Greg Norman’s flat-lining golf community in Loudoun County, Tennessee has finally found a buyer. An affiliate of The PNL Companies, a Dallas, Texas-based group that invests in troubled real estate, has acquired Tennessee National, a 1,450-acre waterfront spread that opened in 2006. As part of their effort to get the development ball rolling again, the new owners plan to build a long-awaited marina on Watts Bar Lake and unveil some new housing options for the gated community. Tennessee National was initiated by John “Thunder” Thornton, a Chattanooga-based developer, and Medallist Development, a firm created by Norman and Macquarie Bank. The partners put the property up for sale in 2010, shortly after one of their sales pitches -- one that offered a chance to buy lakefront property for “pennies on the dollar!” -- failed to strike a nerve.
An auctioneer without any golf experience is the new owner of Weatherwax Golf Course, a money-losing municipal venue in Middletown, Ohio. Myron Bowling told the Hamilton Journal-News that he’s “never held a golf club” and doesn’t expect to take up the sport anytime soon. To get the 36-hole, Arthur Hills-designed golf complex back on its financial feet, Bowling said, he and his partners plan to cut costs and invest in improvements that will attract local golfers. No specifics were offered. The city accepted $1.6 million for the 425-acre property. After it deducts the sales commission ($80,000), pays off the debt on the complex’s bonds ($750,000) and its golf carts ($502,644), and springs for some purchaser-requested odds and ends ($30,000), Middletown will pocket $95,000.
A Hong Kong-based movie producer and soccer addict has made a small splash in Bulgaria’s tiny golf business. Steven Lo, the chairman of BMA Entertainment Holdings, Ltd., has acquired St. Sofia Golf Club, one of the capital city’s (and the nation’s) most prominent golf properties. St. Sofia’s 18-hole course opened in 2004 and was redesigned by Paul McGinley in 2012. Before the Gary Player-designed courses at BlackSeaRama and Thracian Cliffs opened, it was generally regarded as the nation’s top golf property. Lo owns a soccer team in Hong Kong and serves as the vice chairman of the city’s football association, and he has a passion for horse racing. BMA owns a bunch of movie theaters and is involved in a variety of arts- and sports-related activities, among them music production, book publishing, and celebrity management. It appears that the purchase of St. Sofia is Lo’s first move into the golf business, and there’s no reason to believe that it’ll be his last.
A Chinese investor has purchased Chalet Hills Golf Club, a financially challenged property in Cary, Illinois. In a transaction that closed late last year, Leli Zhou reportedly paid $1.55 million for Chalet Hills, which has been operated by a receiver since 2011. The receiver, operating on behalf of a Chicago-area bank, was hoping to get $2.75 million. Chalet Hills features an 18-hole layout that was designed by Ken Killian, who once called it “the greatest course I have ever designed.” Chris Charnas, the broker who facilitated the transaction, believes that Zhou will employ “a fresh approach to marketing” and “should be able to reinvigorate the asset.” In 2012, the Cary Park District had considering buying the course but passed on the opportunity.
On the final day of 2013, an Edmonton-based trailer-manufacturing company took possession of its first golf property. Denille Industries, Ltd., which operates as Auburn Rentals, bought Shadow Mountain Golf Course, a distressed facility in Cranbrook, British Columbia. Shadow Mountain features an 18-hole, Wayne Carleton-designed course that opened in 2009. “We have some plans of diversifying into land development,” a company official told the Cranbrook Daily Townsman, “and this golf course was kind of phase one of our future goals and visions of diversification.” Shadow Mountain, which rang up 19,000 rounds in 2012, has been operated by a receiver since January 2013. The sales price hasn’t been announced, but the receiver was asking for $3.75 million.
Late last year, the village of Homer Glen, Illinois closed on the largest land purchase in its history. The Chicago Tribune reports that the village paid $3.3 million for Woodbine Golf Course, a 106-acre spread that features an 18-hole, Gordon Cunningham-designed layout. The sellers, Jim and Patricia Ludwig, are said to be eagerly looking forward to retirement and, presumably, equally happy to avoid a bankruptcy filing. The course will operate through the 2014 season and then most likely disappear. The village thinks it’ll make an ideal park.
Canada’s premier golf operator has added to its inventory in Ontario. ClubLink has purchased Hidden Lake Golf Club, a 36-hole facility that occupies roughly 500 acres in Burlington. The Burlington Post describes Hidden Lake as “a strategically located, successful course” and one of the area’s most popular. George Tidd, one of the sellers, credited the facility’s success to “offering the public golfer a great experience at an affordable fee.” ClubLink owns and operates more than three dozen golf properties in Ontario and Quebec and several others in Florida.
Jacksonville, Florida-based Arendale Holdings has become the sole owner of the Cliffs Communities, a cluster of seven flamed-out, high-end golf communities in the Carolinas. “We believe the Cliffs is poised for a vibrant future for its residents, club members, and employees,” an Arendale spokesperson said in a press release. Operating as Silver Sun Partners LLC, Arendale and its former partners -- the Carlile Group and SunTx Urbana -- freed the Cliffs collection from bankruptcy protection in 2012. Arendale acquired the interests of its partners in late December 2013. Sadly, the press release didn’t address the development prospects for the Cliffs at High Carolina, a community outside Asheville, North Carolina that was supposed to feature Tiger Woods’ first U.S. golf design. High Carolina may not have much of a future, but it sure was fun while it lasted.
Friday, February 28, 2014
Sunday, February 23, 2014
The Week That Was, february 23, 2014
After crunching the relevant financial numbers and weighing the likely impact of economic trends, the National Golf & Resort Properties Group has concluded that “the golf industry has turned the corner.” Steven Ekovich, one of the group’s founders, believes that “brighter days are ahead,” thanks largely to strong corporate earnings that have increased consumer confidence, particularly among wealthy Americans. “The better a golfer feels,” Ekovich writes, “the more likely cost of play becomes less of an impediment to hitting the links.” He suggests that private clubs will benefit before daily-fee tracks do, because their members “tend to be more invested in the stock market, better educated, and better off than your average public, occasional golfer.” It’s an argument we’ve heard before, and one that rings particularly true in our industry: As the wealthiest go, so goes golf.
Water resources in California may be running dry, but a desert community in the Borrego Valley nonetheless plans to quench the thirst of a Tom Fazio-designed golf course that was forced to close three years ago. The Borrego Water District has agreed to provide water to the owners of Rams Hill, a long-troubled planned community located roughly midway between Escondido and the Salton Sea. In exchange, the developers have promised to buy hundreds of acres of grapefruit and palm-tree groves and to let them go fallow. “We need the golf courses,” the head of the local chamber of commerce told the San Diego Union-Tribune. “Golf courses bring in people with disposable income.” The developers aim to turn on the taps as soon as they can and to reopen the golf course in November.
An expiration date is on the horizon for several golf properties in land-scarce Singapore. The city-state’s government doesn’t plan to renew the ground leases on Keppel Club and Marina Bay Golf Club, both of which will expire within a decade, and three other venues will need to give up some of their property (including one of the four 18-hole golf courses at Singapore Island Country Club) before their leases are renewed. The government is taking the action to prepare for the future, as a housing shortage is looming in the former British settlement. By reducing supply, the closings will increase the value (and price) of club memberships in Singapore, which currently has 14 private clubs and three public tracks.
Conservative lawmakers in Utah are angling to turn over the state’s golf properties to the private sector. A representative in Utah County has introduced legislation that would force the state’s division of parks and recreation to privatize its four properties (a total of six golf courses), with a request for proposals to be issued by October 15, 2014. The legislation runs counter to advice offered by the National Golf Foundation in 2012, after it evaluated the state’s golf operations. The NGF recommended that “the present self-operation system should be continued” through the 2015 fiscal year, with privatization to be considered only if the golf operation’s financial picture doesn’t improve. The NGF’s analysts believe that “these golf courses are important to the state of Utah and add value to the state’s overall park system.” Why don’t the state’s elected officials see things the same way?
Pacific Links International, the Chinese-Canadian company that’s rapidly becoming a force in U.S. golf, has closed on its purchase of DragonRidge Country Club. DragonRidge, a 12-year-old property in Henderson, features an 18-hole course co-designed by Jay Morrish and David Druzisky. PLI, a group led by Du Sha, owns two other golf properties in the Las Vegas area, SouthShore Golf Club and Southern Highlands Golf Club, both of which were acquired in 2011. It aims to buy at least five properties in and around the city, so it can offer week-long golf vacations to the people in its fast-growing membership club. The company also owns five courses in Hawaii and one each in California and West Virginia.
