The Week That Was, october 11, 2015

     Believe it or not, everything that Donald “the Candidate” Trump touches doesn’t immediately turn to gold. Two of the financial drains in Trump’s golf portfolio are his properties in Scotland, Trump Turnberry and Trump International Golf Links Scotland, which combined to lose more than £2.2 million (almost $3.4 million) last year. Each one lost roughly £1.1 million, with Turnberry generating revenues of £13.1 million ($20 million) and the resort in Aberdeenshire generating revenues of £2.8 million (almost $4.3 million).

     The speculation has ended: According to a company accounting, the Trump Organization paid £39.5 million ($60.5 million) for what is now its flagship property, the Turnberry resort in Ayrshire, Scotland. The organization bought the property, which now operates as Trump Turnberry, last year, from Dubai-based Leisurecorp.

     The United Kingdom is by far the world’s most active golf market, according to new research commissioned by the European Tour. Sports Marketing Surveys’ “Golf Actives Study,” ostensibly “a complete picture of golf activity and engagement in the U.K.,” has determined that almost 20 percent of the U.K.’s population -- 11 million people overall, 9.3 million of them adults -- are “actively engaged in the game of golf,” though not always by playing traditional 18-hole rounds. Without specifically saying so, the tour’s findings are a response to KPMG’s Golf Advisory Practice, which earlier this year announced that the golf population in Great Britain and Ireland fell by 4.4 percent in 2014, a loss of nearly 52,000 golfers. One important difference between the groups: KPMG focuses on “registered” golfers and on the number of rounds played at traditional nine- and 18-hole venues, while the European Tour has decided that “playing 18 holes shouldn’t be the sole yardstick we use to measure participation.” The tour’s less restrictive yardstick takes a measure of every live body that visits any kind of golf facility, including driving ranges, putting greens, and miniature golf courses. To keep things in perspective, KPMG says that Great Britain and Ireland have, in addition to “registered” golfers, an estimated 2.84 million “casual” golfers and an overall participation rate somewhere in the neighborhood of 2.5 percent.

     Gifts of Gab: Greg “the Living Brand” Norman has good news for the development side of the U.S. golf industry: The hard times are over. “People are building golf courses again,” Norman reports in an interview with Today’s Golfer. “The negative trend we’ve had in the U.S., of courses shutting down, is flat-lining. Next year, more courses will open than close.” For the record, the National Golf Foundation, as part of its continuing effort to complicate and confuse, says that 11 new courses opened in the United States last year, with “a reduction in total inventory” of 128 18-hole “equivalent” courses.

     A team of investment bankers in Lexington, Kentucky is helping to make Norman’s prediction come true. John Loudon and Byron Holley, the principals of Legacy Point Capital, have hired Jack Nicklaus to produce a “signature” layout for their Legacy Point community in suburban Lexington, a spread they promise will be “an exceptional master-planned development.” In a press release, Nicklaus says that the site he’s been given offers “enormous potential to create something unique and special” and that he aims to deliver “an exceptional golf experience.” Nicklaus is familiar with the Legacy Point property, because roughly a decade ago another development group hired him to design a golf course for it. Back then, the developers were calling their community Forest Creek.

     For the world’s golf tour operators, happy days are here once again. In the first six months of this year, golf properties with memberships in the International Association of Golf Tour Operators saw a 7.2 percent increase in visits from traveling golfers. “We can now confidently assert that 2015 will be the fourth year of consecutive growth for global golf tour operators,” said the IAGTO’s chief executive, “which is extremely positive for the industry.” According to the IAGTO, its network of golf tour operators registered sales increases of 9.3 percent in 2012, 11.1 percent in 2013, and 8.9 percent in 2014.