The Week That Was, march 2, 2014

     Mike Keiser’s forthcoming golf complex in Rome is already having an impact on golf development in Wisconsin. Herb Kohler appears ready to green-light a fifth Pete Dye-designed course for his American Club in Sheboygan, and Andy Ziegler has unveiled a possible “short” or par-3 layout at Erin Hills in suburban Milwaukee. While those venues prepare for a more competitive future, it looks as if Keiser has settled on a near-term development plan for Sand Valley. According to the Golf Channel, the Chicago-based developer intends to build three golf courses over the next eight years.

     At Chambers Bay, will two Robert Trent Jones, Jr.-designed courses be better than one? Bob Sonnenblick thinks so. The Los Angeles-based developer has proposed to build a clubhouse, a 220-room hotel, a conference center, and a complementary 18-hole track at the municipal venue outside Tacoma, Washington. Unlike Chambers Bay’s existing course, Jones’ second track will welcome carts. Sonnenblick has until mid June to line up financing, an issue that he doesn’t believe will be a problem. “There’s a lot of money around today for well-conceived, well-located, first-class projects,” he told the Tacoma News Tribune. If Sonnenblick gets all his ducks in line, construction could begin next summer, after the U.S. Open is contested at the facility.

     Donning its green eye shades, the National Golf Foundation has tallied 4,050 private clubs in the United States, an 8 percent decline from the number (4,400) counted in 2008. The decline is only incidentally a function of a rotten economy, the NGF believes, and more a result of desperate revenue-seeking clubs opening up to the public. “Since 2008,” the group has concluded, “more than 400 changed their operating model from exclusively serving members and their guests to opening their doors (some a little, some a lot) to public play.” One other noteworthy fact: The NGF reports that the nation’s private golf clubs now have roughly 1.9 million members, a number it describes as “significantly below peak.”

     The number of naturalist, destination-worthy golf courses in the pipeline on Tasmania may soon be reduced by one. Citing concerns about coastal erosion and evaporating water supplies, the Clarence City Council has nixed a proposed Mike Clayton-designed layout that was to be built at Seven Mile Beach, outside Hobart. The Hobart Mercury describes the council’s rejection as “a dramatic setback” but notes that the decision could be overturned by a local planning commission later this year. Mat Goggin, the course’s developer, hasn’t commented on the matter, but a spokesperson for his group warns that the project’s denial would compromise the island’s opportunity to become an international golf mecca. To tighten the screws, the spokesman claimed that Clayton, the co-designer of the first course at Barnbougle Dunes, believes the layout at Seven Mile Beach is “going to rate higher than Barnbougle.”

     Australia’s foremost casino operator has purchased one of greater Melbourne’s high-profile, high-luxury golf properties. Crown Resorts reportedly paid $67.6 million ($60.2 million in U.S. currency) for Capital Golf Club, a sumptuous, 17-year-old property that features a Peter Thomson-designed golf course. Crown has managed the facility since it opened and has been angling to buy it for years. The seller was Lloyd Williams, a local developer who fashioned the track out of what’s been described as a flat, featureless site. He reportedly took his inspiration from Steve Wynn’s Shadow Creek Golf Club. Crown is controlled by James Packer, one of Australia’s richest people. Packer’s holdings include Ellerston Golf Club in New South Wales, which features one of Australia’s top-rated golf courses.

     Singapore will lose part of its golf inventory in coming years, but local golf leaders believe that the popularity of the game will remain undiminished. In fact, Channel News Asia reports that the Singapore Golf Association “is confident that interest will continue to grow among amateurs and that there will be capacity to meet demand.” The number of golfers in the city-state has increased by 13 percent in recent years, according to the SGA, from 27,649 in 2009 to 35,785 in 2013.

     Regarding the proposed rezoning and redevelopment of Hampshire Country Club: The village of Mamaroneck, New York has called the developer’s bluff. The village has denied a request for permission to build 121 condos and a parking lot on Hampshire’s property, potentially setting up a battle over the future of the club’s 18-hole, Devereux Emmet-designed golf course. The question now is whether the developer, a group controlled by Westport Capital Partners and New World Realty Advisors, will follow through on its threat to raze the course and replace it with 106 McMansions. The property is already zoned for a subdivision, but the Westchester Business Journal reports that local anti-development forces believe the proposal on the table “will not pass muster in terms of compliance with environmental impact reviews.” This is a dispute that has it all -- money, power, greed -- and is therefore definitely worth watching.

     Slow play got you down? Looking for a way to speed things up? Maybe you should take a flyer on Wild Golf, a novelty golf game created by Wilderness Xtreme Sports. Wild Golf is played like traditional golf, but holes are won and lost according to the time it takes to play them, not by counting strokes. Players sprint to their balls as fast as they can and don’t waste precious seconds lining up their shots. “It’s tailor-made for today’s got-to-have-it-now, short-attention-span society,” one of the creators told the Southgate Press & Guide. One caveat, particularly for older golfers: Those par-5s can kill you.