Regarding the Trump Organization’s recent purchase of the Lodge at Doonbeg, in County Clare, Ireland, one question remains unanswered: What was the selling price? Various sources peg it at €15 million or £12.4 million (both about $20.6 million), which was the amount that the resort’s receivers were asking for. As for Donald Trump himself, he’s letting on like he got himself a bargain. “In some of our places in Manhattan,” he told the Irish Independent, “it wouldn’t get you an apartment.”
More than 150 years after the Emancipation Proclamation and 50 years after the Civil Rights Act, Dallas Country Club has finally admitted its first local black member. He is Kneeland Youngblood, a graduate of Princeton University and a long-time physician who co-founded Pharos Capital Group, which today has more than $1 billion in assets under management. Youngblood has been active in politics since the age of 14, and he currently serves on the boards of several corporations, among them Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Burger King, and The Gap, Inc. Youngblood formally applied for membership to the club 13 years ago. He now has the privilege of paying a $137,000 initiation fee.
Water resources in California may be running dry, but a desert community in the Borrego Valley nonetheless plans to quench the thirst of a Tom Fazio-designed golf course that was forced to close three years ago. The Borrego Water District has agreed to provide water to the owners of Rams Hill, a long-troubled planned community located roughly midway between Escondido and the Salton Sea. In exchange, the developers have promised to buy hundreds of acres of grapefruit and palm-tree groves and to let them go fallow. “We need the golf courses,” the head of the local chamber of commerce told the San Diego Union-Tribune. “Golf courses bring in people with disposable income.” The developers aim to turn on the taps as soon as they can and to reopen the golf course in November.
An expiration date is on the horizon for several golf properties in land-scarce Singapore. The city-state’s government doesn’t plan to renew the ground leases on Keppel Club and Marina Bay Golf Club, both of which will expire within a decade, and three other venues will need to give up some of their property (including one of the four 18-hole golf courses at Singapore Island Country Club) before their leases are renewed. The government is taking the action to prepare for the future, as a housing shortage is looming in the former British settlement. By reducing supply, the closings will increase the value (and price) of club memberships in Singapore, which currently has 14 private clubs and three public tracks.
Conservative lawmakers in Utah are angling to turn over the state’s golf properties to the private sector. A representative in Utah County has introduced legislation that would force the state’s division of parks and recreation to privatize its four properties (a total of six golf courses), with a request for proposals to be issued by October 15, 2014. The legislation runs counter to advice offered by the National Golf Foundation in 2012, after it evaluated the state’s golf operations. The NGF recommended that “the present self-operation system should be continued” through the 2015 fiscal year, with privatization to be considered only if the golf operation’s financial picture doesn’t improve. The NGF’s analysts believe that “these golf courses are important to the state of Utah and add value to the state’s overall park system.” Why don’t the state’s elected officials see things the same way?
Pacific Links International, the Chinese-Canadian company that’s rapidly becoming a force in U.S. golf, has closed on its purchase of DragonRidge Country Club. DragonRidge, a 12-year-old property in Henderson, features an 18-hole course co-designed by Jay Morrish and David Druzisky. PLI, a group led by Du Sha, owns two other golf properties in the Las Vegas area, SouthShore Golf Club and Southern Highlands Golf Club, both of which were acquired in 2011. It aims to buy at least five properties in and around the city, so it can offer week-long golf vacations to the people in its fast-growing membership club. The company also owns five courses in Hawaii and one each in California and West Virginia.
Regarding the Trump Organization’s recent purchase of the Lodge at Doonbeg, in County Clare, Ireland, one question remains unanswered: What was the selling price? Various sources peg it at €15 million or £12.4 million (both about $20.6 million), which was the amount that the resort’s receivers were asking for. As for Donald Trump himself, he’s letting on like he got himself a bargain. “In some of our places in Manhattan,” he told the Irish Independent, “it wouldn’t get you an apartment.”
More than 150 years after the Emancipation Proclamation and 50 years after the Civil Rights Act, Dallas Country Club has finally admitted its first local black member. He is Kneeland Youngblood, a graduate of Princeton University and a long-time physician who co-founded Pharos Capital Group, which today has more than $1 billion in assets under management. Youngblood has been active in politics since the age of 14, and he currently serves on the boards of several corporations, among them Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Burger King, and The Gap, Inc. Youngblood formally applied for membership to the club 13 years ago. He now has the privilege of paying a $137,000 initiation fee.
Friday, February 21, 2014
Vital Signs, february 21, 2014
After three consecutive years of declines in attendance, the crowds were a bit larger at this year’s Golf Industry Show. The event, held earlier this month in Orlando, Florida, attracted 14,147 people, an increase of 8 percent over the number recorded in 2013. The show’s audience had been shrinking since 2011, when 14,781 people came through the gates. In terms of attendance, the show’s high-water mark came in 2007, when it attracted 23,109 people.
Like their U.S. counterparts, golf clubs in the United Kingdom are populated mostly by people who are going gray. According to a survey by Sky Sports News, the dominant age group at more than 80 percent of the U.K.’s clubs consists of people over 50, while only 1 percent of the clubs claim a membership dominated by people aged between 31 and 40. The survey, which polled 254 clubs, also determined that 70 percent have lost members over the past five years.
The United States has roughly three times as many golfers as Japan -- 24.5 million versus 8 million -- but the Japanese spend more on apparel, according to the U.S./Japan World Golf Market Report. When apparel and equipments sales are combined, however, U.S. purchases amounted to $5.1 billion in 2013, while Japanese purchases totaled $3.7 billion.
When it comes to deferred capital investment, the past inevitably catches up with municipal golf operations. To quote an ancient television commercial: You can pay me now, or you can pay me later. This is where the city of Minneapolis, Minnesota currently finds itself, as its six golf properties require an estimated $34 million in improvements to remain competitive in their markets. Jim Keegan of Golf Convergence, who was hired to analyze the collection, has advised the city to close one of the deteriorating properties and spiff up the others, but where is the money supposed to come from? Although a master plan for renovations is currently being developed, the city may be forced to seek help from the private sector.
Golf developers looking to make a mark in India might be wise to avoid Goa. The state reportedly attracts more than 2.5 million vacationers annually, but its coastline is suffering as a result. In 2011, a report by India’s National Institute of Oceanography concluded that Goa’s coastal waters were unsafe for bathing and fishing. And Down To Earth, citing a government study issued in 2012, reports that “the state’s beaches are degrading, groundwater table is going down, and there is lack of sewerage and solid waste management.” India’s tourism officials have been eagerly touting Goa’s golf-development prospects for years, but the tourist traffic will disappear without the state’s famous, welcoming beaches.
Chinese tourists are the world’s biggest spenders, and recent trends suggest that more than 100 million of them will be globe-hopping this year. Agence France Presse reports that 97 million Chinese traveled to other nations in 2013, a nearly 17 percent increase from the 83 million who went abroad in 2012. To put these numbers into perspective, the nation had just 29 million outbound travelers in 2004. And nowadays, they don’t travel cheap. “Chinese tourists spend so much abroad,” a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences told the news agency, “that some foreigners are calling us ‘walking wallets.’” The amount they spent in 2013 isn’t available, but it amounted to $102 billion in 2012, and AFP asserts that they were “almost certain to have surpassed that record last year.”
For years, Croatia’s tourism officials have been trying in vain to persuade developers to add dozens of courses to the nation’s inventory. Now they may have some ammunition to help spark golf construction: The nation attracted 12.4 million tourists last year, a record number and 5.5 percent more than it welcomed in 2012. Croatia may not yet generate enough tourist traffic to support even 10 more courses, but it can probably use more than the five it currently has.
The U.S. military operates 194 golf properties, according to a count by Mother Jones. The vast majority are located on air force, army, and navy bases in the United States, though roughly 30 can be found at installations in Germany, Japan, South Korea, and seven other nations in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and the Caribbean.
Like their U.S. counterparts, golf clubs in the United Kingdom are populated mostly by people who are going gray. According to a survey by Sky Sports News, the dominant age group at more than 80 percent of the U.K.’s clubs consists of people over 50, while only 1 percent of the clubs claim a membership dominated by people aged between 31 and 40. The survey, which polled 254 clubs, also determined that 70 percent have lost members over the past five years.
The United States has roughly three times as many golfers as Japan -- 24.5 million versus 8 million -- but the Japanese spend more on apparel, according to the U.S./Japan World Golf Market Report. When apparel and equipments sales are combined, however, U.S. purchases amounted to $5.1 billion in 2013, while Japanese purchases totaled $3.7 billion.
