The Week That Was, june 22, 2014

     The owners and operators of the nation’s golf properties are feeling optimistic and confident about their financial prospects for 2014, according to data collected by the National Golf & Resort Properties Group. “The golf industry believes that the worst appears to be over,” the group writes in the 2014 Golf Investor Sentiment Survey, adding that, barring any significant unforeseeable events, “the golf market will continue to improve gradually.” By an overwhelming margin (81 percent), respondents to the survey believe that “the golf industry will improve or remain the same this year,” while 90 percent believe that “golf course values will either increase or stay the same.” Overall, the survey gives the golf industry a score of 63.2, which means that “the majority of the investment community has a positive outlook for their golf assets and the entire industry over the next 12 months.” NGRP says that its survey, an attempt to track investor confidence and predict where the golf business is heading, will be an annual event.

     Pity the poor 2014 U.S. Open. Without Tiger Woods, professional golf’s only true mega-star, tickets to the grounds at Pinehurst No. 2 could be purchased on the secondary market for only $106, on average, an amount that the Triangle Business Journal reports is “a whopping 61 percent less than last year,” when Woods was in the field at Merion. What’s worse, Martin Kaymer drained the event of its drama, and as a result Sunday’s television rating fell to a mere 3.3, close to half of the 2013 number. “Once again, the U.S. Open showed how much the game misses Woods,” Ed Sherman wrote in a post-mortem on the event. The PGA Tour always argues that it no longer needs Woods as much as it used to, but none of its so-called stars can move the needle like he does.

     One and done: That’s Donald Trump’s golf-development strategy for the Middle East. Trump has s decided that the Gil Hanse-designed golf course he’s building in Dubai -- “a truly great course,” he thinks -- will be his only golf venue in the region. “I only do something if I can top it,” he told Arabian Business, “and I’m not going to be able to top this golf course in the Middle East.” That being said, Trump still has a hankering to build a hotel in the area, preferably in Dubai.

     The largest and most famous resort in northern Greece is building a second golf course and firming up plans for a third. Porto Carras Grand Resort, which occupies more than 4,400 acres on the western coast of Sithonia, has been offering nine-hole rounds of golf since the mid 1970s. Now it’s growing because its current owner, a big construction company called Technical Olympic Group, wants to create “one of the top destinations for golf in Europe.” In the early 2000s, Technical Olympic extended the resort’s original track to 18 holes (it’s now called the Olive Grove course), and today a second 18-hole track, the Vineyard, is under construction. Next, the company plans to build a third 18 that will be designed by “a famous professional golfer,” so Porto Carras can have “the appropriate prestige” to attract high-profile professional events.

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

     Russia has 4,500 golfers who support roughly 30 golf courses, according to the Wall Street Journal. The newspaper notes that metropolitan Moscow, home to two-thirds of the nation’s golf population (an estimated 3,000 golfers), has nine 18-hole tracks and at least three nine-hole layouts, all but two of them private.

     In a move that may signal the end of his presidential ambitions, Vice President Joe Biden and his wife have joined Wilmington Country Club. In 2011, Golf Digest ranked Biden as the #29 golfer among the capital’s elected officials and revolving-door crowd, behind John Sununu (#23) but ahead of John Boehner (#43).