The Pipeline, september 16, 2016

     Baja California Sur, Mexico. Robert Trent Jones, Jr.’s golf design firm has been hired to create “a fun, playable course” for a forthcoming waterfront community in Los Cabos, Mexico. The track will be among the attractions at Costa Palmas, a 1,000-acre spread outside the town of Los Barriles, and it’ll be accompanied by single-family houses and vacation villas, a 145-room Four Seasons hotel, a marina with slips for up to 200 yachts, a yacht club, a swimmable private beach, a waterside shopping village, and 18 acres’ worth of farms and orchards. Jones’ layout is said to be a “core” course that won’t be impacted by the surrounding development. Bruce Charlton, the architect who’ll oversee the construction, has called the site “a beautiful dunescape” that his firm will accentuate with “golf holes that will offer dramatic ocean and estuary views.” Jones already has one course in the area, at Cabo Real Golf Club in San Jose del Cabo, as well as two others in Mexico: Estrella del Mar Golf Course in Mazatlan and Riviera Maya Golf Club in Quintana Roo. His 18-hole track at Costa Palmas is expected to open in 2018.

     Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands. Ironwood, a forthcoming upscale community on the East End of Grand Cayman Island, has secured a construction permit for its Arnold Palmer-designed golf complex. The ground-breaking is expected to take place this fall, with an opening tentatively scheduled for early 2018. “We are on the road to making the Ironwood dream a reality,” the community’s developer, David Moffitt, told the Caribbean Journal. The permit allows Moffitt and his partners to build an 18-hole course capable of hosting professional tournaments and a nine-hole “family” course, along with the lakes that will give the tracks visual interest and help to drain Ironwood’s 600-acre property. Moffitt expects Thad Layton and Brandon Johnson, the associates at Palmer’s Orlando, Florida-based firm, to deliver one of the Caribbean’s top-rated courses.

     The original version of the preceding post first appeared in the July 2016 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report.  

    West Point, Mississippi. Now that the much-awaited Mossy Oak Golf Club -- “a full-sensory golf experience,” its owners promise -- has opened, what other courses are in Gil Hanse’s design pipeline? According to Links, the Pennsylvania-based architect figures to open one more course late this year -- a track that Trump Golf will operate in Dubai -- and another in the fall of next year, the Black Course at Streamsong in Fort Meade, Florida. In addition, any day now Hanse expects to break ground on a course in Cobbtown, Georgia, on what he’s described as “one of the nicer pieces of property we’ve ever seen.” And, last but certainly not least, and though he may be wishing on a star, Hanse continues to hold out hope that next year Mike Keiser will actually, finally get started on the long-overdue fifth course at Bandon Dunes. I’m not holding my breath. Hanse told the magazine that the course in Oregon can be “something special,” but these days Keiser may be hedging his bets with ventures in Wisconsin, in Scotland, and on Chicago’s waterfront.

     County Wicklow, Ireland. An ancient golf club in south-suburban Dublin, a property that prides itself on its history and location, is considering an offer to relocate. Greystones Golf Club, which was established in 1895 and considers itself to be “one of Ireland’s most prestigious private members clubs,” may sell its home in Greystones and establish a new residence just a couple of miles away, in the town of Delgany. The move would be funded by a local development group that wants to buy the club’s increasingly valuable, 127-acre property. Greystones has more than 1,000 members and, given the praise they heap upon their property, it’s hard to imagine that any of them would ever want to leave. The club believes it has “an idyllic location” and that its 18-hole, “Harry Colt-inspired golf course” is not only “one of the finest inland courses in Ireland” but “a masterpiece in tactical design” featuring “almost mystical” greens that are “reputed to be the best and fastest in the country.” A move isn’t imminent. Ross Robertson, Greystones’ secretary manager, told the Irish Times that the club is in the “very, very, very early stage” of weighing the pros and cons of the proposal. Still, money talks, and it’s possible that the developers have made an offer that will be hard to refuse.

      The original version of the preceding post first appeared in the July 2015 issue of the World Edition of the Golf Course Report. 

     Umm Al Quwain, United Arab Emirates. The first golf course in the Middle East’s least-known emirate will be part of a community that aims to set what the Khaleej Times calls “new heights in destination living.” The community is called Firdous Sobha, and it’ll take shape on uninhabited Al Sinniyah Island in Umm Al Quwain. Preliminary plans for the 1,215-acre waterfront community include a to-be-determined number of villas and apartments, four or five resort-style hotels, a marina, boutique stores, entertainment venues, a wellness center, a collection of man-made canals and lagoons, and a variety of recreational amenities including a golf complex consisting of an 18-hole course, a nine-hole, par-3 course, and a practice center. Sheikh Rashid bin Saud bin Rashid Al Mualla, the emirate’s crown prince, believes the community will transform Umm Al Quwain into “an active tourism and commercial destination.” Goodness knows, the emirate could stand to raise its public profile. Measured by population, Umm Al Quwain is the smallest of the seven United Arab Emirates (2010 population: 65,000), and unlike Dubai, its glitzy neighbor, it reportedly doesn’t have even one mega-mall or large international resort. Lonely Planet says it has a “retro feel” and offers “a taste of the UAE as it was in the pre-oil days.”

     South Yorkshire, England. If their plans are approved, a group of hoteliers in South Yorkshire expect to open England’s second European Tour-branded community by late 2019 or early 2020. The to-be-named spread will take shape on 500 acres at Rossington Hall, an ancient hotel in Doncaster, and its featured attraction will be a tournament-worthy golf course that will bear the “signature” of Neil Coles, a former star on the European Tour. The course will be flanked by 500 single-family houses and a practice center with a nine-hole course. The hoteliers, a consortium led by Gary and Michelle Gee, are being advised by Troon Golf, which will manage the facility, and by European Tour Properties, the tour’s real-estate subsidiary. Rossington Hall is expected to become one of the tour’s “destination” communities, a collection of high-prestige spreads in Dubai (Jumeirah Golf Estates), France (Le Golf National), Germany (Golf & Country Club Fleesensee), Spain (PGA Catalunya Resort), and other nations. Today, the chain’s sole property in England is London Golf Club in Kent. Coles thinks that the property at Rossington Hall has “tremendous potential as a European Tour tournament golf course.” Almost certainly, he’ll co-design the track with an in-house architect from European Golf Design, a firm that’s co-owned by the European Tour.

     The World Edition of the Golf Course Report profiled the proposed Rossington Hall venture in March 2016 and May 2015.

     New South Wales, Australia. Tom Doak’s Renaissance Golf Design has been hired to inject some fresh life into a historic tournament venue in suburban Sydney. The commission comes from Concord Golf Club, which is looking to regain the prominence that has in years past enabled it to host three Australian PGA Championships, an Australian Women’s Open, and nearly a dozen state open championships. Concord hasn’t hosted a significant professional event for more than a decade, however, and it believes that improvements orchestrated by Doak, one of the world’s most prominent “naturalists,” will give it “a key point difference in the Sydney golf club marketplace.” The renovation, to be overseen by Renaissance’s Brian Slawnik, is scheduled to begin in the fall of 2017 and conclude in the spring of 2018. The scope of the upgrades is still to be determined, but a press release indicates that Doak will personally re-work the layout’s greens.