When it comes to deferred capital investment, the past inevitably catches up with municipal golf operations. To quote an ancient television commercial: You can pay me now, or you can pay me later. This is where the city of Minneapolis, Minnesota currently finds itself, as its six golf properties require an estimated $34 million in improvements to remain competitive in their markets. Jim Keegan of Golf Convergence, who was hired to analyze the collection, has advised the city to close one of the deteriorating properties and spiff up the others, but where is the money supposed to come from? Although a master plan for renovations is currently being developed, the city may be forced to seek help from the private sector.
Golf developers looking to make a mark in India might be wise to avoid Goa. The state reportedly attracts more than 2.5 million vacationers annually, but its coastline is suffering as a result. In 2011, a report by India’s National Institute of Oceanography concluded that Goa’s coastal waters were unsafe for bathing and fishing. And Down To Earth, citing a government study issued in 2012, reports that “the state’s beaches are degrading, groundwater table is going down, and there is lack of sewerage and solid waste management.” India’s tourism officials have been eagerly touting Goa’s golf-development prospects for years, but the tourist traffic will disappear without the state’s famous, welcoming beaches.
Chinese tourists are the world’s biggest spenders, and recent trends suggest that more than 100 million of them will be globe-hopping this year. Agence France Presse reports that 97 million Chinese traveled to other nations in 2013, a nearly 17 percent increase from the 83 million who went abroad in 2012. To put these numbers into perspective, the nation had just 29 million outbound travelers in 2004. And nowadays, they don’t travel cheap. “Chinese tourists spend so much abroad,” a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences told the news agency, “that some foreigners are calling us ‘walking wallets.’” The amount they spent in 2013 isn’t available, but it amounted to $102 billion in 2012, and AFP asserts that they were “almost certain to have surpassed that record last year.”
For years, Croatia’s tourism officials have been trying in vain to persuade developers to add dozens of courses to the nation’s inventory. Now they may have some ammunition to help spark golf construction: The nation attracted 12.4 million tourists last year, a record number and 5.5 percent more than it welcomed in 2012. Croatia may not yet generate enough tourist traffic to support even 10 more courses, but it can probably use more than the five it currently has.
The U.S. military operates 194 golf properties, according to a count by Mother Jones. The vast majority are located on air force, army, and navy bases in the United States, though roughly 30 can be found at installations in Germany, Japan, South Korea, and seven other nations in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and the Caribbean.
Sunday, February 16, 2014
The Week That Was, february 16, 2014
The European wing of Donald Trump’s golf empire now extends beyond Scotland. An entity controlled by the New York City-based golf mogul has acquired the financially beleaguered Lodge at Doonbeg in County Clare, Ireland, a 400-acre oceanfront property that will henceforth be called Trump International Golf Links Ireland. In a comment published by the Belfast Telegraph, Trump called Doonbeg an “incredible golf resort” that he intends to transform into “an unparalleled resort destination with the highest standards of luxury.” Doonbeg, which was created by the people who developed Kiawah Island, features a 218-room hotel, a spa, restaurants, and a well-regarded Greg Norman-designed golf course. It had been handed over to receivers earlier this year. The sales price hasn’t been announced, but the receivers were reportedly asking for £12.4 million (almost $20.8 million).
Just hours before he announced his purchase of the Lodge at Doonbeg, in Ireland, Donald Trump lost the legal challenge he’d made against the off-shore wind farm that’s planned to take shape within view of his golf resort in Scotland. With the wind farm’s construction now a veritable sure thing, Trump has terminated his remaining development efforts in Aberdeenshire -- no vacation houses, no five-star hotel, and especially no second golf course, the one that was named in honor of his late mother. “Wind farms are a disaster for Scotland, like Pan Am 103,” Trump groused to the Irish Times, regrettably conflating a legal decision that went against him to the loss of 270 human lives. Partly as a result of the legal proceedings, however, Trump can claim a small victory: Late last year, the wind farm’s developers were forced to delay the construction by two years. At the earliest, the turbines will begin operation in 2017.
The drive to provide free golf for children appears to be gathering momentum. Just months after Tiger Woods recommended that golf properties offer complimentary rounds to kids under 16, Crown Golf Group has decided to give free memberships and lessons to juniors at St. Mellion International Resort in Cornwall, England. “This is our chance to create a golf club for the future,” said an official at St. Mellion’s, one of the top golf destinations in the United Kingdom. The program “sets a superb example to the rest of the British golf industry,” said the head of a local group, and establishes St. Mellion as “one of the southwest’s most progressive golf clubs.” Crown Golf intends to offer the memberships to 25 juniors for as long as six years.
The owners of Hampshire Country Club, on New York’s Long Island, are threatening to raze their 18-hole golf course unless they’re given permission to build 121 condos. “The best way to stay in business as a golf club is to allow the condominium housing,” the project manager for the owners, a group controlled by Westport Capital Partners and New World Realty Advisors, told the Westchester Journal News. If the village of Mamaroneck nixes the condos, the owners say, they’ll cover the property’s Devereux Emmet-designed layout course with 106 single-family houses. The houses are allowed under the current zoning. The club, which has had financial difficulties for years, reportedly has 275 members.
As he promised he would someday do, Richard Mandell is taking his Symposium on Affordable Golf out West. The fifth installment of the golf industry’s most thought-provoking annual get-together will be held at Dairy Creek Golf Course in San Luis Obispo, California. The dates: March 31 and April 1. “The goal,” Mandel has said, “is to generate healthy discussion on how to return the game of golf to a state of stability, prosperity, and affordable simplicity.” Among the topics and questions to be addressed at this year’s event: “The Folly of Replicating Tournament Conditions,” “Zero Waste Golf,” “What Does the Golfer Really Want?” and “If the Demand Isn’t There, Is Anything Affordable?” As in years past, the symposium is free, but registration would be helpful.
Keith A. Ihms has been elected as the president of the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America. Ihms, a member of the GCSAA for the past 33 years, is currently the director of grounds maintenance at Country Club of Little Rock, in Arkansas. Previously, he was a superintendent at four clubs in Texas, including Bent Tree Country Club in Dallas, Pine Forest Country Club in Houston, and Golf Crest Country Club in Pearland.
Call it irony, poetic justice, or simply a case of truth being stranger than fiction, but Donald Trump may soon be fighting against another proposed wind farm, this one near his recently acquired property in Ireland. A Clare-based group has submitted plans to build nine wind turbines, each more than 400 feet high, on a site a little more than a mile south of the village of Doonbeg. Trump hasn’t yet commented on the proposal. Local officials are expected to vote on it next month.
Just hours before he announced his purchase of the Lodge at Doonbeg, in Ireland, Donald Trump lost the legal challenge he’d made against the off-shore wind farm that’s planned to take shape within view of his golf resort in Scotland. With the wind farm’s construction now a veritable sure thing, Trump has terminated his remaining development efforts in Aberdeenshire -- no vacation houses, no five-star hotel, and especially no second golf course, the one that was named in honor of his late mother. “Wind farms are a disaster for Scotland, like Pan Am 103,” Trump groused to the Irish Times, regrettably conflating a legal decision that went against him to the loss of 270 human lives. Partly as a result of the legal proceedings, however, Trump can claim a small victory: Late last year, the wind farm’s developers were forced to delay the construction by two years. At the earliest, the turbines will begin operation in 2017.
The drive to provide free golf for children appears to be gathering momentum. Just months after Tiger Woods recommended that golf properties offer complimentary rounds to kids under 16, Crown Golf Group has decided to give free memberships and lessons to juniors at St. Mellion International Resort in Cornwall, England. “This is our chance to create a golf club for the future,” said an official at St. Mellion’s, one of the top golf destinations in the United Kingdom. The program “sets a superb example to the rest of the British golf industry,” said the head of a local group, and establishes St. Mellion as “one of the southwest’s most progressive golf clubs.” Crown Golf intends to offer the memberships to 25 juniors for as long as six years.
The owners of Hampshire Country Club, on New York’s Long Island, are threatening to raze their 18-hole golf course unless they’re given permission to build 121 condos. “The best way to stay in business as a golf club is to allow the condominium housing,” the project manager for the owners, a group controlled by Westport Capital Partners and New World Realty Advisors, told the Westchester Journal News. If the village of Mamaroneck nixes the condos, the owners say, they’ll cover the property’s Devereux Emmet-designed layout course with 106 single-family houses. The houses are allowed under the current zoning. The club, which has had financial difficulties for years, reportedly has 275 members.
