Forward to Next Year

     The borough of Wirral is intent on creating “a landmark destination for golf,” and by this time next year it hopes to identify a high-profile private-sector developer committed to building it.
     “This scheme will put Wirral on the map internationally,” a borough official believes.
     Wirral, in northwestern England, aims to build a “signature” golf course -- along with a hotel, meeting space, and a spa -- on 333 acres in Hoylake, a western suburb of Liverpool. The goal, a spokesman for the borough has said, is to open “a world-class facility to rival those at the K-Club and Celtic Manor.”
     Wirral first floated the idea for this venue in 2008, just as the Great Recession was rearing its ugly head and spoiling development plans across the planet. Today, borough officials are putting together a development wish list and will soon issue bid documents, according to the Liverpool Daily Post.
     Since last fall, when the project was revived, something like 20 parties -- including what the newspaper calls “world-renowned golf course designers” -- have reportedly expressed an interest in the undertaking.
     “We have never had as high a level of interest as we have at the moment,” a borough planner told the Post.
     Note to skeptics: A feasibility study by Capita Symonds, the borough’s development consultant, has concluded that the course is viable.

     Some information in the preceding post originally appeared in the October 2012 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.

The Week That Was, march 3, 2013

     The future of Golf Park Dubrovnik, Greg Norman’s controversial golf community in Dubrovnik, Croatia, will be decided by a referendum. The action, rare for Croatian politics, is a last-ditch effort to block the venture, which has elicited protests since it was announced in 2007. The community -- it’ll include houses, a hotel, a spa, and a 27-hole golf complex -- will be built atop Srd Hill (a.k.a. Mount Srd), which looms more than 1,300 feet above the city and is said to offer inspiring views of the Adriatic Sea. Norman is developing the community with a group led by Aaron Frankel, a well-connected Israeli arms dealer. Their plan worries many residents of Dubrovnik, the “pearl of the Adriatic,” because it’ll “turn about one-third of Dubrovnik’s existing public space over to private development,” says Croatia Traveller. Inter Press Service says that “illegal construction” along the Adriatic coast has “devastated some of the most beautiful spots, and the people of Dubrovnik feared this might happen to them as well under the cloak of promoting tourism.” Legally speaking, the forces allied against Golf Park Dubrovnik had to gather about 8,500 signatures to put the referendum in motion. At last count, they’d reportedly collected more than 10,000.

     Twelve to one: That’s more or less the ratio of U.S. course closings to course openings in 2012, according to an accounting by the National Golf Foundation. The actual numbers: 154.5 to 13.5. The NGF notes that 68 percent of the courses that disappeared were “lower-priced public facilities,” which, as we all know, are the places where beginners learn to play. Here’s the sad news: If you believe the NGF’s predictions -- and after what the group once told us about the necessity of opening a course a day, who doesn’t? -- the level of construction we’re currently seeing is all we’re going to get for a while. The group believes that a mere “20 or fewer” courses will open annually “for the foreseeable future.” If you’re wondering, the NGF expects the number of annual closings to range between 150 and 180.

     Great Britain’s National Trust has lost its battle against Bushmill Dunes, the much-discussed resort community near Giant’s Causeway in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. The legal ruling opens the door for Alistair Hanna to build the 356-acre spread, which will include 70 “golf lodges,” a 120-room hotel, and an 18-hole, David McLay Kidd-designed golf course. Hanna told the BBC that Bushmill Dunes will be among the “most spectacular golf developments ever seen in Ireland,” and the Telegraph reports that construction is “likely to begin towards the end of the summer and take at least two years, maybe three, to complete.” Many of the news reports about Bushmills Dunes mention a brash comment that Kidd made to Hanna after winning the commission: “If I can’t get your course into the top 50 of the world, you should shoot me.” What the stories don’t say is that Kidd’s statement originally appeared in the World Edition of the Golf Course Report. My guess is that Kidd is going to hear it many, many times between now and the day that the course finally opens.

