The Week That Was, september 6, 2015

     A U.S. firm wants to teach India’s golf developers how to do things the American way. Alpharetta, Georgia-based Mosaic Clubs & Resorts has teamed up with an Indian firm to provide management services and development expertise in the world’s largest republic, with an eye toward establishing a foothold in a golf market with a lot of upside. “India is still a nascent market and has a growing middle class,” Mosaic’s chairman, Whitney Crouse, told the Economic Times. “As the Indian middle class grows, developers will discover the American golf course formula. The formula in the U.S. is that developers build golf courses to sell homes faster and add a premium to the project.” Just guessing, but my sense is that Mosaic’s presentations won’t focus on what’s happened to the American golf course formula since the onset of the Great Recession.

     On the financial disclosure form he was required to submit when he became a candidate for our nation’s highest office, Donald Trump stated that Trump National Golf Club Westchester, in Briarcliff Manor, New York, is worth at least $50 million. But Trump’s lawyers have petitioned for tax relief on the property, claiming that it’s really worth only $1.4 million. The reason, according to CBS New York, is that “business is bad.” That may be, but Trump’s 140 acres in one of our nation’s wealthiest counties include an 18-hole golf course and a 75,000-square-foot clubhouse with a handful of overnight accommodations, and Trump has also secured permission to build 71 condos along hole #9. Trump is right when he says that hedge-fund managers get away with murder on their taxes, but they aren’t the only ones.

     Regarding the Asia Golf Congress, a symposium that was created to “unleash the growth potential that resides within the Chinese and Asian golf industries”: It’s been canceled. The inaugural congress was supposed to be held this fall in China, where golf development has effectively become an enemy of the state. In fact, the show’s organizers blame the cancelation on the Chinese government’s failure to set regulations that might lend some certainty to the construction side of the business. The Asia Golf Congress isn’t dead, however. The organizers are looking to re-launch in a place “where the golf course activity is currently robust,” namely Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, or Thailand.

     Unless the people at Reed Guanghe want to get more egg on their faces, they might want to avoid re-scheduling their first Asia Golf Congress in Malaysia. As a result of falling oil prices, according to a report in the September edition of Asian Golf Travel Nation, Malaysia has cut its tourism-promotion budget by 25 percent. “When the promotional and advertising budget is cut,” writes Mark Siegel of Golfasian, “then fewer golfers will even know about golf in Malaysia.” The budget cuts in Malaysia and the Asia Golf Congress’ aborted lift-off in China illustrate an important truth about wanna-be golf nations: They come and they go.

     Though it may be hard for some folks to believe, several weeks ago a remote island nation in Oceania officially opened its fourth golf course. Exclusiv Golf Deva, a “world-class” layout, is the featured attraction of the Sheraton New Caledonia Deva Resort & Spa in Bourail, New Caledonia, a small French territory located roughly 750 miles east of Australia. New Caledonia’s Southern Province, which funded the course’s construction, expects to get its payback in the form of increased tourism to Grande Terre, the nation’s main island. The 18-hole track was designed by Denver, Colorado-based Cynthia Dye (she used to call herself Cynthia Dye-McGarey), a member of one of golf architecture’s first families. She’s called the site “a piece of land that one only dreams of coming across for a golf project,” with terrain that “places value on the shot placement.” New Caledonia’s other courses are located outside Noumea, the nation’s capital and largest city (Tina International Golf Course and Dumbea International Golf Course) and in Boulaparis (Ouenghi Golf Course).

     Some information in the preceding post first appeared in the April 2010 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.

     Gifts of Gab: Need another example of why golf has so much trouble connecting with women? At a recent Golfweek-sponsored get-together for CEOs in the equipment industry, Bob Philion of Cobra-Puma Golf said, “It is our responsibility to make [golf] more fun and inclusive. We can do this through our products, our players, market messages, partnerships, junior golf, how we speak to our female contingent.” Without putting too fine a point on it, any corporate executive who uses the phrase “female contingent” has no clue about how to communicate with women.