The Week That Was, september 20, 2015

     Now that Tom Doak’s second golf course in New Zealand is about to debut, a question becomes inevitable: Is it as good as the first? It’ll be months before course raters weigh in on that question, but it’s going to be difficult for Tara Iti Golf Club to match the ranking achieved by Doak’s layout at Cape Kidnappers Golf Club in Hawkes Bay, which checks in at #6 on Golf Digest’s list of the 100 best courses outside the United States. That being said, our industry’s first responders say that Tara Iti is definitely destination worthy -- the head of New Zealand Golf thinks it’s “one of the very best courses in the world” -- and the club’s developers, a group led by Ric Kayne of Los Angeles, California-based Anderson Capital Advisors, believe that the venue will eventually be viewed as the nation’s premier private track. Tara Iti is located along Te Arai Beach, along the sparsely populated eastern coast of the North Island, on 1,400 acres that have been master-planned by John Darby of Queenstown-based Darby Partners, who’s produced some of the nation’s best-known golf properties, including a trio in the Queenstown area: Jack’s Point Golf Course, Hills Golf Club, and the Millbrook resort. Tara Iti is slated to open officially next month.

     The owners of a defunct country club in suburban San Diego, California have negotiated a settlement in the infamous chicken-manure incident that’s highlighted their battle against members of the accompanying community. Stuck in the Rough LLC has agreed to pay a civil penalty of $100,000 for dumping five tons’ worth of manure -- a “soil enhancer,” it claimed -- on the golf course in April 2014, an action that many neighbors believed was, in the words of the San Diego Union-Tribune, “done out of spite to annoy nearby residents opposed to [the LLC’s] development plans.” According to the head of the county’s air pollution control district, “People could not open their doors and windows because of the strong odors.” The developers’ attorney, Ronald Richards, called the money a “donation” and noted that his clients weren’t admitting to any wrongdoing.

     Regarding those forthcoming Trump International Golf Clubs in Indonesia: It appears that Golfasian was only half right. In June, Golfasian’s Asian Golf Travel Nation reported that Hary Tanoesoedibjo planned to turn over the management of his resorts in Indonesia -- Nirwana Bali Golf Club, on the southwestern coast of Bali, and Lido Golf Club, in West Java -- to the Trump Organization’s management. Golfasian now reports that the Greg Norman-designed golf course at Nirwana Bali is going to be razed, perhaps by the end of this year, to create room for “a Donald Trump-branded luxury resort and residential development.” As far as Lido goes, the Jakarta Post says that Trump Hotels Collection will oversee the property’s “hospitality and golf course component,” the latter consisting of an Ernie Els-designed layout that’s under construction. No word yet on whether the course, which is scheduled to open roughly a year from now, will operate as a Trump International Golf Club.

     Gifts of Gab: Has Donald Trump laid plans to develop some of his golf properties? In an interview with Golf Digest, the Candidate indicated that he views his involvement in golf as a business choice that isn’t necessarily permanent. “I have locations that are good for many other things,” he explained. “So I’m not necessarily stuck in the world of golf. But I choose to be. But I have land that is so valuable, that if I ever wanted to do housing on it, as an example, but I just don’t choose to do that.” Before you conclude that I’m making too much of Trump’s comment, remember that business is said to be “bad” at his club in Briarcliff Manor, New York -- so bad that Trump’s lawyers have argued that the property, once believed to be worth $50 million or more, is now worth only $1.4 million.

     A construction-industry website asks a provocative question: Will Golf Course Communities Soon Be Extinct? The correct answer is no, but Construction Dive wants its readers to decide for themselves. Incidentally, the online magazine “researched” the question by reading an article in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.