The Week That Was, may 24, 2015

     California’s drought has claimed another victim, this one a well-regarded 18-hole golf course in the Central Valley. Stevinson Ranch Golf Club, which features a John Harbottle-designed layout that the Merced Sun Star says “was praised world-wide since the day it opened,” will close in July. George Kelley, the industrial farmer who’s owned the club since it opened in the mid 1990s, blames its demise on state-imposed water rationing that’s forced him to allocate his limited liquid assets to a more profitable operation. “We had to make a business decision,” he told the newspaper. “Our family almond business had to come first over the golf business.” Of course, the drought isn’t solely the cause of Stevinson Ranch’s troubles. The course has lost 14,000 rounds in recent years (it reportedly rings up about 30,000 nowadays), and it’s suffered from a fire and an infestation of nematodes. But Kelley says that “the water situation” is “the straw that broke the camel’s back” and that he feels “just terrible about it.” Without question, golf courses drink a lot of water. But did you know that it takes a gallon of water to produce a single almond? Or that most of the almonds we grow in California are shipped to foreign countries, to China and Hong Kong in particular?

     For the Trump Organization, golf development is paving the way for potentially more lucrative business opportunities in the Middle East. With its first golf course in Dubai, the one designed by Gil Hanse, scheduled to open later this year, Donald Trump’s family-operated company is actively exploring hotel-development opportunities in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. “I think there is an opportunity to exceed what’s been done in the Middle East and create something truly iconic and special,” Ivanka Trump told Hotelier Middle East. She calls Hanse’s track, which is taking shape at the luxurious Akoya community, “an exceptional golf course” that will be “unlike any other built in the region.” Clearly, she’s learned a lot about self-promotion from her father.

     Before the bulldozers get to working on his new Coore & Crenshaw track, Johnny Morris has some holes to fill at the golf course that made his Big Cedar Lodge famous. Various sources report that four large sinkholes have opened at Top of the Rock Golf Course, Morris’ Jack Nicklaus “signature” layout in Ridgedale, Missouri. The sinkholes don’t directly impact any holes on the nine-hole, par-3 course, but biggest one is reportedly as large as a nice-sized green -- roughly 4,800 square feet -- and roughly 35 feet deep. Morris still hasn’t announced when he plans to break ground on his forthcoming course, but he expects it to make Big Cedar “the premier golf destination in the Midwest.”

     The liquor division of the Nicklaus empire has introduced a line of low-priced wines. The new line, called Jack’s House, consists of a chardonnay and a cabernet, and it complements the higher-priced vino that Jack Nicklaus has produced with Terlato Wines International since 2010. Terlato calls the new products, which retail for about $15, “high-quality, easy-drinking wines,” and it plans to give 30 cents from the sale of each bottle to the Jack’s House Foundation, a charitable group. The list of Nicklaus-branded products available for purchase is growing fast, and it now includes ice cream, lemonade, shoes, sunglasses, hats, golf balls, and other stuff that’s better because it’s branded.