As he promised he would someday do, Richard Mandell is taking his Symposium on Affordable Golf out West. The fifth installment of the golf industry’s most thought-provoking annual get-together will be held at Dairy Creek Golf Course in San Luis Obispo, California. The dates: March 31 and April 1. “The goal,” Mandel has said, “is to generate healthy discussion on how to return the game of golf to a state of stability, prosperity, and affordable simplicity.” Among the topics and questions to be addressed at this year’s event: “The Folly of Replicating Tournament Conditions,” “Zero Waste Golf,” “What Does the Golfer Really Want?” and “If the Demand Isn’t There, Is Anything Affordable?” As in years past, the symposium is free, but registration would be helpful.
Keith A. Ihms has been elected as the president of the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America. Ihms, a member of the GCSAA for the past 33 years, is currently the director of grounds maintenance at Country Club of Little Rock, in Arkansas. Previously, he was a superintendent at four clubs in Texas, including Bent Tree Country Club in Dallas, Pine Forest Country Club in Houston, and Golf Crest Country Club in Pearland.
Call it irony, poetic justice, or simply a case of truth being stranger than fiction, but Donald Trump may soon be fighting against another proposed wind farm, this one near his recently acquired property in Ireland. A Clare-based group has submitted plans to build nine wind turbines, each more than 400 feet high, on a site a little more than a mile south of the village of Doonbeg. Trump hasn’t yet commented on the proposal. Local officials are expected to vote on it next month.
Friday, February 14, 2014
The Pipeline, february 14, 2014
Mosaic Company is pleased with Streamsong’s first-year financial performance and preparing to complement its Tom Doak- and Coore & Crenshaw-designed courses with other golf attractions. In a conversation with Golf Digest, Richard Mack announced that Mosaic will add “a massive putting green, à la Bandon Dunes and Pinehurst” to its 16,000 acres in central Florida next year. He also acknowledged that his firm is thinking about building “a short course” of some kind and hasn’t ruled out building more championship-length venues. “The sky’s the limit,” Mack said, adding: “If there’s demand for more, we’d certainly be interested in pursuing it.” Regarding the bottom line, Mack stated that “our numbers are better than expected” and said “we were pleasantly surprised by the amount of traffic we had during the summer months.” Unfortunately, the magazine didn’t press Mack for financial details. But it appears that Mosaic hasn’t gone wrong by borrowing Mike Keiser’s development formula.
As the U.S. economy perks up, Double Diamond Resorts has begun to aggressively market its long-delayed, 2,000-acre resort community in Forestburgh, New York. Lost Lake, a work in progress since 2007, has been master-planned to include gated houses, overnight accommodations, meeting space, a spa, restaurants, and an 18-hole, “championship” golf course. Double Diamond already owns and operates a golf-themed resort in Pennsylvania (Eagle Rock Resort outside Hazleton) and four in Texas: Rock Creek Resort in Gordonville, the Retreat in Cleburne, the Cliffs Resort near Mineral Wells, and White Bluff Resort near Waco. It hasn’t said when Lost Lake would officially open, but it expects to build the course’s first nine holes in the first phase of construction.
Cabot Links and Cabot Cliffs won’t forever command the attention of golfers in Nova Scotia -- at least not if Jack Nicklaus’ design firm has anything to say about it. Late last year, Terra Firma Development Corporation broke ground on the 18-hole, Nicklaus Design track that will be the centerpiece of Forest Lakes Country Club in suburban Halifax. “The aim is still to have something playable, even if it’s only nine holes, in 2015,” Terra Firma’s chief operating officer told the Halifax Chronicle Herald. The track will be Nicklaus Design’s seventh in Canada but its first in what’s known as “Atlantic Canada.” All of the others are in British Columbia, Ontario, and Alberta.
Some information in the preceding post originally appeared in August 2011 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
Gary Player and the Kuwaiti developers of Zimbali Lakes, an upscale resort community on South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal coast, have “mutually agreed to part company,” according to a press release. Player, who’d inked a contract to design the Lakes’ “signature” layout more than a decade ago, has apparently grown weary of battling “various environmental and other challenges” that had delayed construction. Zimbali Lakes is, in essence, phase two of Zimbali Coastal Resort, a nearly built-out, 1,750-acre spread anchored by Zimbali Country Club and its 18-hole, Tom Weiskopf-designed course. The design commission for the Lakes’ course had been a triumph for Player, who was born in Johannesburg and still lives in South Africa, as IFA Hotels & Resorts had hired him to create what amounted to a legacy project -- a “memorable” track that would rank as “one of South Africa’s great golf courses.” IFA hasn’t yet identified a new designer or announced when it believes construction of the Lakes’ course might begin.
The original version of the preceding post first appeared in the December 2013 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
The new owners of Selva Marina Country Club, in Atlantic Beach, Florida, have embarked on a $12 million revitalization program that includes an Erik Larsen-designed golf course. Atlantic Beach Partners LLC closed on its purchase of Selva Marina last month (it reportedly paid $4.3 million), with its managing partner telling the Florida Times-Union that he’ll do “everything possible” to make the property “the preferred choice for families seeking a relaxed club lifestyle at the beaches.” The LLC has given Selva Marina a new name, Atlantic Beach Country Club, and directed Larsen, the former head of Arnold Palmer’s design firm, to modernize its 56-year-old, E. E. Smith-designed layout. Larsen’s track is expected to debut in the fall of this year.
To spark economic development and cash in on the popularity of “indigenous” tourism, Australia’s largest Aboriginal community wants to create a vacation destination with an 18-hole golf course. Yarrabah, which is located on Cape Grafton along coastal Queensland, has floated a proposal to build a terminal for cruise ships and a “cultural village” where travelers might catch a glimpse of “authentic” Aboriginal life. These attractions would be accompanied by houses, a shopping area, and the golf course. “Tourism is the key to linking the past, present, and the future,” the community’s mayor told the Courier Mail. “Ultimately, it is about us coming up with a plan to get off the welfare treadmill.” Getting off the treadmill won’t be easy. The Australian Bureau of Statistics has named Yarrabah as Queensland’s most impoverished area. Many of its residents live in shacks, without electricity, and the community’s commercial area reportedly consists of a supermarket, a bar, a bakery, a pair of carry-out restaurants, and a gas station.
The original version of the preceding post first appeared in the October 2013 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
The top government official in Himachal Pradesh, India wants to build a golf course in a part of the state where paragliders find their wings. During a paragliding competition last fall, Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh said that the state plans to acquire land for an 18-hole golf course in Bir, a village located roughly 15 miles east of Palampur. His goal, according to a report in the News Himachal, is to turn the area into an “all-season sports destination.” Himachal Pradesh is India’s least urbanized state (and its second-least corrupt, according to a 2005 study by Transparency International), and it needs a steady flow of tourist traffic to bolster its economy. Bir already has many attractions -- Buddhist monasteries, meditation centers, a popular tea factory -- but Singh figures that a golf course would lure vacationers during the summer, before the autumn’s paragliding season takes flight.
The original version of the preceding post first appeared in the December 2013 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
Looking to fill a void in the marketplace, a public service agency in suburban Wichita, Kansas hopes to build a nine-hole, par-3 golf course. The 30-acre track, in the town of Valley Center, will be designed especially for juniors, seniors, and beginners and will operate without any paid staffers. The area has been without an entry-level course since 2012, when a modest 18-hole course in nearby Park City was closed to make way for commercial development.
As the U.S. economy perks up, Double Diamond Resorts has begun to aggressively market its long-delayed, 2,000-acre resort community in Forestburgh, New York. Lost Lake, a work in progress since 2007, has been master-planned to include gated houses, overnight accommodations, meeting space, a spa, restaurants, and an 18-hole, “championship” golf course. Double Diamond already owns and operates a golf-themed resort in Pennsylvania (Eagle Rock Resort outside Hazleton) and four in Texas: Rock Creek Resort in Gordonville, the Retreat in Cleburne, the Cliffs Resort near Mineral Wells, and White Bluff Resort near Waco. It hasn’t said when Lost Lake would officially open, but it expects to build the course’s first nine holes in the first phase of construction.
