The Week That Was, january 18, 2015

     One of Hollywood’s certified golf junkies yearns to build a golf course in Ireland. “It’s this dream of mine,” Samuel L. Jackson told a British website dedicated to showbiz news and gossip. Of course, it may simply be a pipe dream. But the star of Shaft, Pulp Fiction, and dozens



of other movies has serious game, plenty of money, a potential partner (J. P. McManus, one of Ireland’s richest people), and even a preferred location: “Somewhere in the lush hills of Limerick or Cork, or somewhere like that.” This chapter in Jackson’s life may turn out to be much ado about nothing, but it’s safe to assume that his agent will be fielding a lot of calls from property owners this week.

     In a transaction that’s been described as “a win-win for everybody,” ClubCorp has acquired its first golf property in Illinois. The publicly traded, Dallas-based firm has purchased Ravinia Green Country Club, a former member-owned property in Riverwoods. “Chicago has been one of our target markets for a number of years,” Mark Burnett, ClubCorp’s COO, told Crain’s Chicago Business. Ravinia Green, which was established in the late 1960s, features an 18-hole, Larry Packard-designed golf course. Because the club has been losing members in recent years -- its golf membership is reportedly “down to about 200” -- Burnett needs to make it “more competitive in the market” and “drive more interest and membership growth.” As part of its marketing program, ClubCorp plans to make $1 million worth of improvements to the club’s golf course, clubhouse, and pool.

     From the Department of You Couldn’t Make This Up If You Tried: On the evening after he missed the cut at the Sony Open in Honolulu,



as he was about to leave a wine bar, Robert Allenby was drugged, kidnapped, robbed, beaten, and tossed out of a car near a park where the homeless congregate. As is so often said, you meet the nicest people on the PGA Tour.

     Finally, Gil Hanse’s Brazilian nightmare has ended. Despite many well-documented delays and setbacks, construction has at last been completed at the layout in Rio de Janeiro that will host the golf competition at the 2016 Summer Olympics. There now remains just one small matter for Hanse to lose sleep over: The reviews.

     After battling with the city of Rancho Palos Verdes for the better part of a decade, Donald Trump has abandoned his plans to build houses on the 11.5-acre driving range of Trump National Golf Club Los Angeles. The New York-based golf mogul and perennial presidential candidate said it was his “great honor” to give the range a conservation easement and advised the city’s residents to “enjoy it for infinity, I guess.” He’ll now turn his attention to developing other areas of his 261-acre property.

     Traigh Golf Club says that it “presents the golfer with all the traditional challenges of a classic seaside links,” and for the past week it’s also offered a more unusual challenge: A sinkhole, 14 feet deep, on hole #7. A spokesman for the club expressed fears for the course’s future, but he has no need to worry: The nine-hole track, more than 100 years old and located in what’s said to be an especially picturesque area on Scotland’s western coast, will be repaired, most likely by April. It would’ve been a shame to see it go.

     Gifts of Gab: As he lays the groundwork for his presidential campaign, Jeb Bush suggested that the world of golf ought to legislate faster play. “Golf would not be dying if more people played the way we play out here,” the former governor of Florida told the Miami Herald after completing 19 holes in 2.5 hours. “It’s not that hard to do, to be honest with you.”