The Week That Was, december 20, 2015

     La Dolce Vita! For the first time, the Ryder Cup is coming to Italy. The matches of 2022 will be held in suburban Rome, the Eternal City, at a golf course that’s ideally suited to host golf’s greatest team event except for the fact that it needs to be completely overhauled. The venue: Marco Simone Golf & Country Club, which Golf Digest doesn’t rank among the 10 best in the nation. Nonetheless, Italy was deemed “the country best qualified” to stage the event, according to the decision-makers at the European Tour, because it submitted a “bold and ambitious bid” that includes not just a promise to fund “a complete reconstruction of the golf course” but, perhaps more importantly, a guarantee to increase the purse at the Italian Open, currently €1.5 million ($1.63 million), to €7 million ($7.6 million) by 2017 and to hold it there for 11 years. To further maximize its revenue streams, the tour understands that the work on the golf course, a Jim Fazio layout, will almost certainly be done by one of its affiliated companies, European Golf Design. As an expression of its gratitude, the tour called Italy “a worthy gold medalist.”

     Greg Norman has agreed to create an “incomparable” golf course for a rarely visited resort community that a Mexican development entity aims to transform into “the most exclusive and spectacular tourist destination in Latin America.” Norman’s layout will take shape on Caye Chapel Island in Belize, as part of a formerly bankrupt resort community that was created by the late Larry Addington, a coal magnate from Kentucky. Caye Chapel’s new owners, a group led by Thor Urbana Capital, intend to spiff up the property’s existing attractions -- including overnight accommodations and an air strip -- and add high-priced beachfront houses and other attractions. Though the new owners haven’t admitted it, Norman will be redesigning the community’s existing course, an 18-hole track that Addington laid out before he went broke. When the new Caye Chapel makes its formal debut, Thor Urbana and its partners believe it’ll be “the home and meeting point of international jet setters.”

     ClubCorp has taken on the task of “building relationships and enriching lives” -- a phrase it’s trademarked -- at Bernardo Heights Country Club, its third golf property in the San Diego area. The publicly traded, Dallas, Texas-based company paid an undisclosed price for Bernardo Heights, a 32-year-old property that needs what a press release calls “a multimillion-dollar reinvention” involving both its Ted Robinson-designed golf course and its clubhouse. “A modernized clubhouse, combined with the renovations on the golf course, will make Bernardo Heights a top-tier country club in the San Diego region,” the club’s president said. “We look forward to this new chapter for the club.” According to the press release, Bernardo Heights is ClubCorp’s ninth acquisition of 2015. The company’s other golf properties in metropolitan San Diego are Morgan Run Club & Resort in Rancho Santa Fe and Shadowridge Golf Club in Vista.

     It appears that the expected merger of the European and Asian golf tours can’t proceed without a thorough housecleaning in Singapore. Just days after the sudden, unexpected resignation of its CEO, Mike Kerr, the Asian Tour replaced four of its board members, without offering an explanation. Various sources indicate that the dismissals are a reaction to complaints made by some golfers on the Asian Tour, who apparently fear that the proposed merger is little more than a money grab orchestrated by the European Tour, with Kerr, an Irishman, acting as a possible co-conspirator. “Many top-rate players feel that Asia is the burgeoning market,” writes the New Paper, “and Europe is struggling with sponsorship.” The players believe that the new board members are, in the words of the newspaper, “men of clout and credibility” who won’t “sell the Asian Tour down the drain.”

     Speaking of the European Tour, for the fourth time this year it’s added to its network of “branded” communities in desirable locations. Maxx Royal Belek Golf Resort, on Turkey’s sunny Mediterranean coast, has become the 17th link in the fast-growing chain of European Tour Properties, a group that includes high-priced spreads in Austria, England, France, Germany, Spain, and other nations. The tour’s invitation to Maxx Royal comes as no surprise for two reasons. First, Maxx Royal’s golf course, a Colin Montgomerie “signature” layout, was “ghost” designed by European Golf Design, a firm co-owned by the tour. Second, the course hosts the Turkish Airlines Open, an event on the tour’s international schedule. This year’s other additions to the tour’s real-estate network were Black Mountain Golf Club & Resort in Thailand, Saujana Golf & Country Club in Malaysia, and Mount Juliet Estate in Ireland.