Cabot Links and Cabot Cliffs won’t forever command the attention of golfers in Nova Scotia -- at least not if Jack Nicklaus’ design firm has anything to say about it. Late last year, Terra Firma Development Corporation broke ground on the 18-hole, Nicklaus Design track that will be the centerpiece of Forest Lakes Country Club in suburban Halifax. “The aim is still to have something playable, even if it’s only nine holes, in 2015,” Terra Firma’s chief operating officer told the Halifax Chronicle Herald. The track will be Nicklaus Design’s seventh in Canada but its first in what’s known as “Atlantic Canada.” All of the others are in British Columbia, Ontario, and Alberta.
Some information in the preceding post originally appeared in August 2011 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
Gary Player and the Kuwaiti developers of Zimbali Lakes, an upscale resort community on South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal coast, have “mutually agreed to part company,” according to a press release. Player, who’d inked a contract to design the Lakes’ “signature” layout more than a decade ago, has apparently grown weary of battling “various environmental and other challenges” that had delayed construction. Zimbali Lakes is, in essence, phase two of Zimbali Coastal Resort, a nearly built-out, 1,750-acre spread anchored by Zimbali Country Club and its 18-hole, Tom Weiskopf-designed course. The design commission for the Lakes’ course had been a triumph for Player, who was born in Johannesburg and still lives in South Africa, as IFA Hotels & Resorts had hired him to create what amounted to a legacy project -- a “memorable” track that would rank as “one of South Africa’s great golf courses.” IFA hasn’t yet identified a new designer or announced when it believes construction of the Lakes’ course might begin.
The original version of the preceding post first appeared in the December 2013 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
The new owners of Selva Marina Country Club, in Atlantic Beach, Florida, have embarked on a $12 million revitalization program that includes an Erik Larsen-designed golf course. Atlantic Beach Partners LLC closed on its purchase of Selva Marina last month (it reportedly paid $4.3 million), with its managing partner telling the Florida Times-Union that he’ll do “everything possible” to make the property “the preferred choice for families seeking a relaxed club lifestyle at the beaches.” The LLC has given Selva Marina a new name, Atlantic Beach Country Club, and directed Larsen, the former head of Arnold Palmer’s design firm, to modernize its 56-year-old, E. E. Smith-designed layout. Larsen’s track is expected to debut in the fall of this year.
To spark economic development and cash in on the popularity of “indigenous” tourism, Australia’s largest Aboriginal community wants to create a vacation destination with an 18-hole golf course. Yarrabah, which is located on Cape Grafton along coastal Queensland, has floated a proposal to build a terminal for cruise ships and a “cultural village” where travelers might catch a glimpse of “authentic” Aboriginal life. These attractions would be accompanied by houses, a shopping area, and the golf course. “Tourism is the key to linking the past, present, and the future,” the community’s mayor told the Courier Mail. “Ultimately, it is about us coming up with a plan to get off the welfare treadmill.” Getting off the treadmill won’t be easy. The Australian Bureau of Statistics has named Yarrabah as Queensland’s most impoverished area. Many of its residents live in shacks, without electricity, and the community’s commercial area reportedly consists of a supermarket, a bar, a bakery, a pair of carry-out restaurants, and a gas station.
The original version of the preceding post first appeared in the October 2013 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
The top government official in Himachal Pradesh, India wants to build a golf course in a part of the state where paragliders find their wings. During a paragliding competition last fall, Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh said that the state plans to acquire land for an 18-hole golf course in Bir, a village located roughly 15 miles east of Palampur. His goal, according to a report in the News Himachal, is to turn the area into an “all-season sports destination.” Himachal Pradesh is India’s least urbanized state (and its second-least corrupt, according to a 2005 study by Transparency International), and it needs a steady flow of tourist traffic to bolster its economy. Bir already has many attractions -- Buddhist monasteries, meditation centers, a popular tea factory -- but Singh figures that a golf course would lure vacationers during the summer, before the autumn’s paragliding season takes flight.
The original version of the preceding post first appeared in the December 2013 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
Looking to fill a void in the marketplace, a public service agency in suburban Wichita, Kansas hopes to build a nine-hole, par-3 golf course. The 30-acre track, in the town of Valley Center, will be designed especially for juniors, seniors, and beginners and will operate without any paid staffers. The area has been without an entry-level course since 2012, when a modest 18-hole course in nearby Park City was closed to make way for commercial development.
Sunday, February 9, 2014
The Week That Was, february 9, 2014
In 2013, the number of rounds played at U.S. golf facilities fell by 4.8 percent, according to the numbers crunchers at PGA PerformanceTrak. Every type of U.S. golf property showed a decline -- resort properties by 1.2 percent, private courses by 4.4 percent, daily-fee tracks by 5 percent, and municipal, military, and university courses by 5.9 percent. The PGA and its data-gathering partners place most of the blame on cold and rainy days and subsequent weather-related closings, for they’ve determined that on playable days last year the average U.S. golf facility attracted more play than it did in 2012 or 2011. Presumably, that means U.S. course operators have something to look forward to in 2014.
When it comes to our inability to attract new players, sometimes it appears that golf has reached the fifth and final stage of grief: Acceptance. A case in point: At the recent PGA Merchandise Show, David Fay suggested that golf will forever be a niche sport and that the growth prospects touted in years past by industry promoters were mostly pie in the sky. “I’ve always been skeptical that the number of golfers people talked about was real,” the former executive director of the U.S. Golf Association confessed to the Wall Street Journal. Fay’s conclusion: “The industry got bamboozled.” So maybe it’s time to ask: How many others in positions of power had similar reservations and failed to express them? Because when such truths are revealed, many in our business arrive at another stage of grief: Anger.
Tiger Woods’ exhibition match with corporate big-wigs in caste-conscious New Delhi most certainly generated plenty of over-excited media fanfare -- “God came to India yesterday,” a frenzied newspaper wrote -- but how did it play outside the gates of Delhi Golf Club? An Indian news service reports that golfers who can’t afford a club membership were “disappointed” and “a little aggrieved” because they couldn’t attend the show. “It’s a shame that normal people can’t see [Woods] play,” one of them griped. “You have to be a member or know some big shots. This once again proves that golf is such an elitist sport.” The upshot: Woods’ appearance may have gratified the city’s business elite, but it didn’t improve golf’s public image.
Mike Keiser’s forthcoming golf mecca in Wisconsin may draw comparisons to Bandon Dunes and Cabot Links, but it’s going to have a personality all its own. In a conversation with Golf Tripper, Keiser acknowledged that the master plan for Sand Valley includes houses on the property’s periphery, a few large “cottages” that will be available for overnight guests, and, in the future, possibly some “dormitories.” What’s more, the venue is going to provide carts when its customers insist on using them. And, in another departure for Keiser, the property’s first course, by Coore & Crenshaw, will be designed to host high-level professional events. “I will definitely show the site to the USGA as it is being built and then invite them to play a hand, or at least have some influence, on what kind of back tees we are building,” Keiser explained, adding, “The PGA will be welcomed as well.” Is this the sound of a no-compromises developer going commercial?
Has Bob Parsons pulled a fast one on some unwanted members of Scottsdale National Golf Club? Parsons, the GoDaddy creator who recently purchased the financially troubled club in suburban Phoenix, Arizona, has concluded that it was being drained by members who played too often and offered full refunds to those who don’t wish to be part of the ultra-exclusive “national club” he aims to create. In a letter explaining his vision of the future, Parsons outlined new policies -- in particular, a limit of 30 rounds per year -- that reportedly caused 65 members to accept the buyout. Then, once those members had resigned, Parsons eliminated the 30-round limit for all remaining members and trimmed their monthly dues by $100. Parsons’ moves have ticked off some of the recently departed. “He promised one thing and did something else,” one of them complained to the Arizona Republic. Parsons currently has 109 members at Scottsdale National. He doesn’t plan to begin soliciting more members for a year or more, until he completes planned improvements to the club’s golf course and builds a new clubhouse.
A columnist for the Modesto Bee believes that the impact of California’s persistent drought will be felt at his city’s golf courses this year. “Serious cutbacks in water use probably will be the norm this summer,” writes Ron Agostini, who advises his readers to “brace for brown fairways, baked greens, and more firm conditions.” Agostini also reports a statistic that may cause trouble in the future: The average golf course in California uses between 81.5 million and 146.7 million gallons of water annually.
M. G. Orender, one of the best-known people in U.S. golf, is going to help one of Spain’s most luxurious golf resorts get back on its financial feet. The former president of the PGA of America (and current president of Hampton Golf) has joined the board of directors of La Manga Club, a 1,400-acre resort community outside Cartagena that was forced to declare for bankruptcy protection in 2008. Orender’s role will be to “advise us in the process of transforming our resort into one of the Europe’s best golf destinations,” said a club official who believes that the appointment “shows our commitment and dedication to achieving the repositioning of La Manga Club resort in a short and medium term.” La Manga, which has three 18-hole courses, is owned by Med Group, a Barcelona-based firm that owns three other Spanish golf properties and aims to build three others.
