The Week That Was, july 30, 2017

     This year’s Open Championship set a laudable attendance mark, but the achievement may not be everything the R&A is touting it to be. For the record, the 146th edition of the magisterial event, held at Royal Birkdale just weeks ago, attracted 235,000 men, women, and children – a number greater than any venue aside from St. Andrews has ever recorded. The thing is, the R&A’s figures indicate that 15,000 of the 2017 attendees were juniors who got free passes as part of a grow-the-game initiative. So where does that leave us? The outcome is still worth bragging about – even if we eliminate the freeloaders, the Open lured 220,000 people, which would tie it for fourth on the all-time list – but the R&A should only be distributing attendance from paying customers. Be that as it may, the leader on the big board is the 2000 Open at St. Andrews, which counted 239,000 attendees. Next in line is the 2015 Open at St. Andrews (237,000), followed by Royal Birkdale this month.

     John McConnell, who’s always on the prowl for attractive golf properties in the Carolinas, may soon add another to his collection. The founder of McConnell Golf, who advertises his properties as “pure golf for the true golfer,” is the leading candidate to bag Southern Pines Golf Club, which is being sold by the Elks Club in Southern Pines, North Carolina. The club features an 18-hole, Donald Ross-designed course that’s said to rank “near the top of best courses to play in North Carolina.” A deal hasn’t officially been struck, but McConnell has advantages over the other suitors for the property. He has deeper pockets and a profound appreciation for Ross courses, and he needs a property in the Pinehurst area to give his membership sales some zing. His company owns 11 private clubs, and at least four of them feature Ross courses. The Elks are eager to find a buyer quickly, because they need a new lodge.

     The Republican Governors Association, the Republican Party of Virginia, and various GOP campaigns and committees are generously lining the U.S. president’s pockets, but the public at large isn’t giving a vote of confidence to Trump National Golf Club Los Angeles. Since June 2015, when Donald Trump made his grand entrance into the presidential campaign, the daily-fee course in Rancho Palos Verdes, California has been feeling a financial pinch. “It’s under-performed the market since 2015,” the executive director of the Southern Californian Golf Association told the Washington Post. “Just at the time when the rest of the industry was starting to see some upticks . . . it seems to have gone into a decline.” The numbers tell the story: Revenues from greens fees and cart rentals at the $300-a-round golf course (which, according to an appraiser, is “way overpriced”) have fallen by 12 percent, A dozen golf tournaments and golf-related charity events that once made regular appearances at the club have departed, the newspaper says, taking with them an estimated $250,000 in spending. The club, which once banked income from an average of 17 weddings a year, hasn’t hosted even one since November 2016. The number of movies, television shows, and commercials filmed on the property has fallen by nearly two-thirds. Given this accounting, it’s legitimate to wonder if Trump Golf might eventually put the property on the market.

     Golf’s institutional leaders may act as if they control our business, but the leverage is really in hands of their business partners. Women are, for example, members of the Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews and other former all-men’s clubs in Great Britain because HSBC all but demanded it as a condition of its continuing sponsorship. And now Trump Golf is feeling a corporate snub, from the company that sponsors the Scottish Open. Citing “clear issues” related to “politics,” Aberdeen Asset Management currently has no desire to host the Open at Trump International Golf Links Scotland. “Politics aside, Trump would be an ideal venue,” the company’s CEO told the Scotsman, “but you can’t put politics aside.” AAM’s sentiment is shared by the R&A, which months ago turned its back on Trump Turnberry as a site for the Open Championship. So it’s time to ask: How long before the sponsors of top-flight professional events in the United States stop putting politics aside and give Trump-owned venues the cold shoulder?

     Darius Oliver, the co-designer of Cape Wickham Links, has a second solo architectural commission: The publisher of Planet Golf is creating a nine-hole, par-3 track for the Hills, New Zealand’s most exclusive private club. The course, to be called the Farm, won’t have any tees, so golfers will be free to start from wherever they please, and it won’t have any bunkers, so it’ll be easier to play and maintain. “It’s the perfect venue to introduce children to our great game and an even better place to retreat before or after a beating on the tournament course,” Oliver said in a press release. He also noted, “I will have failed if members don’t play the course regularly.” As construction proceeds on the Farm, Oliver can hardly wait to get started on an 18-hole layout that’s expected to be built on Australia’s Kangaroo Island. It’s expected to be “one of the world’s most spectacular destination golf courses.” 

     Pipeline Overflow – The members of the National Golf Club, one of Australia’s most famous golf venues, have approved Tom Doak’s proposed $4.8 million overhaul of their Ocean course. Darius Oliver of Planet Golf describes the track, a product of Peter Thomson’s company, as “the lowliest ranked and least popular” of the club’s three courses. He thinks the club “is almost certain to see an under-performing golf course made more generous and enjoyable for the masses.” . . . A golf course will be among the attractions at an entertainment destination that’s expected to take shape in the Mekong Delta region of southern Vietnam. The Phú Cường Kiên Giang Ocean Urban Complex will occupy 420 coastal acres outside Rạch Giá, the capital of Kiên Giang Province, and it’s been master-planned to include a marina, a water park, a sports center, swimming pools, an international school, a shopping area, a hospital, a helicopter pad, and other attractions. Phú Cường Kiên Giang Investment JSC, which is primarily a seafood processor, began construction earlier this year and expects to debut phase one in 2020. . . . An unidentified local development groups want to build a golf course in a “satellite city” that’s taking shape outside Bulawayo, the second-largest city in Zimbabwe. According to Jonathan Thompson of Thompson Properties, who’s overseeing the construction, the unnamed city will also feature 20,000 houses (“plush and affluent houses,” no less), office space, an industrial park, shopping areas, schools, health-care facilities, recreational facilities, and other attractions.

     A trio of investors in Lake Havasu City, Arizona has paid $3 million for the Courses at the London Bridge, a 36-hole complex that dates from the mid 1960s. Dan Esse, Jeff Gilbert, and Craig Adams plan to spend millions more to redesign and refresh the courses, which, they believe, have been “driven down by corporations” who’ve owned the property in recent decades. The partners bought London Bridge from Arcis Golf, which has been lightening its portfolio of late. They aim to make the complex, to be renamed as Lake Havasu Golf Club, a place that local residents will be “proud to bring their families and friends to.”

     For sale: America’s most-liked least-played golf course. Wolf Point Ranch, which features an 18-hole, Mike Nuzzo-designed layout that makes critics swoon – “one of the greatest courses I have ever seen,” one of them has gushed – is being offered for $7.7 million. The track is outside Port Lavaca, Texas, and it’s hardly been played, as it was built for the personal use of the wealthy Texans who own the ranch. Nuzzo’s course is the centerpiece of a 475-acre spread that includes a 7,200-square-foot mansion, a 2,000-square-foot clubhouse, and undeveloped that could, in the words of a real estate agent, “potentially be developed.” Wouldn’t that be exciting!