The Week That Was, may 4, 2014

     Any other week, Donald Trump would have made headlines simply by securing the 2022 PGA Championship for his tony golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey. But this week, Trump made an even bigger splash: He purchased the historic Turnberry Resort, an 800-acre spread that overlooks the Firth of Clyde on Scotland’s Ayrshire coast. Trump bought Turnberry from Leisurecorp, a financially troubled real-estate entity owned by Dubai’s government. A price hasn’t been disclosed, but several news reports say that Trump paid in the neighborhood £35 million ($59 million). Turnberry has a 45-hole complex, including one of the world’s elite golf courses: the 108-year-old Ailsa track, which has hosted the Open Championship four times and is expected to host it again sometime during the next decade. Now that Trump has the Open Championship virtually in his back pocket, how long before he finally nabs the U.S. Open he so covets?

     Tiger Woods has earned a second chance to design his first U.S. golf course. Beacon Land Development and Lantern Asset Management have hired Woods to produce an 18-hole track for Bluejack National, a private club in Montgomery, Texas. The club will take shape on property that was formerly home to Blaketree National, a venue that opened in 2001 but closed in 2012. “Bluejack National has one of the best natural settings for golf I have seen,” Woods said in a press release. “The opportunity is here to create a golf course unlike any other in the Houston area, and our goal is for it to be among the best in the nation.” Bluejack National will also feature a Woods-designed “short” course whose routing “will largely be left to the imagination of the players,” according to the press release. The developers expect to break ground on the club this summer and hope to open it in late 2015 or early 2016. Beacon Land’s press release says that Blaketree National “was popular with Houston-area players,” but the Houston Chronicle reports that it was shuttered because “it couldn’t attract enough business from Houston and surrounding areas.”

     Today only one nation on earth truly qualifies as a hot spot for golf development, and it just barely makes the grade. In a poll of golf-course architects by KPMG’s Golf Advisory Practice, China alone received a gold star from at least half of the respondents. China’s score: 53 percent. The global development chill clearly hasn’t lifted, because only four other nations or regions managed to get votes from at least one-third of the architects. The upshot: Even though KPMG claims that it’s observed “a more positive attitude toward golf development in most regions of the world,” the architects -- all of them members of the American Society of Golf Course Architects or the European Institute of Golf Course Architects -- don’t necessarily agree. What’s distressing is that the places still in the deep-freeze are many of the planet’s established golf markets: the United States and Canada (cited by 10 percent of the respondents), Australia and Oceania (5 percent), South Africa (3 percent), Central Europe (3 percent), and Great Britain and Ireland (3 percent).

     Just two months after acquiring Prestonwood Country Club, in Dallas, Texas, ClubCorp Holdings has purchased a pair of Tournament Player Club properties with “signature” golf courses. Joining the ever-expanding ClubCorp family are TPC Michigan, in Dearborn, and TPC Piper Glen in Charlotte, North Carolina. Both properties were formerly owned by Heritage Golf Group. The former features a 25-year-old Jack Nicklaus-designed course, and the latter has a 26-year-old Arnold Palmer-designed course. ClubCorp hasn’t announced what it paid for the properties, but Michigan was reportedly on the market for $3.25 million, Piper Glen for $4 million. In a press release, a ClubCorp official said that the purchases would give his company “an even closer relationship with the PGA Tour and its exceptional brand.” ClubCorp, a publicly traded firm, now owns and/or operates 160 clubs of various types in 25 states, the District of Columbia, Mexico, and China.

     They’re happy to play nine holes instead of 18, and they’re especially happy when they can complement their rounds with music and, occasionally, a little pot. No, I’m not talking about the retirees in Sun City communities. I’m talking about millennials, the 18-to-34 generation that the golf industry so desperately needs to woo. After surveying 1,020 of its overwhelmingly male readers, Golf Digest has determined that younger golfers practice more often than older golfers do, care less about playing at top-rated courses, and are more inclined to smoke cigars and drink alcohol (though not beer) while they play. Surprisingly, although the vast majority of millennials (80 percent) currently play at public courses, just over half (51 percent) aim to join a private club someday, perhaps because they believe golf is the best sport for advancing a business career (69 percent). In addition, fewer millennials believe that jeans and cargo pants are appropriate linkswear, and 94 percent say they pay close attention to the rules. Such data isn’t easy to interpret, and for that reason the nation’s millennials may confound golf owners and operators for years to come.

     It didn’t take long for Cabot Links to become the crème de la crème of Canadian golf venues. The two-year-old track in Inverness, Nova Scotia is the nation’s top-ranked modern (post-1960) layout, according to Golfweek. The publication’s 40-course list has a distinctly contemporary feel, as 23 of the tracks opened in 2000 or later, while 34 opened in 1990 or later. As one would expect, more than half of the courses were produced by Canadian architects, with Doug Carrick (nine) and Tom McBroom (seven) collecting the most credits. The top of this year’s list is virtually a carbon copy of the 2013 edition, but the remaining 30 courses on the list have been shuffled around considerably. Eleven have moved up or down in the rankings by three or more places, with the biggest upgrades going to Mad River Golf Course in Creemore, Ontario (up by 12 places), the Links at Crowbush Cove on Prince Edward Island (up by six), and Bear Mountain Golf & Country Club in Victoria, British Columbia (also up by six). The biggest downgrades: Taboo Resort in Gravenhurst, Ontario and the Predator course at Predator Ridge in Vernon, British Columbia, each down by six places. Finally, Golfweek’s raters added two new courses to the list, the Ridge course at Predator Ridge and Le Maitre in Mont Tremblant, Quebec.

     With his recently unveiled course on the French island of Corsica, Kyle Phillips has gone where few other architects fear to tread: He’s challenging the tyranny of traditional 18-hole golf. Phillips’ 12-green layout is among the attractions at Domaine de Murtoli, a 6,000-acre working farm and rustic vacation spot on the French island’s southern coast. Murtoli’s guests are overwhelmingly recreational golfers, and Phillips’ track gives them plenty of options for three-, six-, nine-, 12-, and 18-hole play. Such a bevy of choices is in keeping with Murtoli’s motto: “Everything is offered, but nothing is imposed.” In some settings, such a course would stick out like a sore thumb, but at Murtoli it may very well fit like a glove.

     The original version of the preceding post first appeared in the February 2014 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.

     The ratings drop suffered by the Masters this year has led some golf-industry observers to contemplate life without Tiger Woods. And the prospect isn’t pleasant. Based on estimates provided by media analysts, Josh Sens of Golf magazine concludes that Woods is worth $15 billion to golf -- almost 22 percent of the $68.8 billion that our industry is currently said to be worth. Without Woods, Sens believes, golf would suffer declines across the board -- in television ratings, tee times, golf-related travel, and sales of tickets, equipment, and merchandise. It may be true that golf is capable of getting along fine without Woods, but there’s no reason to wish for his departure anytime soon.