Tony Jacklin, the beneficiary of Jack Nicklaus’ famous “concession” in the 1969 Ryder Cup matches, has become a “brand ambassador” for Lynx Golf UK. “We are building a young, dynamic, exciting team with a huge determination to be a genuine British success,” said the company’s CEO, who believes that there’s a “tremendous synergy between Lynx, Tony as a person, and whole Tony Jacklin brand.” Earlier this year, Jacklin also agreed to be a spokesman for the Lyle & Scott apparel, a brand he began wearing after he turned pro in the 1960s.
When it comes to our inability to attract new players, sometimes it appears that golf has reached the fifth and final stage of grief: Acceptance. A case in point: At the recent PGA Merchandise Show, David Fay suggested that golf will forever be a niche sport and that the growth prospects touted in years past by industry promoters were mostly pie in the sky. “I’ve always been skeptical that the number of golfers people talked about was real,” the former executive director of the U.S. Golf Association confessed to the Wall Street Journal. Fay’s conclusion: “The industry got bamboozled.” So maybe it’s time to ask: How many others in positions of power had similar reservations and failed to express them? Because when such truths are revealed, many in our business arrive at another stage of grief: Anger.
Tiger Woods’ exhibition match with corporate big-wigs in caste-conscious New Delhi most certainly generated plenty of over-excited media fanfare -- “God came to India yesterday,” a frenzied newspaper wrote -- but how did it play outside the gates of Delhi Golf Club? An Indian news service reports that golfers who can’t afford a club membership were “disappointed” and “a little aggrieved” because they couldn’t attend the show. “It’s a shame that normal people can’t see [Woods] play,” one of them griped. “You have to be a member or know some big shots. This once again proves that golf is such an elitist sport.” The upshot: Woods’ appearance may have gratified the city’s business elite, but it didn’t improve golf’s public image.
Mike Keiser’s forthcoming golf mecca in Wisconsin may draw comparisons to Bandon Dunes and Cabot Links, but it’s going to have a personality all its own. In a conversation with Golf Tripper, Keiser acknowledged that the master plan for Sand Valley includes houses on the property’s periphery, a few large “cottages” that will be available for overnight guests, and, in the future, possibly some “dormitories.” What’s more, the venue is going to provide carts when its customers insist on using them. And, in another departure for Keiser, the property’s first course, by Coore & Crenshaw, will be designed to host high-level professional events. “I will definitely show the site to the USGA as it is being built and then invite them to play a hand, or at least have some influence, on what kind of back tees we are building,” Keiser explained, adding, “The PGA will be welcomed as well.” Is this the sound of a no-compromises developer going commercial?
Has Bob Parsons pulled a fast one on some unwanted members of Scottsdale National Golf Club? Parsons, the GoDaddy creator who recently purchased the financially troubled club in suburban Phoenix, Arizona, has concluded that it was being drained by members who played too often and offered full refunds to those who don’t wish to be part of the ultra-exclusive “national club” he aims to create. In a letter explaining his vision of the future, Parsons outlined new policies -- in particular, a limit of 30 rounds per year -- that reportedly caused 65 members to accept the buyout. Then, once those members had resigned, Parsons eliminated the 30-round limit for all remaining members and trimmed their monthly dues by $100. Parsons’ moves have ticked off some of the recently departed. “He promised one thing and did something else,” one of them complained to the Arizona Republic. Parsons currently has 109 members at Scottsdale National. He doesn’t plan to begin soliciting more members for a year or more, until he completes planned improvements to the club’s golf course and builds a new clubhouse.
A columnist for the Modesto Bee believes that the impact of California’s persistent drought will be felt at his city’s golf courses this year. “Serious cutbacks in water use probably will be the norm this summer,” writes Ron Agostini, who advises his readers to “brace for brown fairways, baked greens, and more firm conditions.” Agostini also reports a statistic that may cause trouble in the future: The average golf course in California uses between 81.5 million and 146.7 million gallons of water annually.
M. G. Orender, one of the best-known people in U.S. golf, is going to help one of Spain’s most luxurious golf resorts get back on its financial feet. The former president of the PGA of America (and current president of Hampton Golf) has joined the board of directors of La Manga Club, a 1,400-acre resort community outside Cartagena that was forced to declare for bankruptcy protection in 2008. Orender’s role will be to “advise us in the process of transforming our resort into one of the Europe’s best golf destinations,” said a club official who believes that the appointment “shows our commitment and dedication to achieving the repositioning of La Manga Club resort in a short and medium term.” La Manga, which has three 18-hole courses, is owned by Med Group, a Barcelona-based firm that owns three other Spanish golf properties and aims to build three others.
Tony Jacklin, the beneficiary of Jack Nicklaus’ famous “concession” in the 1969 Ryder Cup matches, has become a “brand ambassador” for Lynx Golf UK. “We are building a young, dynamic, exciting team with a huge determination to be a genuine British success,” said the company’s CEO, who believes that there’s a “tremendous synergy between Lynx, Tony as a person, and whole Tony Jacklin brand.” Earlier this year, Jacklin also agreed to be a spokesman for the Lyle & Scott apparel, a brand he began wearing after he turned pro in the 1960s.
Friday, February 7, 2014
Operations, february 7, 2014
Sometime this month, KemperSports is expected to begin operating another one of Chicagoland’s top golf facilities. The Northbrook, Illinois-based firm has been tapped to manage Cantigny Golf, a 36-hole complex in Wheaton that’s hosted the Publinks championship, the Chicago Open, and, this year, the Illinois State Amateur Championship. The 25-year-old property features a 27-hole, Roger Packard-designed complex and a nine-hole “youth” course. “The course has a great reputation among regional golfers,” said Steve Skinner, KemperSports’ CEO, “and we look forward to enhancing the guest experience and continuing the fantastic junior programs developed by Cantigny’s team.” KemperSports manages close to a dozen other golf properties in Chicago and its suburbs, among them Harborside International Golf Center, Royal Melbourne Country Club, and Bull Valley Golf Club.
Troon has been selected to manage the first golf course in the smallest of the seven United Arab Emirates. The Nicklaus Design layout will be the featured attraction of Al Zorah, a 1,335-acre spread along the Persian Gulf in Ajman. The community was announced with great fanfare in 2007 but pushed to the back burner less than two years later, when the Great Recession took the wind out of the emirate’s financial sector. Al Zorah is being developed by Ajman’s government with private-sector partners. At build-out, it’s expected to feature lots of houses, a “city center” with offices, retail space, and a public square, a half-dozen waterfront hotels, four marinas, and an 18-hole, championship-length golf course. The course is under construction, and its first nine will likely open next year. “We are looking forward to working alongside the ownership group and Nicklaus Design to realize the potential this stunning area has to become an all-new option for international golfers flocking to the UAE,” said Bruce Glasco, the managing director of Troon’s international operations. Troon operates five other golf venues in the UAE, including Saadiyat Beach Golf Club in Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi Golf Club, and the Els Club in Dubai.
Some information in the preceding post first appeared in the January 2012 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
A company known primarily for its food-and-beverage services will manage a pair of under-performing municipal golf courses in St. Paul, Minnesota. Prom Management Group has agreed to operate the city’s Phalen and Como courses, which have been a financial drain for years. The details of a proposed five-year contract are still being negotiated, but PMG will likely pay the city at least $65,000 annually, make routine capital improvements, and cover any losses that the courses produce. PMG got its start as a catering company, and the St. Paul Pioneer Press reports that it currently works the hospitality side of more than 30 golf tournaments across the nation, along with other sports events. The firm also runs the concessions at three golf courses in the Minneapolis area, but the contract with St. Paul is its first move into golf operations.
Century Golf Partners is bailing out on its contract to operate a municipal golf course in Alton, Illinois. The city has installed a temporary operator for Spencer T. Olin Golf Course and is preparing to negotiate a lease with an as-yet unidentified party. Century Golf had agreed to run the course until 2018.
The municipal golf courses in Liverpool, England are being turned over to professional managers for the next quarter-century. The 27-hole Allerton complex will be run by Glendale, the firm that manages the city’s parks, cemeteries, and gardens, while the 18-hole North course will be run by an entity affiliated with Maghull Group, the owner of Formby Hall Golf Resort & Spa. By enlisting the private sector, the city hopes to save £1.7 million (almost $2.8 million) over the next five years. The new operators will assume their positions in April.
