The Pipeline, february 14, 2014

     Mosaic Company is pleased with Streamsong’s first-year financial performance and preparing to complement its Tom Doak- and Coore & Crenshaw-designed courses with other golf attractions. In a conversation with Golf Digest, Richard Mack announced that Mosaic will add “a massive putting green, à la Bandon Dunes and Pinehurst” to its 16,000 acres in central Florida next year. He also acknowledged that his firm is thinking about building “a short course” of some kind and hasn’t ruled out building more championship-length venues. “The sky’s the limit,” Mack said, adding: “If there’s demand for more, we’d certainly be interested in pursuing it.” Regarding the bottom line, Mack stated that “our numbers are better than expected” and said “we were pleasantly surprised by the amount of traffic we had during the summer months.” Unfortunately, the magazine didn’t press Mack for financial details. But it appears that Mosaic hasn’t gone wrong by borrowing Mike Keiser’s development formula.

     As the U.S. economy perks up, Double Diamond Resorts has begun to aggressively market its long-delayed, 2,000-acre resort community in Forestburgh, New York. Lost Lake, a work in progress since 2007, has been master-planned to include gated houses, overnight accommodations, meeting space, a spa, restaurants, and an 18-hole, “championship” golf course. Double Diamond already owns and operates a golf-themed resort in Pennsylvania (Eagle Rock Resort outside Hazleton) and four in Texas: Rock Creek Resort in Gordonville, the Retreat in Cleburne, the Cliffs Resort near Mineral Wells, and White Bluff Resort near Waco. It hasn’t said when Lost Lake would officially open, but it expects to build the course’s first nine holes in the first phase of construction.

     Cabot Links and Cabot Cliffs won’t forever command the attention of golfers in Nova Scotia -- at least not if Jack Nicklaus’ design firm has anything to say about it. Late last year, Terra Firma Development Corporation broke ground on the 18-hole, Nicklaus Design track that will be the centerpiece of Forest Lakes Country Club in suburban Halifax. “The aim is still to have something playable, even if it’s only nine holes, in 2015,” Terra Firma’s chief operating officer told the Halifax Chronicle Herald. The track will be Nicklaus Design’s seventh in Canada but its first in what’s known as “Atlantic Canada.” All of the others are in British Columbia, Ontario, and Alberta.

     Some information in the preceding post originally appeared in August 2011 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.

      Gary Player and the Kuwaiti developers of Zimbali Lakes, an upscale resort community on South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal coast, have “mutually agreed to part company,” according to a press release. Player, who’d inked a contract to design the Lakes’ “signature” layout more than a decade ago, has apparently grown weary of battling “various environmental and other challenges” that had delayed construction. Zimbali Lakes is, in essence, phase two of Zimbali Coastal Resort, a nearly built-out, 1,750-acre spread anchored by Zimbali Country Club and its 18-hole, Tom Weiskopf-designed course. The design commission for the Lakes’ course had been a triumph for Player, who was born in Johannesburg and still lives in South Africa, as IFA Hotels & Resorts had hired him to create what amounted to a legacy project -- a “memorable” track that would rank as “one of South Africa’s great golf courses.” IFA hasn’t yet identified a new designer or announced when it believes construction of the Lakes’ course might begin.

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

     The new owners of Selva Marina Country Club, in Atlantic Beach, Florida, have embarked on a $12 million revitalization program that includes an Erik Larsen-designed golf course. Atlantic Beach Partners LLC closed on its purchase of Selva Marina last month (it reportedly paid $4.3 million), with its managing partner telling the Florida Times-Union that he’ll do “everything possible” to make the property “the preferred choice for families seeking a relaxed club lifestyle at the beaches.” The LLC has given Selva Marina a new name, Atlantic Beach Country Club, and directed Larsen, the former head of Arnold Palmer’s design firm, to modernize its 56-year-old, E. E. Smith-designed layout. Larsen’s track is expected to debut in the fall of this year.

     To spark economic development and cash in on the popularity of “indigenous” tourism, Australia’s largest Aboriginal community wants to create a vacation destination with an 18-hole golf course. Yarrabah, which is located on Cape Grafton along coastal Queensland, has floated a proposal to build a terminal for cruise ships and a “cultural village” where travelers might catch a glimpse of “authentic” Aboriginal life. These attractions would be accompanied by houses, a shopping area, and the golf course. “Tourism is the key to linking the past, present, and the future,” the community’s mayor told the Courier Mail. “Ultimately, it is about us coming up with a plan to get off the welfare treadmill.” Getting off the treadmill won’t be easy. The Australian Bureau of Statistics has named Yarrabah as Queensland’s most impoverished area. Many of its residents live in shacks, without electricity, and the community’s commercial area reportedly consists of a supermarket, a bar, a bakery, a pair of carry-out restaurants, and a gas station.

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

     The top government official in Himachal Pradesh, India wants to build a golf course in a part of the state where paragliders find their wings. During a paragliding competition last fall, Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh said that the state plans to acquire land for an 18-hole golf course in Bir, a village located roughly 15 miles east of Palampur. His goal, according to a report in the News Himachal, is to turn the area into an “all-season sports destination.” Himachal Pradesh is India’s least urbanized state (and its second-least corrupt, according to a 2005 study by Transparency International), and it needs a steady flow of tourist traffic to bolster its economy. Bir already has many attractions -- Buddhist monasteries, meditation centers, a popular tea factory -- but Singh figures that a golf course would lure vacationers during the summer, before the autumn’s paragliding season takes flight.

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

     Looking to fill a void in the marketplace, a public service agency in suburban Wichita, Kansas hopes to build a nine-hole, par-3 golf course. The 30-acre track, in the town of Valley Center, will be designed especially for juniors, seniors, and beginners and will operate without any paid staffers. The area has been without an entry-level course since 2012, when a modest 18-hole course in nearby Park City was closed to make way for commercial development.