The Week That Was, june 14, 2015

     The way golf’s opinion-makers are analyzing data these days, it’s getting near impossible to tell up from down and better from worse. A case in point: In “Golf Participation in Europe 2015,” KPMG’s Golf Advisory Practice contends that the Continent’s golf industry is experiencing “the start of a meaningful recovery” due to “the recent tentative European economic upturn and the continuing initiatives aimed at recruiting new members.” It believes that these factors “will have a positive impact on golf in Europe in 2015.” KPMG’s argument is hard to accept, however, for its data indicates that Europe’s golf business isn’t recovering in any meaningful way. Last year, for example, the number of registered golfers in Europe fell by 1.8 percent. Demand is falling in more than half of the nations that KPMG has analyzed, with the biggest drops in the established golf markets, and in recent years there’s been a steady decrease in play from women and juniors. And if you’re trying to determine how well those grow-the-game initiatives are working, well, KPMG admits that their impact has so far been “difficult to notice.” For whatever reason, KPMG doesn’t want to acknowledge that the golf industry in Europe hasn’t yet bottomed out. I hope it’s reading the tea leaves correctly, but recovery truly shouldn’t be equated with “a slowdown in the decrease in golf participation.” Down is down, and worse is worse. In difficult times, it’s important to distinguish between facts and fictions.

     For the second time this year, the European Tour’s real estate subsidiary has found a partner in Southeast Asia. Saujana Golf & Country Club, considered by many to be the top golf property in Malaysia, has joined the growing network of “world-class” golf communities affiliated with European Tour Properties, the Continent’s equivalent of PGA Tour Properties. Just weeks ago, ETP made Black Mountain Golf Resort, arguably Thailand’s top golf property, a member of its exclusive club. ETP now counts 15 golf communities in its network, but three are, strictly speaking, not in Europe. (The third outsider is Jumeirah Golf Estates in Dubai.) ETP’s business model, like that of the European Tour itself, calls to mind Ned Beatty’s speech in Network: There are no nations, only corporations and the international dominion of dollars.

     It appears that Donald Trump can check off another item on his to-do list. According to the Aberdeen Press & Journal, the European Tour is going to award the Scottish Open -- or, strictly speaking, the Aberdeen Asset Management Scottish Open -- to Trump International Golf Links Scotland. The event has grown dramatically in stature in recent years -- it’s become an almost obligatory tune-up for the Open Championship, so it attracts a high-prestige field -- and it’ll be held at Trump’s property in Aberdeenshire in 2017, 2019, and 2020, and most likely in future years as well. The contract, when it becomes official, will further solidify Trump’s bona fides as one of our industry’s most influential people. Here at home, it occasionally seems that Trump is only reluctantly accepted by golf’s high and mighty. But the Powers That Be in Europe’s golf business love Trump, and he loves them. They complete each other.

     Sometime this summer, vacationers in the summer capital of Estonia will begin teeing off on a course unlike most others in Europe. Lassi Pekka Tilander, the Finnish designer of Pärnu Bay Golf Course, thinks his layout, with its seaside location, sandy soils, and wide fairways, “will remind golfers of famous links courses” in the British Isles. “There will be no other courses like it in the Baltic States and only a few comparable ones in all of Northern Europe,” he’s said. The course’s owner, Peter Hunt, is a Swede who made his money in the textile business. In addition to Pärnu Bay’s 18-hole track, Hunt sprung for a five-hole, par-3 course and a short-game practice area, and in the future he plans to add a hotel and a spa. Tilander has designed a dozen or more golf properties in three nations, two of them in Estonia: a 27-hole complex Estonian Golf & Country Club in suburban Tallinn (the club’s 18-hole course is ranked among Europe’s top 100) and Saare Golf Course on the island of Saaremaa. Hunt bought a controlling interest in Saare last year, with the hope of selling package deals to golf travelers.

     The original version of the preceding post first appeared in the June 2015 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.

     With Kern County, California progressively drying to a crisp, Kern River Golf Course’s water supply may evaporate in just a couple of weeks. As a result, Kern River’s long-time operator, Jim Foss, is begging for his facility’s financial life. “We are asking the [county] board for a temporary solution, to give us enough water to keep greens, tees, aprons, and trees -- roughly 50 percent of what we would normally use,” he told a local television station. Kern River reportedly rings up 40,000 rounds a year and has more than two dozen employees. The county, which owns the 62-year-old track, has threatened to shut of its water supply on July 1. If it follows through, Foss says the layout will bite the dust by the Fourth.