     Will someone in India please put a gag on Lalit Kumar Jain before it’s too late? Jain, the president of Confederation of Real Estate Developers Associations of India, is hard-selling an idea that will ultimately be the nothing but trouble for India’s promising golf industry: namely, that the best way to grow the game is to hitch it to residential real estate development, particularly to upscale, “signature”-branded golf communities. This is the development model that’s completely flopped in the United States, and I don’t know why the outcome would be any different in India. As I’ve been saying for years, home builders have absolutely no stake in the future of golf. All they really care about is selling houses and villas and time-share condos. As long as golf helps them do these things, they’re the game’s biggest supporters. But when the home buyers disappear, the builders will abandon golf. Their shareholders will rightly demand it. So no matter how rosy a picture Jain draws about the glorious future of golf communities in India, what he’s selling is ultimately bad for golf.

     Okay, if India’s golf industry won’t listen to me, maybe they’ll listen to Ian Andrew. “Corporate golf,” the outspoken Canadian architect contends in a recent blog post, “has damaged the foundations of the game, because the goal is not long-term success but short-term profit.” He’s talking to you, Lalit Kumar Jain, and to people like you in China, Vietnam, Turkey, Montenegro, and other emerging golf markets. You’re all blinded by the dollar signs in your eyes. What you don’t understand, Andrew believes, is that “the core of the game is how it’s played, not how it looks.” If you really want to grow the game, you don’t do it by building long, difficult, high-prestige “signature” courses, because they ultimately “frustrate new players and drive them out of the game.” Instead, he says, you should build “much more rudimentary and fun layouts, where people are unlikely to lose a golf ball.” I’m begging you to take Andrew’s advice, Lalit Kumar Jain. In the long run, you’ll be glad you did.

     Still waiting for the hammer to come down on Vijay Singh for using illegal performance enhancers? Well, Reuters reports that the PGA Tour intends to make a decision about the punishment for Singh’s use of deer-antler spray “relatively soon.” And though this



is a critical decision for professional golf -- it’ll speak volumes about the sport’s position on drug use, not to mention its willingness to police its stars -- the tour’s commissioner seems to have a rather blasé attitude about the matter. “There’s no time urgency here,” Tim Finchem told reporters in Arizona, “because if action is taken, it’ll be reported. If no action is taken, it won’t be reported, and that’ll be the end of that.” Singh, you’ll remember, professed to be “shocked” -- shocked, like Captain Renault in Casablanca -- that the spray contained a banned substance. Unfortunately for him, the tour’s bylaws clearly state that ignorance isn’t a defense.

     For Tower Holdings, the third time really was the charm. Planning officials in Queensland have approved a vastly downsized version of the company’s resort community on Great Keppel Island, including its Greg Norman-designed golf course. The twice-rejected venture -- it’s been kicking around since the mid 2000s -- was originally supposed to occupy 17 percent of the island. Now, on a mere 3.5 percent, Tower will build an “eco-friendly” (or at least an “eco-friendlier”) vacation spot that features 750 villas, 600 apartments, a 250-room hotel, a marina, and lots of places to wine and dine. The project still needs one more stamp of approval, from the federal environment minister, but Tower has never been closer to creating what its owner, Terry Agnew, once said would be “one of Australia’s premier tourist attractions.”

     A court in the state of Washington has ordered Spokane Country Club to pay $500,000 to four female members who successfully argued that they were denied the favorable tee times and access to facilities that their male counterparts received.“The world has moved on,” the plaintiffs’ lawyer reportedly said in her closing remarks. “It’s against the law to establish gender-based practices.” The jury unanimously agreed.

     We’ve all died a little on the golf course, but a private group in Aurora, Ohio is making the connection between golf and death a little too literal for my tastes. Aurora Events LLC wants to turn part of the clubhouse at the soon-to-be-sold-and-closed Aurora Golf Club into a funeral chapel. And if you think this proposal is just a little bit strange, consider this: According to city code, the funeral chapel is a permitted use. No rezoning required.

