A Lincoln, Nebraska-based group with a taste for destination-worthy golf properties has acquired Ballyhack Golf Club, Lester George’s pièce de résistance in Roanoke, Virginia. Kula Golf hasn’t announced what it paid for the 18-hole golf course and its accompanying real estate, but in a press release it promises “to enhance and improve the already great golf experience” that Lester produced. “After visiting Ballyhack late last year, we knew it was a special place,” said Zach Peed, one of the new owners. Since it opened, in 2009, Ballyhack has been a critical success but a financial under-performer. It had pegged its finances to membership sales -- 60 local members, 200 national members -- but its projections didn’t materialize. A spokesperson for the property’s management company told the Roanoke Times that the club has “pretty much capped out” in terms of local members and is “looking to find more regional or national members.” The Peeds, who are primarily cattle ranchers, are building a nice golf portfolio. They also own Sutton Bay Golf Club in Agar, South Dakota and ArborLinks Golf Club in Nebraska City, Nebraska.
By now everyone has no doubt heard that Trump National Doral has lost the World Golf Championship, ostensibly because Cadillac no longer wishes to sponsor the event and the PGA Tour couldn’t find another U.S. company willing to put up $9.5 million in prize money. Donald “the Candidate” Trump contends that the relocation of the WGC “only further embodies the very reason I am running for President of the United States,” but don’t be distracted by his distractions: For Trump, the loss of the WGC is not merely a disappointment, like a business deal that went south, or even an embarrassment, like his campaign strategy. The tour’s decision is a humiliation, because, in what amounts to an irony of ironies, for the next seven years an event that was Doral’s for more than 50 years will be played in Mexico, presumably before a gallery full of Trump’s infamous criminals, drug-dealers, and rapists. “I hope they have kidnapping insurance,” Trump joked after Tim Finchem delivered the bad news, though he knows this is no laughing matter. Today, a question lingers for all of us in the golf industry: How does Trump recover?
Let’s review where things currently stand:
-- Trump called the PGA Tour’s decision “a sad day for Miami, the United States, and the game of golf,” carelessly neglecting to acknowledge that it was a much sadder day for him. Trump knows the value of branding like few other people, and Doral has lost a high-prestige event that contributes to the luster of the Trump Organzation. It’s a loss that will be felt for years.
-- Though losing the WGC made for “a sad day,” Trump insists that, in the long run, Doral will benefit. “I would make much more money at Doral if I didn’t have a tournament,” he said earlier this year. “[March] is the prime month in Florida -- you can’t get a room -- and I have the best rooms in Miami.” In other words, we’ve just witnessed an example of the negotiating skills that will, in a Trump presidency, bring China to its knees.
-- In a prepared statement, Trump likened the PGA Tour to “Nabisco, Carrier, and so many other American companies” that “put profit ahead of thousands of American jobs.” It’s worth remembering that the Donald J. Trump Collection of clothing is manufactured in nations such as China, Bangladesh, and Honduras.
-- Trump may have been blindsided by the PGA Tour’s decision, but it should have been obvious that the two parties had about the same chance of remaining in a happy, productive relationship as Taylor Swift and Calvin Harris. Months ago, when Trump originally began making derisive remarks about Mexicans, Muslims, women, and the handicapped, the tour called his comments “inconsistent with our strong commitment to an inclusive and welcoming environment in the game of golf” and vowed to “explore all options regarding the [WGC’s] future” after this year’s competition. A day of reckoning was clearly on the horizon.
-- Before it found its Mexican partner, the PGA Tour considered moving the WGC across the Rickenbacker Causeway, to the municipally-owned Crandon Golf Course in Key Biscayne. “By moving the venue, they thought it would be easier to get sponsors and raise more money,” the mayor of Miami-Dade told the Miami Herald. Here’s the irony: Last year, Crandon almost became a Trump-operated property, like the municipal course at Ferry Point Park in the Bronx. Trump made an attempt to lease Crandon and make it, in the words of the Miami Herald, “a world-class venue.” He was denied.
-- The Trump Organization doesn’t believe that Cadillac couldn’t be persuaded to extend its sponsorship of the WGC. “We have an unbelievable relationship with Cadillac,” Eric Trump told the Miami Herald. “We have an outside relationship with them. They provide vehicles to our hotels. Cadillac is ready, willing, and able to continue as a title sponsor for the tour.” Cadillac hasn’t as yet weighed in.
-- Next year’s World Golf Championships-Mexico Championship will reportedly be played at Club de Golf Chapultapec, in suburban Mexico City. According to Top 100 Golf Courses, Chapultapec’s 18-hole course was designed by Willie Smith, a Scotsman, and opened in 1921. In the early 1970s, the track was redesigned by Percy Clifford. The club has hosted the Mexican Open on more than a dozen occasions, most recently in 2014.
-- The PGA Tour’s Mexican partner is Grupo Salinas, a conglomerate with interests in the banking, retailing, telecommunications, and television industries. The company is controlled by Ricardo Salinas Pliego, a billionaire (Forbes estimates that he and his family are worth $3.9 billion) who, like Trump, has made controversial statements about women. Grupo Salinas’ contract runs for seven years, through 2023.
-- If he becomes president, Trump has said, America will win so often that Americans will get sick of winning. But in recent months, Trump Golf has been losing and losing big. The PGA of America took the Grand Slam of Golf from Trump’s course in Los Angeles. The Scottish Open, which had been virtually signed, sealed, and delivered to Trump’s resort in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, has at least for the time being found another home. And according to the Independent on Sunday, the R&A “has privately decided that [Trump’s] reputation is now so toxic” that Trump Turnberry can no longer host the Open Championship. These are significant blows against the empire. On the bright side, of course, Trump-owned properties are still scheduled to host the 2017 U.S. Women’s Open, the 2017 Senior PGA Championship, and the 2022 PGA Championship. A word of caution, however: Last year Mike Davis of the U.S. Golf Association, the group that organizes the U.S. Women’s Open, acknowledged that he and his colleagues “are evaluating things.” One by one, the dominoes are falling.
-- In a press release, Tim Finchem thanked Trump for renovating Doral’s Blue Monster course and for being “a most gracious host” to the WGC. He said that the PGA Tour will return to Doral “when the time is right.” Read into that statement what you will.
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