The Pipeline, march 21, 2014

     By the spring of 2016, Bandon Dunes will likely have some competition. Curry County, Oregon’s planning commission has unanimously approved Pacific Gales, an 18-hole, stand-alone golf course that will take shape on part of a 1,100-acre tract near Port Orford, a 40-minute drive south of Bandon. Dave Esler, the course’s designer, has promised to produce “something extraordinary, because the site deserves it,” and he believes his 18-hole, au naturel track “may even become the best one in the neighborhood.” The developers, a group led by Jim Haley, hope to begin moving earth this spring, provided that appeals aren’t lodged.

     Few golf course architects know Indonesia as well as Bob Moore. The North Carolina-based architect has designed or redesigned five of the nation’s roughly 140 courses, and these days he has another one under construction, one set to break ground, and three others in the pipeline. Moore, a principal of JMP Golf Design Group, attributes at least part of his success to his ability to create courses that offer a pleasurable round to the average golfer. “It is easy to design difficult golf courses,” he said in an interview with the Jakarta Globe. “The magic is designing golf holes that are fun to play and that golfers want to play again and again.” Today, Moore’s Bukit Pandawa Golf Course, an 18-hole, executive-length track, is taking shape in Bali. This summer, he expects to start building a course at Kota Baru Parahyangan, a master-planned community in Bandung, the capital of West Java. As for the tracks in the pipeline, he isn’t talking about them yet.

     In an attempt to become one of Cambodia’s premier golf destinations, a recently opened club in suburban Phnom Penh is laying plans to build a second 18-hole track. Garden City Golf Club is the centerpiece of a 2,500-acre “satellite city” that’s emerging roughly 20 miles northeast of the capital city. Its existing course, officially unveiled in the spring of 2013, was designed by Major General Weerayudth Phetbuasak, a Thai architect who’s also been commissioned to create course number two. LYP Group Company, Ltd., the property’s developer, believes that Garden City’s existing layout ranks as “the best golf course in Cambodia of truly international standard.” It may hear objections from Angkor Golf Resort in Siem Reap, which features a Nick Faldo-designed layout that Golfasian, a golf travel service, says is “the best golf course in Cambodia by a wide margin.” Second place may be up for grabs, however, as Cambodia has only about a half-dozen golf properties. Garden City hopes to open the second 18 in 2015 or 2016.

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

     One of the nation’s premier “lifestyle” developers aims to revive a dead golf course in Amenia, New York. Discovery Land Company wants to build a resort-style community around Silo Ridge Golf Course, an 18-hole, Al Zikorus-designed layout that’s been closed since 2009. The 850-acre community will feature a lodge and houses tailored to the high end of the market. “It will be a stunning project for Amenia, New York,” a town supervisor told the Millbrook Independent. Years ago, another development group had hired Ernie Els to redesign Silo Ridge. DLC has enlisted Tom Fazio, one of its go-to architects, for the job. Fazio has designed the courses for a half-dozen of DLC’s 14 U.S. golf communities, and he’s also going to create one for the Hills at East Quogue, a property that DLC wants to develop on Long Island.

     A golf community in Australia’s Hunter Valley, its development foiled for years by the Great Recession, appears to be making a comeback. Anvil Creek, which is to occupy 1,045 acres outside Cessnock, New South Wales, was proposed in 2005 and approved in 2008 but couldn’t secure financing and appeared to be dying or dead. Now, however, the Maitland Mercury reports that Greta Estates, Ltd. is “modernizing” its development plans and seeking zoning changes that will allow it to redesign its proposed Graham Marsh-designed golf course. The company believes the track can create the “critical mass needed to market the area as a major golf destination.” Anvil Creek’s original master plan called for 1,364 houses, a resort-style hotel with meeting space, a vineyard, a shopping area, a wellness center, and an organic farm.

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

     The engineering affiliate of China’s biggest infrastructure contractor plans to build a golf course in southern Sri Lanka. China Harbor Engineering Company will build the course, along with a 250-room hotel and a duty-free shopping complex, in Mattala, a town just north of Hambantota. The company is familiar with the area, for it built the just-opened Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport. China Harbor is a subsidiary of China Communications Construction Company, a publicly traded, Beijing-based conglomerate that ranks first among China’s international contractors and has claimed a spot near the top of Engineering News Record’s list of the world’s largest contractors. The airport and the golf course are just two of several large-scale projects (among them a new harbor and another hotel) that China Harbor has undertaken in Sri Lanka. It’s signed an agreement to build the course with the airport’s operator, the government-controlled Airport & Aviation Services (Sri Lanka) Ltd.

     Michal Goli is following through on his promise to build an 18-hole golf course on a repurposed industrial site in Bytom, Poland. The local Toyota dealer has opened the first nine holes of his Armada Golf Club, the centerpiece of a golf community that’s emerging from the wasteland that had once been the Szombierki coal mine. The track is said to be the first in Poland to be built on a brownfield. Adjacent to it, Goli plans to add a nursing home and a retail/commercial area, and in the future he aims to transform the mine’s landmark structure -- a 15-story hoisting tower -- into a small hotel with some apartments, office space, and other attractions. The golf course has been designed by Christoph Städler, a German architect, and it’s being built by German golf construction firm, Golfplatzbau GmbH. Work on the second nine will begin next year, and the completed venue could open in 2015.

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

     This spring, six years after the initial groundbreaking, Mark Hollinger debuts his second golf course for Jiuzhaigou HonYee Investment Company. The 18-hole track will be the featured attraction at the Jiuzhaigou resort, which is emerging near Jiuzhai Valley National Park in Sichuan Province. Hollinger, a principal California-based JMP Golf Design Group, once called golf carts “the worst thing the Americans ever did for golf,” but they’ll be required at Jiuzhaigou, for the course has been laid out on a hilly, rugged site. Previously, HonYee had commissioned Hollinger to design Luxe Hills Golf & Country Club, a 27-hole complex in Chengdu, where HonYee is headquartered. In all, Hollinger has created more than a dozen courses in China, although he believes the quality of the work produced by the nation’s golf contractors is “pitiful.”