Mosaic Clubs & Resorts, a freshly minted firm with grand ambitions, has been tapped to operate a financially challenged golf club in Florence, South Carolina. Mosaic, which was formerly known as Affiniti Golf Partners, has assumed control of the Country Club of South Carolina, a 46-year-old property that features an 18-hole, Ellis Maples-designed golf course. The former private club is the centerpiece of 900-acre master-planned community. Affiniti Golf Partners was founded by Whitney Crouse and Steve Willy in 1998. The firm’s name (and its mission) changed last fall, when Crouse and Willy teamed up with Hud Hinton, a former CEO of Troon Golf. The firm aims to operate “the world’s most prestigious private and resort clubs” and promises to deliver “first-class golf experiences, unsurpassed service, state-of-the-art marketing and websites, superior staff training, and exceptional client attention.” Mosaic also manages two properties in Georgia, Waterfall Club in Clayton and the Manor Golf & Country Club in Alpharetta, and Affiniti manages a dozen golf properties in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and New York.
The town of Belleair, Florida has extended the management contract at Belleview Biltmore Golf Club. Green Golf Partners will receive a 10-year lease that obliges it to pay the town $160,000 a year in rent and 6.5 percent of the club’s gross revenues in excess of $1.6 million. One wrinkle in the arrangement: If the city sells the club, a possibility it’s already entertained, GGP will be compensated for its losses. GGP took the helm of the club’s Donald Ross-designed course last year, at the time of the town’s purchase.
Mark Woodward, a two-time selection as a member of Golf, Inc.’s power elite, has joined OB Sports Golf Management. A 40-year veteran of the golf business, Woodward has been a golf course superintendent, a facility manager, a director of a municipal golf operation, a CEO of a national golf association, a business development manager for a golf construction company, and the owner of a golf consulting business and remodeling firm. Golf, Inc. recognized him as one of the industry’s most powerful people in 2008 and 2009 and as one of its most admired operators in 2006. “Mark is one of the most well-rounded operators in our industry,” said Phil Green, the chief operating officer of OB Sports. “He thoroughly understands all facets of the golf operation.” At OB Sports, Woodward will serve as a senior vice president of operations.
Troon has been selected to manage the first golf course in the smallest of the seven United Arab Emirates. The Nicklaus Design layout will be the featured attraction of Al Zorah, a 1,335-acre spread along the Persian Gulf in Ajman. The community was announced with great fanfare in 2007 but pushed to the back burner less than two years later, when the Great Recession took the wind out of the emirate’s financial sector. Al Zorah is being developed by Ajman’s government with private-sector partners. At build-out, it’s expected to feature lots of houses, a “city center” with offices, retail space, and a public square, a half-dozen waterfront hotels, four marinas, and an 18-hole, championship-length golf course. The course is under construction, and its first nine will likely open next year. “We are looking forward to working alongside the ownership group and Nicklaus Design to realize the potential this stunning area has to become an all-new option for international golfers flocking to the UAE,” said Bruce Glasco, the managing director of Troon’s international operations. Troon operates five other golf venues in the UAE, including Saadiyat Beach Golf Club in Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi Golf Club, and the Els Club in Dubai.
Some information in the preceding post first appeared in the January 2012 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.
A company known primarily for its food-and-beverage services will manage a pair of under-performing municipal golf courses in St. Paul, Minnesota. Prom Management Group has agreed to operate the city’s Phalen and Como courses, which have been a financial drain for years. The details of a proposed five-year contract are still being negotiated, but PMG will likely pay the city at least $65,000 annually, make routine capital improvements, and cover any losses that the courses produce. PMG got its start as a catering company, and the St. Paul Pioneer Press reports that it currently works the hospitality side of more than 30 golf tournaments across the nation, along with other sports events. The firm also runs the concessions at three golf courses in the Minneapolis area, but the contract with St. Paul is its first move into golf operations.
Century Golf Partners is bailing out on its contract to operate a municipal golf course in Alton, Illinois. The city has installed a temporary operator for Spencer T. Olin Golf Course and is preparing to negotiate a lease with an as-yet unidentified party. Century Golf had agreed to run the course until 2018.
The municipal golf courses in Liverpool, England are being turned over to professional managers for the next quarter-century. The 27-hole Allerton complex will be run by Glendale, the firm that manages the city’s parks, cemeteries, and gardens, while the 18-hole North course will be run by an entity affiliated with Maghull Group, the owner of Formby Hall Golf Resort & Spa. By enlisting the private sector, the city hopes to save £1.7 million (almost $2.8 million) over the next five years. The new operators will assume their positions in April.
Mosaic Clubs & Resorts, a freshly minted firm with grand ambitions, has been tapped to operate a financially challenged golf club in Florence, South Carolina. Mosaic, which was formerly known as Affiniti Golf Partners, has assumed control of the Country Club of South Carolina, a 46-year-old property that features an 18-hole, Ellis Maples-designed golf course. The former private club is the centerpiece of 900-acre master-planned community. Affiniti Golf Partners was founded by Whitney Crouse and Steve Willy in 1998. The firm’s name (and its mission) changed last fall, when Crouse and Willy teamed up with Hud Hinton, a former CEO of Troon Golf. The firm aims to operate “the world’s most prestigious private and resort clubs” and promises to deliver “first-class golf experiences, unsurpassed service, state-of-the-art marketing and websites, superior staff training, and exceptional client attention.” Mosaic also manages two properties in Georgia, Waterfall Club in Clayton and the Manor Golf & Country Club in Alpharetta, and Affiniti manages a dozen golf properties in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and New York.
The town of Belleair, Florida has extended the management contract at Belleview Biltmore Golf Club. Green Golf Partners will receive a 10-year lease that obliges it to pay the town $160,000 a year in rent and 6.5 percent of the club’s gross revenues in excess of $1.6 million. One wrinkle in the arrangement: If the city sells the club, a possibility it’s already entertained, GGP will be compensated for its losses. GGP took the helm of the club’s Donald Ross-designed course last year, at the time of the town’s purchase.
Mark Woodward, a two-time selection as a member of Golf, Inc.’s power elite, has joined OB Sports Golf Management. A 40-year veteran of the golf business, Woodward has been a golf course superintendent, a facility manager, a director of a municipal golf operation, a CEO of a national golf association, a business development manager for a golf construction company, and the owner of a golf consulting business and remodeling firm. Golf, Inc. recognized him as one of the industry’s most powerful people in 2008 and 2009 and as one of its most admired operators in 2006. “Mark is one of the most well-rounded operators in our industry,” said Phil Green, the chief operating officer of OB Sports. “He thoroughly understands all facets of the golf operation.” At OB Sports, Woodward will serve as a senior vice president of operations.
Sunday, February 2, 2014
The Week That Was, february 2, 2014
On Tuesday, Corporate India will reportedly pay $2.2 million to watch Tiger Woods play an 18-hole round of golf. “I’m looking forward to it,” the world’s top-ranked player said in a comment published by the Times of India. Who wouldn’t be? Woods’ cameo, at Delhi Golf Club, has been organized by the CEO of Hero MotoCorp, a motorcycle manufacturer with a jones for golf. It’ll be Woods’ first appearance in India, and an Indian television station says that he’ll be accompanied by “his own caddie and his team of physiotherapists.” India’s golf promoters think this event will do wonders for the growth of golf in their nation, but it’s hard to see how, considering that Woods will play behind closed doors, without any spectators or media.
The drought in California is getting worse. It’s become so bad, in fact, that it’s hard to imagine any new golf construction being approved for the foreseeable future, and it seems only a matter of time before existing courses are forced to operate under mandated water restrictions. “This could potentially be the driest water year in 500 years,” a University of California at Berkeley professor told the Daily Beast. The state has stopped delivering water to local agencies that serve 25 million people and roughly 750,000 acres of farm land, and the Associated Press reports that 17 small, rural communities in Sonoma and Santa Cruz counties are “in danger of running out of water within four months.” It’s important to note that the drought isn’t exclusively California’s problem, as water resources in Texas, Oregon, Arizona, Nevada, and other states are also running perilously low. One thing’s for sure, though: If they ever start trucking bottled water to residents of parched California communities, the state’s golf courses are going to go brown fast.