Vital Signs, march 1, 2013

     The National Golf Foundation has determined that 490 million rounds of golf were played in the United States last year, an increase of 5.7 percent over the number played in 2011. The group credits “improved weather” for much of the increase, but it believes a gradually improving economy also helped to boost play. “National measurements of consumer confidence and spending have also been slowly and consistently edging upward from dips we saw in the Great Recession,” the NGF notes. “Feelings of personal financial well-being are undoubtedly tied to an individual’s positivity toward all types of discretionary and recreational spending, including golf.” In other words, when people aren’t worried about losing their jobs, they tend to spend more.

     Don’t underestimate the impact that a crazy-warm winter and an early spring can have on the amount of play recorded at U.S. golf properties. Randy Watkins, who owns three golf courses in suburban Jackson, Mississippi, says that last year’s weather “definitely got us ahead of the game” and helped his facilities post a 7 percent increase in rounds played. “Golf can be habitual,” Watkins told the Mississippi Business Journal, “and the earlier in the year folks can play, the more they play the rest of the year. Starting to play earlier in the year is the main thing.” Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that 2013 is going to be a repeat of 2012. So the question for this year becomes, Can our nation’s golf courses generate their own heat?

     Europe’s golf industry isn’t going to get back on its feet anytime soon. The numbers have been crunched, and during the fourth quarter of last year European economies shrank faster than they have at any time since 2009, during the darkest days of the global financial crisis. For the time being, at least, Germany and France have become tangled up in the slump, and the New York Times believes the worsening data is “raising anxieties of a longer, deeper recession.” If there’s a silver lining in this dark cloud, it’s that fiscal policies are finally coming under greater scrutiny. As hard times have gotten harder, even hard-core champions of budget-cutting appear to be having second thoughts. The Wall Street Journal, a fiscal hawk if there ever was one, believes that “the region's deepening malaise challenges European authorities’ insistence that fiscal austerity will lead to growth by boosting business confidence.” It’s entirely possible that austerity isn’t all it’s been cracked up to be.

     Turkey is drying up quickly, and that doesn’t bode well for its golf prospects. According to data compiled from satellite imagery, Turkey and three adjacent nations (Syria, Iraq, and Iran) lost a total of 117 million acre-feet of stored fresh water between 2003 and 2010 -- roughly as much water as is contained in the Dead Sea. “The Middle East just does not have that much water to begin with, and it’s a part of the world that will be experiencing less rainfall with climate change,” a researcher told Business Insider. That being said, it’s worth noting that Turkey still has plenty of coastline along the Black and Mediterranean seas that could presumably accommodate golf courses, even if they’re required to irrigate their fairways with water produced by desalination plants.

     Speaking of droughts, Toro is capitalizing on the fast-growing need to make water go farther. In the first quarter of this year, earnings at the Bloomington, Minnesota-based company exceeded expectations, in part because golf courses are suffering “in the wake of dry spells that required better water management techniques.” Toro’s sales are said to be “particularly robust” in Australia, a nation so dry of late that parts of it have literally been on fire. And, in a move that could serve to boost its bottom line in the future, Toro has purchased “a small Chinese micro-irrigation firm” that will help it enter what it calls a “critical growth market.”

     The connection between golf construction and residential development, once thought to be inviolable, continues to erode. The latest evidence comes from home builders eager to cash in on pent-up demand from aging baby boomers. According to their research, today’s seniors don’t want to live in “the huge retirement golf course developments of yesteryear” -- Sayonara, Sun City -- but in smaller suburban subdivisions. “The days of the mega master-planned community with four clubhouses and 27 golf courses are dead,” a real estate researcher told the Dallas Morning News. The recreational amenities favored today include walking trails, fitness centers, and swimming pools.

     For years, it’s been clear that health-minded people shouldn’t breathe the air in much of metropolitan China. Now, in up to 90 percent of the nation’s cities, they probably shouldn’t drink the water, either.