The Week That Was, march 16, 2014

     Pinehurst Resort & Country Club covets one of its neighbors’ goods: the Jack Nicklaus “signature” golf course at National Golf Club. North Carolina’s premier golf destination aims to create a private club by combining its #7 course with National’s 18-hole, 25-year-old layout. “It will be a premier club like no other in the country,” a Pinehurst official told the Southern Pines Pilot. “Our amenities will be second to none.” The sellers are Ken and Claudia Robinette, who plan to continue building houses in the accompanying community. “We believe [the sale] will enhance the value of real estate within the club,” said Claudia Robinette. The transaction must be approved by both clubs’ members and boards.

     The golf courses in California’s Coachella Valley have set out to reduce their water use by at least 10 percent. A large majority of the valley’s 124 courses use ground water for irrigation, and local stocks are rapidly being depleted. The courses haven’t adopted a specific water-saving game plan, but many will likely start by reducing the amount of turf they routinely water. “There are no quick fixes,” Craig Kessler of the Southern California Golf Association said in a comment published by the Desert Sun. “But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t ways to start doing things seriously now that will accumulate and accelerate over a period of years and add up to change.” In addition, the Coachella Valley Water District has pledged to expedite its efforts to connect more courses to recycled and Colorado River water. Today, only 50 of the valley’s courses are hooked to these sources.

     The top executives of Troon Golf now have a reason to buy Rosetta Stone’s French-language program. The Scottsdale, Arizona-based firm has secured a management contract on its first property in France, the historic Château d’Augerville in Augerville-la-Rivière. The 265-acre estate, an hour’s drive south of Paris, features an 18-hole, Olivier Dongradi-designed golf course and an ancient château that’s been transformed into a 40-room hotel. It also makes its own chocolate. Dongradi has designed at least five other golf courses in France, among them Golf & Country Club de Maison Blanche in Echenevex, Garden Golf de Margaux in Margaux, and Golf du Pays de Sarrebourg in Sarrebourg. Bruce Glasco, the director of Troon’s overseas operations, believes that Dongradi’s course at Château d’Augerville will soon become “something special for golfers looking at fresh international options.”

     What do India’s top industrialists and business leaders discuss during their get-togethers? The best international golf destinations, naturally. The favored nation this year, according to the Confederation of Indian Industry: Thailand.

     Pacific Links International continues to offer its club members more for their money. The Canada-based, Chinese-owned company has added nine properties to its Pacific Links Golf Network, among them Clearwater Golf Club in New Zealand; Tobiano Golf Club in British Columbia, Canada; Sutera Golf Club in Malaysia; and the Members Club at Four Streams in Maryland. “Our goal is to offer members access to many of the world’s great courses, with membership levels and plans that make sense in their life and their budgets,” said Bruce Simmonds, PLI’s CEO. The company’s network now includes about 100 golf properties in North America, Asia, Southeast Asia, and Australia. Over the next three years, it intends to establish a greater presence in North America -- primarily in California, Arizona, New York, Florida, and Pennsylvania -- and also in Canada and New Zealand.

     Charlotte Golf Links, a property in North Carolina that was once part of Jeff Silverstein’s Carolina Trail, has closed after being foreclosed upon by its lender. Hunting Dog Capital, a San Francisco-based firm that held the course’s loan, acquired the course at an auction and took possession of it last week, according to the Charlotte Observer. Billy Casper Golf, the firm managing the course, turned out the lights shortly thereafter. Charlotte Golf Links and another Silverstein-owned venue, Skybrook Golf Club in Huntersville, were turned over to receivers last summer. Earlier this month, a Toronto-based lender foreclosed on two Charlotte-area properties that remain part of the trail, Tradition Golf Club and the Divide Golf Club.

     As he scopes out the future of the former Lodge at Doonbeg, Donald Trump is doing his best to ingratiate himself to the Irish. “I love Irish golf and I love the people of Ireland,” he proclaimed in a conversation with the Irish Examiner. Trump also has the highest regard for his most recent acquisition, which apparently has a treasured spot in his golf portfolio: “Doonbeg may be just the most important of all,” he told the Telegraph. What’s more, the resort’s future is going to be glorious (“We’re going to bring it to the next level, a level that will be at the highest levels of golf and luxury that there is in the world”), and his new neighbors will share the wealth (“We’re going to create a lot of tourism and a lot of jobs”). Of course, all of Trump’s love and affection will be void if his redevelopment plans aren’t approved.

     I’m shocked -- shocked! -- to learn that wagers are sometimes made at a golf course in Florida. Police have opened an investigation into the way Tarpon Springs Golf Course conducts its league play, and the facility’s customers are teed off. “Every golf course in this country does it,” one of them groused to the Tampa Bay Times, “and why they singled out this golf course I’ll never know.” But the course’s general manager knows why: A former employee squealed.