Larry Packard, the nation’s oldest golf course architect, died last week at his home in Florida. He was 101. During his 40-year career, Packard had a hand in designing or redesigning hundreds
of U.S. courses, most of them in the Midwest, and sources say that he also created tracks in China, Japan, South Korea, Guatemala, Costa Rica, and Egypt. He also served as the president of the American Society of Golf Course Architects, and Golfweek credits him with transforming it “from a social organization to a professional trade group that debated serious architectural issues.” He won the ASGCA’s Donald Ross Award in 1993 and personally selected the group’s emblematic red tartan blazer. Dick Phelps, a long-time friend, once described Packard’s work as “doing beautiful courses for the masses.” That’s certainly true, but Packard’s showpiece is the chic Innisbrook resort in Palm Harbor, Florida, where he produced three well-regarded 18-hole courses and a nine-hole track. He lived in the accompanying community.
The Deal Pipeline has the inside scoop on Phil Mickelson’s pending purchase of Stone Canyon Club, in suburban Tucson, Arizona. The financial journal hasn’t posted its story on line, but it reports that Mickelson and his agent, Steve Loy, will pay just $20 for the bankrupt club and its Jay Morrish-designed golf course, fitness center, and 25-acre cactus farm. On top of that, the prospective owners say the deal is off unless at least 80 percent of Stone Canyon’s members -- that would be 138 of 172 -- agree to continue paying their monthly fees for three years. So why are Mickelson and Loy driving such a hard bargain? Maybe it’s because they’ve promised to build a $4 million clubhouse for a golf property that hasn’t turned an annual profit since it opened, in 2000.
Barely a year after insisting that they were in it for the long haul, a group of Vancouver-based investors is walking away from Sagebrush Golf & Sporting Club. The group has agreed to sell the five-year-old track, a minimalist icon outside Merritt, British Columbia, to Newmark Properties, a home builder. Newmark believes it can turn the course, which has had trouble generating play since it opened, into a destination for golfers whose tastes aren’t limited to layouts that play firm and fast. “My goal is to open up this little gem to the public, get a lot of people familiar with it, and get them up there playing it,” a Newmark official told the Vancouver Sun. Sagebrush was co-designed by Dick Zokol, Rod Whitman, and Armen Suny and is often cited as a prime example of sustainable design and construction. Golf Digest named it as Canada’s best new course when it opened and currently ranks it as one of the nation’s top 100.
A moribund golf community in suburban Indianapolis, Indiana appears to have found new life. Chatham Hills, which breathed its initial breath nearly a decade ago, will feature 1,500 houses, a Pete Dye-designed 18-hole golf course, a nine-hole par-3 track, parks, and other attractions. Its developer, Henke Development Group -- it created the nearby Bridgewater Club, which also has a Dye-designed layout -- needs a rezoning before construction can begin, but it nonetheless believes it can break ground on the golf complex in the fall of this year.
Joe Steranka, a former CEO of the PGA of America, has joined Billy Casper’s public-relations firm. Steranka has become the chief global strategist for Buffalo Communications, a 13-year-old company that’s looking to branch out beyond golf and into what it calls “the broader sports and lifestyle categories worldwide” -- areas such as travel, fashion, and real estate. “The value of sports as content for media companies and a marketing platform for brands is increasing exponentially,” Steranka said in a press release. “This means there are tremendous opportunities, both at home and around the world, to expand Buffalo in golf and other markets.” Steranka served as the PGA’s of America’s CEO from 2005 to 2012. During his term, the group organized China’s first golf trade show, developed Golf 2.0, and made golf an Olympic sport.
Greg Norman has found another endorsement deal he couldn’t pass on. He’s agreed to serve as “a global brand ambassador” for Cobra Puma Golf, which says that he’ll play “an intricate role in the development of our products and overall business.” Cobra Puma, a subsidiary of a German company that’s owned by a French company, has similar promotional arrangements with Ricky Fowler, Lexi Thompson, David Feherty, and Ian Poulter.
The drought in California is getting worse. It’s become so bad, in fact, that it’s hard to imagine any new golf construction being approved for the foreseeable future, and it seems only a matter of time before existing courses are forced to operate under mandated water restrictions. “This could potentially be the driest water year in 500 years,” a University of California at Berkeley professor told the Daily Beast. The state has stopped delivering water to local agencies that serve 25 million people and roughly 750,000 acres of farm land, and the Associated Press reports that 17 small, rural communities in Sonoma and Santa Cruz counties are “in danger of running out of water within four months.” It’s important to note that the drought isn’t exclusively California’s problem, as water resources in Texas, Oregon, Arizona, Nevada, and other states are also running perilously low. One thing’s for sure, though: If they ever start trucking bottled water to residents of parched California communities, the state’s golf courses are going to go brown fast.
Larry Packard, the nation’s oldest golf course architect, died last week at his home in Florida. He was 101. During his 40-year career, Packard had a hand in designing or redesigning hundreds
of U.S. courses, most of them in the Midwest, and sources say that he also created tracks in China, Japan, South Korea, Guatemala, Costa Rica, and Egypt. He also served as the president of the American Society of Golf Course Architects, and Golfweek credits him with transforming it “from a social organization to a professional trade group that debated serious architectural issues.” He won the ASGCA’s Donald Ross Award in 1993 and personally selected the group’s emblematic red tartan blazer. Dick Phelps, a long-time friend, once described Packard’s work as “doing beautiful courses for the masses.” That’s certainly true, but Packard’s showpiece is the chic Innisbrook resort in Palm Harbor, Florida, where he produced three well-regarded 18-hole courses and a nine-hole track. He lived in the accompanying community.
The Deal Pipeline has the inside scoop on Phil Mickelson’s pending purchase of Stone Canyon Club, in suburban Tucson, Arizona. The financial journal hasn’t posted its story on line, but it reports that Mickelson and his agent, Steve Loy, will pay just $20 for the bankrupt club and its Jay Morrish-designed golf course, fitness center, and 25-acre cactus farm. On top of that, the prospective owners say the deal is off unless at least 80 percent of Stone Canyon’s members -- that would be 138 of 172 -- agree to continue paying their monthly fees for three years. So why are Mickelson and Loy driving such a hard bargain? Maybe it’s because they’ve promised to build a $4 million clubhouse for a golf property that hasn’t turned an annual profit since it opened, in 2000.
Barely a year after insisting that they were in it for the long haul, a group of Vancouver-based investors is walking away from Sagebrush Golf & Sporting Club. The group has agreed to sell the five-year-old track, a minimalist icon outside Merritt, British Columbia, to Newmark Properties, a home builder. Newmark believes it can turn the course, which has had trouble generating play since it opened, into a destination for golfers whose tastes aren’t limited to layouts that play firm and fast. “My goal is to open up this little gem to the public, get a lot of people familiar with it, and get them up there playing it,” a Newmark official told the Vancouver Sun. Sagebrush was co-designed by Dick Zokol, Rod Whitman, and Armen Suny and is often cited as a prime example of sustainable design and construction. Golf Digest named it as Canada’s best new course when it opened and currently ranks it as one of the nation’s top 100.
A moribund golf community in suburban Indianapolis, Indiana appears to have found new life. Chatham Hills, which breathed its initial breath nearly a decade ago, will feature 1,500 houses, a Pete Dye-designed 18-hole golf course, a nine-hole par-3 track, parks, and other attractions. Its developer, Henke Development Group -- it created the nearby Bridgewater Club, which also has a Dye-designed layout -- needs a rezoning before construction can begin, but it nonetheless believes it can break ground on the golf complex in the fall of this year.
Joe Steranka, a former CEO of the PGA of America, has joined Billy Casper’s public-relations firm. Steranka has become the chief global strategist for Buffalo Communications, a 13-year-old company that’s looking to branch out beyond golf and into what it calls “the broader sports and lifestyle categories worldwide” -- areas such as travel, fashion, and real estate. “The value of sports as content for media companies and a marketing platform for brands is increasing exponentially,” Steranka said in a press release. “This means there are tremendous opportunities, both at home and around the world, to expand Buffalo in golf and other markets.” Steranka served as the PGA’s of America’s CEO from 2005 to 2012. During his term, the group organized China’s first golf trade show, developed Golf 2.0, and made golf an Olympic sport.
Greg Norman has found another endorsement deal he couldn’t pass on. He’s agreed to serve as “a global brand ambassador” for Cobra Puma Golf, which says that he’ll play “an intricate role in the development of our products and overall business.” Cobra Puma, a subsidiary of a German company that’s owned by a French company, has similar promotional arrangements with Ricky Fowler, Lexi Thompson, David Feherty, and Ian Poulter.
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