The Week That Was, october 19, 2014

     An investment banker has become one of the golf industry’s most powerful people. Martin “Golden” Slumbers, who’s spent the last 16 years in various high-level positions at Deutsche Bank, will succeed Peter Dawson as the chief executive of the R&A. Before he joined Deutsche Bank, Slumbers had worked for Price Waterhouse (now Pricewaterhouse Coopers) and Salomon Brothers. He also has a keen understanding of the golf business, as he belongs to an ancient private club in suburban London, England and carries a low handicap. A spokesman for the R&A says that Slumbers will “bring a great deal of experience” to his new job. Slumbers intends to join the the group in March for six months’ worth of on-the-job training, and he’ll take over officially in October 2015, when Dawson retires.

     Tom Doak may not be a fan of David McLay Kidd’s work, but -- for this year, at least -- Golf Digest is. The magazine has named Kidd’s Gamble Sands, a cheap-to-build, naturalist track in remote central Washington, as this year’s best new U.S. course. “Gamble Sands stands out because it represents a shift in attitude and a hope for the future of the game that is refreshing and encouraging,” Golf Digest believes. The long overdue “shift in attitude,” as the magazine sees it, is reflected in Gamble Sands’ “sheer playability” and its “celebration of fun” instead of difficulty. The magazine’s conclusion: “Kidd wants good players to relish opportunities to score on his layout, and he wants high-handicappers to shoot their best round ever.” The rest of the magazine’s top five consists of the Cliffs at Mountain Park (Gary Player, designer) in South Carolina, the Red course at Dismal River Club (Doak) in Nebraska, Sewailo Golf Club (Notah Begay) in Arizona, and Trump National Golf Links (Jack Nicklaus) in New York City.

     Tom Fazio has been appointed to toughen the venue that will host the golf competition at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. The Hendersonville, North Carolina-based designer will oversee forthcoming renovations to Kasumigaseki Country Club’s East course, a C. H. Alison-designed layout that dates from 1930. “He emphasized that he would respect what we have here,” the club’s president told Golf magazine. “He will balance the natural feeling here with the improvements needed to challenge the best players.” Links magazine calls Fazio “one of the most sought-after designers in golf” and says he’s known for “consistently eye-pleasing and strategic courses that sit seamlessly on nearly any landscape.” The makeover will begin in October 2015.

     Fulfilling what it described as “a long-term goal,” Haseko Hawaii, Inc. has found a buyer for Hoakalei Country Club in West Oahu, Hawaii. The five-year-old club’s new owner is another Japanese company, Hirakawa Shoji Group, which says that it offers “dreams, hope, and happiness by building affluent society and attainable extraordinary space.” The sales price hasn’t been announced. Hoakalei, which had been on the market for more than two years, features an 18-hole, Ernie Els-designed golf course. It’s Hirakawa Shoji’s first golf acquisition in the United States. The company owns one golf course in Japan, at Taishi Country Club in suburban Osaka.

     Since he no longer plays much golf -- only five or six rounds a year, by his own admission -- these days Greg Norman finds satisfaction in being what he calls “a walking conglomerate.” He’s referring, of course, to his endless stable of commercial enterprises, among them ventures in the wine, beef, apparel, turf, and golf-design trades, all of which have helped to give him an estimated net worth of $300 million. “I love being a living brand,” he beamed during a recent appearance on Fox Business News. Still, the Living Brand has his gripes, because he believes that the United States -- where he, an Australian, has lived for 30 years -- treats wealthy people unfairly. “I love making money,” said Norman, echoing remarks Phil Mickelson made last year, “but I hate paying all the taxes you’ve got to pay.” Here’s a news flash, Greg: We all hate paying taxes. But we write our checks without complaining about it in front of millions of people, secure in the knowledge that an ambulance will be promptly dispatched if we nearly slice off a hand while trimming trees in our back yards.

     Speaking of inane commentary, Donald Trump thinks that the rough-edged rejuvenation of Pinehurst #2 is not only “very bad for golf” but will eventually “kill golf.” In other words, Coore & Crenshaw is golf architecture’s ebola. “Golf is very much about beauty,” Trump opined to Golf Digest. “And they took the beauty away.” Unfortunately for Trump, beauty is and will forever be in the eye of the beholder, and the naturalist aesthetic is spreading like a virus, infecting forward-thinking designers all over the planet.