The Week That Was, february 7, 2016

     After months of rumors, speculation, and denials, Minisceongo Golf Club’s days as a golf venue are officially done, as Eric Bergstol has sold his 18-hole course in Pomona, New York to an undisclosed buyer who has other plans for the 60-acre property. Bergstol once said that golf development was, for him, more “a passion” than “a business,” and Minisceongo, which opened in 1994, was the first property in what eventually became an enviable portfolio operated by his Empire Golf Management. After Minisceongo, Bergstol went on to create two properties that he ended up selling to Donald Trump -- Pine Hill Golf Club in Pine Hill, New Jersey (now Trump National Golf Club Philadelphia) and Branton Woods Golf Club in Hopewell Junction, New York (Trump National Golf Club Hudson Valley) -- as well as other venues in New York (Hollow Brook Golf Club in Cortlandt Manor), New Jersey (Bayonne Golf Club in Bayonne), and Florida (Links at Madison Green in Royal Palm Beach). Today, however, Empire Golf’s website lists just three properties, all of them in New Jersey: Pine Barrens Golf Club in Jackson, New Jersey National Golf Club in Basking Ridge, and Twisted Dune Golf Club outside Atlantic City. The Journal News reports that Minisceongo has been “suffering amid an economic downturn and shifting demographics” since 2008. The mayor of Pomona told the newspaper that it’ll be “a shame to lose that open space.”

     Now that Sun Group is about to open Bà Nà Hills Golf Club, I’m wondering if the company has ever questioned its investment in Luke Donald, the layout’s “signature” architect. In 2011, when he signed on to create what his co-designer, Brit Stenson of IMG Golf, said would be “one of the best courses in Vietnam,” Donald was among the brightest stars in professional golf. He was the world’s top-ranked player, the PGA Player of the Year, and the European Tour Golfer of the Year. He was young, artistic, and marketable, and he was itching to get his inaugural golf design off the drawing boards. But Donald quickly flamed out. By 2013, he was becoming an afterthought on the world tours, and today he’s ranked somewhere in the 80s. Nonetheless, Sun Group must still be hoping that his name can effectively help to promote its resort community on the outskirts of Đà Nẵng. Bà Nà Hills’ 7,858-yards track will be lighted, and Donald believes that it’ll both “solidify Đà Nẵng’s reputation as one of the best new golf destinations in Asia” and serve as “the ideal complement to the existing courses in the area.” It won’t be until sometime after April, when all 18 holes at Bà Nà Hills are scheduled to open, that Sun Group will be able to measure the amount of sizzle left in Donald’s “signature.”

     The official banking partner of the Open Championship has run afoul of the law yet again. HSBC, one of the golf industry’s most magnanimous financial supporters, has agreed to pay what is for it a small fine -- $470 million -- for participating in what’s been described as “abusive mortgage practices” during the U.S. housing crisis in 2007, 2008, and 2009. It’s at least the second time that the shady British banking giant has been fined in connection with the collapse of the U.S. housing industry, for in the fall of 2014 it paid $550 million to settle a claim that it had misrepresented the quality of some mortgage bonds that it had sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. These fines don’t seem to bother HSBC, which gets in trouble with financial-industry regulators so often that it’s hard to keep up. In 2012, in a case that really should have captured the attention of golf’s power elites, it admitted to laundering money for Mexican drug cartels, terrorist organizations, and rogue governments, including Iran. In 2014, it admitted to conspiring to rig foreign currency markets, and last year its Swiss subsidiary admitted that it schemed to help some of its customers hide assets from tax authorities and evade paying taxes. HSBC rarely, if ever, admits guilt when it’s accused of engaging in dishonest business practices, but in recent years it appears to have swept plenty of dirt under its rugs. Its continued impropriety begs a question: Has it swept any dirt under the golf industry’s rugs?

     The fifth edition of the India Golf Expo, the nation’s largest golf-related trade show, is scheduled to take place on April 20-21, at DLF Club 5 in Gurgaon. The event, staged by the Indian Golf Industry Association, will offer the usual networking opportunities as well as a seminar titled “Shaping the Future of Golf in India.” The roster of speakers is expected to include Rishi Narain, a well-connected marketing consultant, and representatives from the China Golf Association and DLF, Ltd., India’s largest development group.